Puget Sound charter school let students meet teachers before virtual learning

Schools around the state are trying to figure out ways to safely reopen for in-person learning in some form this fall or later in the school year. Impact Public Schools, which runs public charter schools throughout the Puget Sound area, is emphasizing student-teacher relationships even before the first day of class.

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“Relationships are critically important to us,” Impact Public Schools CEO Jen Wickens told Seattle’s Morning News. “We want to make sure that every single family at Impact is known, and every single student is known. So we actually brought families in for a socially distant, in-person orientation. Every family received a one-to-one meeting with their teachers. They also had an opportunity to pick up their Chromebooks and learning materials, and reading books for the first six weeks of instruction.”

Each family signed up for a time, came to the school, and met their teacher in the parking lot for about a half hour meeting.

“They’re setting goals for the year together with the students and the families, they’re talking about their hopes and dreams for the school year, they’re building relationships before they go on to computer screens for what could be a full year,” Wickens said. “We just thought that it was so critical for the relationship to be established before we go virtual.”

Wickens assured that parents and teachers were comfortable with the set-up and all safety precautions were taken. Everyone was able to keep six feet of distance, wore masks, and there was hand sanitizer available. Staff members also took temperatures as the families arrived, and meeting times were staggered so the parking lot was never congested.

“We’re a very tight knit community at Impact Public Schools, and it was important to all of us to be together safely,” Wickens added.

This initial orientation won’t be the only meeting of families and teachers this year, as they plan to have frequent check-ins.

“Every six to eight weeks, we’ll have a check-in point like we did today, where families and students will come in one-to-one just again, safely, to pick up materials, new curriculum materials, and to check in with their teacher on their academic progress,” Wickens said. “We’re collecting data on how our students are advancing in the distance learning model and want to be able to have that in-person checkpoint with the families to share how it’s going and to step in where we may need to provide additional support.”

Wickens said Impact Public Schools have over 70% of students on free and reduced lunch, and about 80% students of color.

“Our community is incredibly, beautifully diverse. It’s one of our biggest strengths,” she said.

Thankfully, they’ve been able to ensure that all families have access to internet and laptops.

“When we went virtual in the spring, we were able to adjust quite quickly,” Wicken said. “Charters are quite nimble by design, and it’s in our DNA to respond rapidly. And what we found was there are many families who don’t have internet. We were able to do some quick fundraising and support those families by helping to assist to get hot spots into homes where they were needed.”

For the new families at Impact this year in similar positions, they’re working together now to make sure they’re fully prepared for remote learning before school starts this week.

While in-person learning is preferred, Wickens is sure that Impact students will still receive a high-quality education remotely.

“Of course, we’d prefer to have our students in person, we miss them dearly, but we are feeling very confident that they will continue to receive a high quality education,” she said. “We are offering all of the core components, including social, emotional learning every single day, project based learning that’s really rich and meaningful, and small group reading and math instruction. And just from the limited data we gathered in the spring, we did see great increases in students’ academic progress.”

Impact Public Schools teaches kindergarten through third grade, but will eventually serve K-5.

“Our students are quick to be responsive and nimble themselves,” she said. “… It took teachers teaching them how to use the computer and to stay focused online, but they certainly are capable, they showed us that this spring, and we know they can do it.”

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Impact Public Schools brought teachers in for three weeks of professional developing, focusing on how to build a classroom culture online that sets high expectations for students, provides support, and is joyful. They’re also planning a partnership to share what they’re doing and what they’ve learned with public schools in the area.

“It’s in our core, many of us have worked in the district systems here locally,” Wickens said. “And we believe that we’re all one team and that it’s going to take all of us to figure this out together.”

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