Haines school teacher Jason Eson walks students through a lesson on quadratics and projectiles in a recent YouTube video. (Image courtesy of Jason Eson)

Haines students have returned to their studies this week after an extended spring break, but they won’t be back on campus for at least another month. Alaska public schools are closed as a health precaution during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Teachers and administrators spent last week preparing plans for distance learning. They sent students home with all the contents of their lockers and materials for studying at home: textbooks, band instruments, and of course laptops. 

Haines School Superintendent Roy Getchell says it wasn’t easy.

“It was a huge heavy lift, but I can tell you that today students have devices, teachers are teaching students are online and about 98 percent of our students have internet access today whereas this time last week it was about 90,” Getchell says.

Middle school and high school students will use Google Classroom to keep up on assignments. They will also stay in touch over email and are able to get face time with teachers through the video conference application Zoom. 

Jason Eson is the secondary special ed teacher at the Haines School. He has been using his YouTube channel to teach lessons about algebra. In one video he explains a formula for the height of a projectile over time, using special effects to launch a chicken 156 feet into the air. 

Eson says teaching remotely is still a matter of trial and error at this point. 

“I’m enjoying making these videos, and I’m enjoying trying to keep math or algebra entertaining,” Eson says. “Right now I have no idea if what I’ve prepared for the week is going to work or not. I have my fingers crossed that it will work, but I’m sure there are things that won’t work and next week I can use that feedback to drive my instruction moving forward.”

He says the biggest challenge is figuring out how to still be accessible to students when they need assistance. 

“Being in a venue where students come to learn and students are accessible throughout the day and if there’s an issue or someone’s falling behind I can go find that person have a face to face conversation with them, come up with a solution and then kind of implement that and work through that with this student. In this setting that will be far more challenging.”

Eson says the best thing that parents can do right now is to help create a learning environment at home. 

“All of the teachers are working really hard to get the curriculum up in place and to make it so that students can continue learning and finish out the year strong. Where we need help is just with the community setting aside that time within the day for the students here. And for parents to make sure that they’re stressing the importance of still going to school even though they don’t actually have to come into the building.”

The school year ends on May 20. It’s unclear whether students will be back in the building before then.

When asked if these remote classes will affect graduation requirements or the way students are graded, Getchell says the district is still working out those details.

“There are some bigger conversations that we’re going to need to have in the next weeks and over the month as we go forward. But right now our goal is just to get class up and running. We’ll make some of those bigger decisions soon.”

The next meeting of the Haines Borough School Board is scheduled for April 7th.