As the Haines School year came to a close last week, administrators and staff celebrated the district that was one of few that started on time and remained open for in-person classes throughout the year during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) provided guidance to school districts, what it called the “Alaska Smart Start Plan,” but ultimately left it to each school district to approve how it would organize the school year.
DEED doesn’t keep track of how many schools remained open or started on time, but director of DEED’s Division of Innovation and Education Excellence Tammy Van Wyhe said the fact that Haines was able to do so was noteworthy.
“While the geographic isolation of many of Alaska’s communities often increases logistical challenges, that isolation, in tandem with carefully planned and well-executed mitigation efforts helped keep COVID-19 from dramatically impacting teaching and learning in Haines,” Van Wyhe said. “The efforts of superintendent (Roy) Getchell, principal (Lilly) Boron, and the staff at Haines Borough School District resulted in one of Alaska’s success stories during the pandemic.”
Regionally, schools including Skagway, Craig, Juneau, Angoon, Sitka, Yakutat, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan and Metlakatla all closed due to outbreaks.
Haines School administrators, in partnership with local health experts, developed a swath of mitigation measures at the beginning of the year and met on a weekly basis to keep up to date on a situation that changed rapidly. The school purchased medical grade air filters, kept students organized into pods, limited access to the building and, a controversial decision for some, required face coverings.
The Haines Borough experienced sporadic cases throughout the year, but never an outbreak that put the borough at a high-risk level like other Southeast towns.
“Aside from a couple scares with regional flareups and travel, for the most part I was able to settle in and teach and work with the students, which was a nice feeling,” said English teacher Alex Van Wyhe. “I don’t know that I can say anything in an informed way as to why we were able to do it. Part of it was probably because (Haines) case numbers stayed so low. We were lucky.”
In coming up with mitigation measures, Getchell said he got a wide range of feedback. Some thought the mitigation measures, especially masking, were too much. Others thought the school wasn’t doing enough to protect students. At the end of the day, he said, enough people had built consensus around protecting in-person learning and student safety.
“Honestly, it was just community buy-in and staff follow-through,” Getchell said. “It’s an example of what can happen when people come together and work for a common cause. Not that it was perfect, or that everybody thought it was fabulous, but they still came together and worked together and here we are.”
Many people didn’t think school would remain open for long. Principal Lilly Boron said she hoped they could last in-person through the first quarter.
“We considered ourselves lucky if we could get through to October,” Boron said of herself and other planners at the time. “It’s not to say we didn’t have these little blips or close calls but I think we should be thankful that our community was behind us.”
Alex Van Wyhe said he was equally skeptical they would remain in-person and braced for distance learning similar to the spring of 2020 when students attended school via laptops and iPads.
“Once we had all of the kids back in the building and things were working and our case numbers stayed so low, locally, we were able to get into a groove and do school,” he said. “We had buy-in from students in terms of mitigations. As we went along people could see the benefit of being in-person.”
Student athletes were also able to travel for activities such as basketball, cross country, wrestling and track and field. They were tested before and after traveling, and managed to stay clear of the COVID-19 virus despite its spread in the communities they were in at the time.
“I will tell you, I held my breath. I held my breath every time we had a new activity, when our students traveled, when we had the track meet here and even when we had prom,” Boron said. “Our kids appreciate what we’ve been trying to do. I saw them at regionals being careful, being responsible. It shows they appreciated what we’ve been trying to accomplish.”