Georgia Tingen, a teacher at La Grange Elementary School and parent of a sixth-grader at E.B. Frink Middle School, picks up an iPad for her son, Teague, at Frink on Wednesday from science teacher Erika Desiderio-Segovia. Drive-through distribution of iPads and class schedules at public school campuses across Lenoir County this week set the stage for the opening of the school year on Monday. Submitted photo.

Inside cars queued on public school campuses across Lenoir County this week, parents and students waited patiently while teachers worked like carhops during a lunch-hour rush, serving up iPads, collecting forms and answering questions through face coverings that, like everything else in these scenes, said health and safety considerations will shape the school year that begins Monday.

Lenoir County Public Schools is reopening, like the majority of public school districts in the state, with an extended period of remote learning, where LCPS teachers will connect to students through the Zoom communication app, through live and recorded instruction and, to monitor their progress, through an array of apps, school email and regular telephone calls.

After nine weeks – the initial period of remote learning set by the Lenoir County Board of Education – public health metrics tied to the spread of the coronavirus in the county will determine how many, if any, students will return to their school buildings. Even if the Covid-19 transmission rate abates enough to allow in-person instruction, students are likely to return to school on a staggered schedule, pairing time in the classroom with time learning from home.

“We all want to see students return to school as soon as safely possible, but until that day arrives, we will meet them where they are, and if that means having them log onto Zoom from their living rooms, that is what we will do,” Michael Moon, principal of EB Frink Middle School, said.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, as vehicles snaked along Frink’s circular drive, Moon, his teachers and staff distributed district-issued iPads to about 85 percent of the school’s nearly 600 students. On Thursday and Friday, school personnel worked to make contact with the remaining students “to schedule pick-ups and make home visits to deliver instructional materials so students can be successful from Day 1,” the principal said.

In repeated phone calls, emails and texts delivered for more than a week, principals of LCPS’s 17 schools have emphasized to families the importance of students logging in for the first day of instruction. Unlike the 10 weeks of remote learning provided last spring, when the coronavirus closed the state’s public schools in mid-March, the upcoming period of remote learning will include two trademarks of in-school instruction: taking attendance and assigning work for grades.

Attendance will be determined by student log-ins, participation in class activities and completion of lessons. Schoolwork will be assigned for grades at the discretion of the teacher, but with an eye toward the “unique character of remote learning” and guidance “for teachers that emphasize the importance of frequent communication, meaningful feedback and regular assessments in evaluating student progress,” according to a frequently-asked-questions section about remote learning on the school district’s website.

For the 20 percent or so of students whose families do not have reliable broadband connection, the district is providing learning packets and preloading iPads with lessons and assignments that can be accessed without the internet. The district also plans to distribute through schools a limited number of hotspots, which can provide connectivity for families within range of cell service, and point students to a number of park-and-learn sites with open internet systems – its own campuses, among them – and to accessible internet at locations like Neuse Regional Library branches in Kinston, La Grange and Pink Hill.

“We’re all facing unique challenges. Remote learning is unlike anything we have seen before, and it is going to be substantially different from the virtual learning phase that we implemented in the spring,” Moon said. “We are focused on creating procedures, routines and expectations that will maximize students’ learning experiences. I have never seen teachers work as hard as they’re working now to prepare live ‘synchronous’ lessons and pre-recorded ‘asynchronous’ lessons to support student learning.”

LCPS got a leg up on remote learning when, six years ago, it made iPads and learning management apps like Seesaw and Canvas a routine part of classroom instruction, according to district administrators. With students and teachers already familiar with the technology and the process of digital communication, the district’s curriculum leaders were able to turn their attention this past spring and particularly over the summer to content and presentation techniques.

In June a corps of teachers underwent intense professional development sessions with nationally renowned educational leaders in math and reading instruction and, with that training, created a library of hundreds of prerecorded lessons and passed that knowledge on to colleagues at their schools. The result is instruction, both live and recorded, that more closely mirrors in-person learning, according to Melissa Lynch, the district’s digital learning instructional coordinator.

“LCPS has increased the rigor and expectations with remote learning,” Lynch said. “Students will be taught on-grade level, new information during remote learning classes and will participate in live classroom experiences and recorded mini-lessons.”

A typical day of remote learning will begin with live instruction via Zoom and alternate live and asynchronous instruction on a set schedule. A period of more than an hour is designated at the end of each day for “office hours,” when teachers can communicate one-on-one with students and parents and provide tutoring.

On Wednesday, as he sat in the car with his mother waiting to receive his iPad and class schedule at North Lenoir High School – mostly “honors classes,” he said – incoming freshman Brent Hill Jr. was still sorting out his feeling about transitioning to high school virtually. “It wasn’t the exact idea I thought I would start with,” he said. “It is a different environment definitely, but it does beat possibly everyone getting the coronavirus.”

His mother, Penny, said the family is shoring up its internet connection and making arrangements for Brent to study at his grandmother’s house when his parents are at work. “I feel a little bit better this year. It looks like they’ve got it organized well,” she said of the district’s remote learning plan. “I really wished we could have done in-classroom, but the classes he’s signed up for look very do-able. We’re going to make the most of it,” she said.

That attitude, an outlook that combines the promise of effort with expectations of success, will be the key to the successful beginning of this unusual school year, the principal at EB Frink thinks.

“Monday will go a long way toward creating a new, albeit temporary, ‘normal’ and we need the support of students, parents and our school community to ensure our students are logged in, locked in and ready to hit the ground running,” Moon said. “I want our entire school community to know that we are in this together, and we’re going to have a successful school year, even if the start is not how we envisioned it.”