Smooth back-to-school transition, Utah Catholic Schools superintendent says

Friday, Aug. 28, 2020

SALT LAKE CITY – The first week back in classrooms for the new academic year went well at Utah’s Catholic schools despite new protocols implemented as a response to the pandemic. Principals reported that things have gone well across the system, Catholic Schools Superintendent Mark Longe said.

“It’s been challenging wearing the mask all day, but our kids have really risen to the occasion and done a great job with it,” St. John the Baptist Middle School Principal Patrick Reeder said. “I think they are very pleased to be back in school. The first couple of days were challenging, but they really moved into the groove of everything.”

“The smiles that we typically have on the first day of school are the same smiles that we have this year and the eagerness to be back in the classroom,” St. John the Baptist Elementary Principal Nikki Ward said.

It’s not just the students who are happy to be back in school; faculty and staff members appreciate it, too.

“It’s just been awesome and rejuvenating to have the students back on campus,” Ward said.

The schools and their teachers have been innovative in teaching the students about social distancing while still accommodating their need to socialize. At St. John the Baptist Elementary, they have implemented a practice first dreamed up by the kindergarten teachers: students bring large beach towels from home and sit on them while outside to ensure they are socially distanced, Ward said.

At St. Andrew Catholic School, kindergarten teacher Erin Yale took her students outside on the first day for an activity where they were able to social distance and remove their masks safely. After the activity, which involved answering questions and sharing information about themselves, students replaced their masks before returning to the classroom.

“I just wanted you to see each other’s faces,” Yale told them.

While there may be educational gaps caused by the switch to remote learning in the spring, Longe said he is confident the teachers will easily be able to address those in the early weeks back at school.

“I think our schools did an incredible job of pivoting and keeping pace with the curriculum when we went to remote learning in March,” he said. 

Longe does not yet have complete numbers (a normal first-day census was delayed), but it appears most students have returned to school. While some students who have not qualified for high-risk remote learning being offered by the schools have chosen not to enroll this year, there has been an upsurge in applications from outside the system, particularly in Salt Lake City, where public schools remain shuttered, Longe said.

“I think those parents are looking for options for their kids to be in school,” he said. “We’re seeing this flux; we’re seeing parents within our system who don’t want to put their kids in an in-person environment and then we’re seeing parents from outside our system who are desiring that.”

Also, some parents of high-risk students who initially decided to keep their students at home have since enrolled them because they are so comfortable with the safety protocols the schools have enacted, he said.

“The kids are doing fine; they’re wearing their masks, they’re taking it very seriously,” he said. “Part of that is it just didn’t start in schools; if they’ve been going place with their parents, they’ve already been wearing masks.”

While hoping there won’t be another statewide school shutdown, Longe said Catholic schools are as prepared as possible to handle a coronavirus outbreak.

“With close to 5,000 students in the system, we anticipate something will happen: we just don’t know when,” said Longe, who has trained principals in the state protocols for just such instances. The principals then passed on those protocols to their staffs. 

Parents can do a lot to help in preventing an outbreak, Longe said.

“We’re working really hard to keep the kids in these controlled groups, whether in their classroom or a small cohort so that they’re not with a lot of people during the course of the day,” he said. “We’re asking parents to work with us and to keep their kids contained, as well, after school and at weekends. The priority is, if we want to keep them in school so that they can learn and be in that social environment with their friends, then help us by  keeping them safe on the weekends and after school and not having them have a lot of contact with people that aren’t in that group.”