Students returning to South Pasadena High School for in-person instruction attended an orientation at the school last week.
Students returned to classrooms at South Pasadena High School this week, marking the first time since March 2020 that children have been back at all campuses.
Cohort B returned to SPHS on Thursday this week, a week after students at South Pasadena Middle School began hybrid in-person instruction. Students returned to the South Pasadena Unified School District’s three elementary schools in February.
Appropriately, the SPUSD Board of Education enjoyed its first in-person meeting since the start of the coronavirus pandemic last year.
“It seems like it was just yesterday,” Superintendent Geoff Yantz quipped.
The return to in-person instruction looks a bit different than usual, outside of the obvious fact that many students remain at home, where their remote teaching runs concurrently to their teachers’ classroom instruction. There are daily health screenings for students and their desks are spread out to accommodate social distancing. Students and teachers continue to wear face masks.
Classrooms are also making use of a wealth of new technology, including iPads, projectors, document cameras and various computers to help connect with distant classmates and interact in-person in a manner that includes everyone while respecting distancing guidelines.
Yantz commended students for adhering to all protocols and helping produce as smooth a school day as possible in spite of the restrictions and requirements.
“It’s very calm and very well organized,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting. “Students are following all the protocols. It’s wonderful to see.
“Everybody involved set a new bar as far as opening up for
in-person learning goes,” he added, referring to teachers and all support staff. “I’m just very proud of everybody. It was such a great feeling on campus to be there on that first day and see it happen.”
