LE CLAIRE, Iowa — On Friday morning, sixth grade teacher Pat Seamer gave one of his last hybird-taught lessons. His own Bridgeview elementary is moving to full-time, in-person learning on Tuesday, along with his district, Pleasant Valley, and rest of Iowa.
"You can tell the tension, excitement, nervousness in the students," said Seamer. "This year's been challenging but it's been great. But I'm as excited for next Tuesday as I am in the beginning of August. It'll be the start of a whole new school year."
Pleasant Valley superintendent Brian Strusz says he can't wait for the kids to come back to class.
"We almost are viewing it as the first day of school again, with the excitement, because it's the first time in 10 months that kids are coming together!"
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About 85% of the district's students chose to attend school through a hybrid learning method this fall. They were split into A and B groups, and only came to school every other day. The other 15% chose to do their semester fully online.
"As of today, our numbers in the district are trending about 12% that are gonna be online when we come back on Tuesday," said Strusz. "So we actually gained about 3% of our students back into the schools."
While Pleasant Valley says mask wearing, hand washing, and hand sanitizing will all still be in place, social distancing will have to be cut down from 6 feet to 3, to accommodate the influx of students. However, Superintendent Strusz is confident that the district's increased sanitation measures can help make up for the lost distancing.
And the biggest change is coming during lunch.
"We've purchased like white table dividers so kids can sit at a table and still be social distanced, or at least be protected during that time when they're unmasked," said Strusz. "There'll be eight students per table so the four on one side will be able to see each other, but they won't really be able to talk to the kids on the other side of the table."
And Pleasant Valley says they're prepared to relearn yet another version of 'new normal' when it comes to routine teaching styles - both from pre and post pandemic life.
"We've learned how kids can use devices [and] what apps they can use on their Chromebooks. So when we come back 100%, when do students use the device? What is it for," quested Strusz. "When will you still have them put the lids down and have conversations and dialogue and deep thinking without having a device in front of you."
And when the students do come back, many of the district's staff will already be well on their way to getting vaccinated. Pleasant Valley says about 90% of the staff will have their first shot by President's Day, and their second by mid-March.
As both Strusz and Seamer expressed, Tuesday will be part of a new beginning together, after 10 long months apart.