Its all about the kids: Southeastern Regional students jump back into hands-on learning in Easton amid COVID – Wicked Local Sharon

As in-person instruction began Monday at Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School, students were adapting well to the safety measures put in place and were happy to be back at school, Principal Leslie Weckesser said.

EASTON In the plumbing classroom at Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School, sophomore students were busy at work, measuring and cutting pipes guided by plumbing instructor Eric Hunt.

But in addition to their standard safety goggles, the students incorporated extra measures of protection, including face masks, gloves for some and sign-in sheets at every classroom for contact tracing purposes.

Monday marked the first day back to in-person instruction for Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School students after easing back into the new school year via remote learning for the last two weeks, Principal Leslie Weckesser said. Like other schools throughout the state, Southeastern was forced to shutter its doors in March after Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency and closed all schools and nonessential businesses.

Per school reopening procedures, the student body, consisting of a total of 1,500 students, were split into two cohorts, with one cohort attending in-person instruction for academics and vocational classrooms at a time. Southeastern Vocational Technical High School, with 20 vocational tracks serving nine local communities in the Brockton area, was faced with a more unique challenge of returning students to their studies, given the hands-on nature of the vocational fields theyre pursuing.

If youre marketing and entrepreneurship, you can still do your studies electronically, but you cant always frame a house if youre a carpentry student at home, Weckesser said.

But Southeastern Regional was uniquely ready for the challenge of remote learning,Weckesser said. The school implemented distance learning capabilities about three to four years ago to account for interruptions caused by snow days, she said, and all students have had individual Chromebooks for roughly the last decade.

We were already prepared for it and that helped to ease into the transition, Weckesser said. Even though they were out, they want to learn.

But as they were faced with the inability to learn hands-on techniques in the classroom with school buildings closed, they quickly adapted to shift the focus of student learning. Normally during trade weeks, lesson plans were interspersed with hands-on learning opportunities in the classroom and more written-based learning such as industry and safety codes for their trades and preparing for written certifications, Weckesser said. Instead, they front loaded the spring semesters workload with the written lessons and certifications so when students returned to campus in the fall, they could jump right into the hands-on learning, she said.

And with the return to school Monday, his plumbing students were eager to get right back into lessons, Hunt confirmed.

They want to be here, he said. You can feel that more than anything. They couldnt wait to get started.

Outside of the hands-on vocational shop lessons, students in other classrooms sat at desks spaced apart, with tape markers on the floor to make sure spacing was adequate.

To mitigate students packing hallways as they move between classes, Weckesser explained that theyve disabled the bells, allowing teachers to dismiss students on their own schedules. Students also eat lunches in their classrooms, with prepackaged lunches distributed in bins to each classroom for students.

Teachers also have the option to eat lunch with their students in the classroom, Weckesser said, and many have taken up the option, putting on a TED Talk or the news to discuss as the group took a break from lessons.

The return to school took a lot of coordination with staff and faculty, planning and lots of sleepless nights, Weckesser said. The biggest concerns listed by parents included mask breaks, cleaning procedures, changing classes and lunches, she said. In response, school officials filmed the planned safety procedures, posting it on the districts YouTube channels for parents to see.

We tried our best to really film the procedures so people could get a visual, she said. I think parents were a lot better about it, a lot more comfortable.

All students and teachers wore masks throughout the day, though mask breaks were incorporated into teachers' schedules, and along with the sign-in sheets, faculty and staff were placed throughout the building as hall monitors to keep an eye on students and keep track of student movement. Bathrooms were also limited to two students, with each bathroom being color coded for certain vocational tracks and grade-levels to keep students isolated in their wing of the building, she said.

Not to say there arent challenges to come. With the colder winter months, they will need to address extra clothing like jackets, since they are no longer allowing use of the lockers students would normally have to share with a partner, Weckesser said. They are also still in the process of addressing extracurricular activities such as clubs and sports, she said.

But so far, as of late Monday morning, the day was going rather seamlessly, she said. Throughout the first day, Weckesser said her goal was to make her way around the school to see how things were going and to make herself visible, keeping an eye out for any issues that may need to be addressed, and said shes happy to have the students back.

I am elated, she said. I have a smile ear to ear. Its all about the kids, having them safe in school today.

Staff writer Corlyn Voorhees can be reached at cvoorhees@enterprisenews.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @corlyn_ENT.

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Its all about the kids: Southeastern Regional students jump back into hands-on learning in Easton amid COVID - Wicked Local Sharon