It feels really eerie being in a school with no students. I always enjoy interacting with the students in my classroom and in the hallway, and I enjoy interacting with the other teachers around my hall. That being said, I also don’t mind being alone. Since it is so quiet, it is a lot easier to focus on planning my lessons and anything else I need to get done for the day.                             

While I did like having some semblance of a normal school year being at the building, that wasn’t the primary reason why I’m mostly in the building. The main reason was that I like to have my work life and my personal life largely separate. I know that I am nowhere near as productive working from home, so this is more of a way to force myself to be more active. Also, being at the school building allows me to use resources like the copier to print out my notes that I use to help me get through each lesson. 

I believe most students and staff have a basic understanding of what we need to do to keep ourselves safer and minimize the spread of the virus. It would be nice to see the students person, as I never met most of them in person. It is so important that we all do our part to minimize the spread in order for this to work.

To see our school when I first walked in without students, was as if we walked into a time capsule. There were things written on the boards, for the students to do and next steps in assignments. It was and has been quiet and empty. The life was removed from the building.

I didn’t think about my going into the building as keeping things “normal” although that sounds right. I wanted to bring the students my course, I wanted to have the feeling of my job, and I believe I needed a place to go and do all of that. The culinary kitchen has been my second home for 18 years. I think I missed the kitchen and students. It was the only way to get close to that feeling of teaching in person. Also in the kitchen, I had more room to cook and demonstrate.  I took students on tours of the kitchen and dining room, while I carried the computer camera everywhere. 

I have concerns that we are all at risk, with new variants of the virus, I worry that there will be an impact on students’ families; however, I have a strong belief that students need the in-person experience, for many reasons. I do believe we must be extremely careful and realize we are a community and in this together. We must all protect one another. 

I decided to teach from inside the school building because it felt like I was back with the kids again. Although it wasn’t the same, I could give the students a taste of what a normal school used to be like. It made it so the students felt like they were almost back in the classroom again and made me feel like I was back in my teaching 

Today [Feb. 16] actually happens to be our first day back to in-person learning with our students, and I cannot be more excited. It was great to see our students faces again and to be able to interact with each other. I know our students have been craving in-person learning so it was great to have them all back. Everyone was so excited to be back and all of us are excited too.