Calabasas High School Makes The Most Of A Hard Year
CALABASAS, CA —Recently, a science class at Calabasas High School was doing a lab. The teacher laid out all the necessary materials in an area outside of the school, and a cohort of students ordered by alphabet drove to pick it up. Staff put bags of materials in their cars so that no contact would be necessary. Then the students went back home, where they conducted the lab outside while watching their teacher on Zoom.
Welcome to high school, 2020-style.
Calabasas High School began on Aug. 19 with a new principal, and coronavirus quarantine still very much in effect. But despite what could’ve resulted in chaos, school officials say that thanks to staff creativity and organization, the year is off to a great start.
“I think we’ve done a great job of starting off smoothly – it’s gone very well, and we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from our students, parents, and staff,” said Logan Fox, assistant principal of safety, facilities, and athletics.
After a spring semester full of surprises that Assistant Principal of Curriculum Nicki Goldstein said was like “student teaching,” Las Virgenes Unified staff spent a summer incorporating stakeholder feedback to make sure that in the upcoming year, distance learning would runs more smoothly and better satisfy students’ educational and emotional needs.
Parents, students, and teachers all said anecdotally and in surveys that they wanted more face-to-face, live interaction - known as synchronous learning – with teachers. Unlike last spring, teachers are now required to provide a minimum of 180 minutes per day of live instruction. During that live instruction, students are required to turn their cameras on, and be counted for attendance.
“This year, we have stricter guidelines on what our expectations are – there’s much more synchronous learning,” said Goldstein. “Teachers are doing an incredible job trying to keep our students engaged as much as possible, because let’s be honest, there is such a thing as ‘Zoom Gloom.’”
To help mitigate any “Zoom Gloom,” whether it stems from technical issues or quarantine blues, CHS has set up both a technical support hotline and a counseling center offering sessions daily during lunch office hours. Teachers also offer asynchronous learning, with small group work, projects, and self-directed learning, so students won’t spend all day looking at screens. Virtual versions of beloved school traditions, like spirit week, are also planned. The RACI event, during which students sign up for classes, was filled with prize giveaways.
The school hopes to return students as quickly as possible to campus – which it initially planned to do up until July – but it has to wait until the county and the state say that’s safe. When students return, they will join a morning or afternoon cohort so that they can safely social distance. In between morning and afternoon sessions, the school will be deep-cleaned. Students will spend the time when they’re not at school working on homework and projects.
About 20 percent of CHS students have opted to join the Virtual Academy, who have committed to at least a semester of distance learning.
In the meantime, the school is trying to keep all aspects of school life up and running. All clubs are continuing virtually, and the school is even preparing a play designed to be performed online.
The big question mark is sports, which have been postponed until December. The fall season will last from December to March and feature cross country, football, volleyball, and water polo. The spring season will last from March to June and feature baseball, basketball, cheer, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis, track and field, and wrestling. The Las Virgenes Unified School District has allowed limited practice for the football team at CHS, and Agoura High School is expected to follow suit after Labor Day.
The exact state of the pandemic at that point is unknown, but Fox said that the school will continue to follow county guidelines about how to practice and play safely.
For more information, watch this video about the 2020-21 school year at CHS.
This article originally appeared on the Calabasas Patch
