Is it obvious when a child is falling behind?
Guido: Yes. Not only in person, but also online. What s been so wonderful about this year is we have had this way of assessing students online that has made it easy for us to see where they re at with their reading levels. And we re able to see where are they at and compare that to where they should be at. So I m definitely able to see who s behind and who needs a little bit of help.
Spafford: It s not that easy because all these other factors that we are no longer in control of or we are not seeing right in front of our face. It s everything that s on the other side of the screen, with their cameras off. We usually see the signs. They re struggling. They might be frustrated. They might be disengaged and not present and all those other ways that we could quickly fix.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) Several South Bay teachers went back to school Monday with kids in their classrooms. So how did day one go?
Theresa Hull, a 1st and 2nd grade teacher at Guadalupe Elementary School, told ABC7 News Anchor Ama Daetz how it went.
7:40 a.m. It s the first day of school in February. I m headed to Guadalupe School. I have 12 students returning today in person. I ve got all my PPE, my classroom is ready and I think I will have some very excited children in about 25 minutes, so here we go!
9:55 a.m. It s about 10 o clock. We ve been here about 2 hours and it s going great. These kids are so happy to be back. They have the best smiles. They re so excited. This is a reminder to me that nurses and doctors are amazing because this much PPE on my face is tricky. Hats off to all other first responders who ve been doing this a lot longer than me. So it s going great. I m very happy to be here and the kids are amazing.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) The COVID-19 pandemic changed the lives of many students and teachers throughout the Bay Area and now many are preparing to return to the classroom with new rules and guidance on in-person learning.
Annemarie Guido teaches second grade at Lietz Elementary School in San Jose. Her first year as a teacher was just last year.
ABC7 News Anchor Ama Daetz spoke with her about preparing to have some of her kids back in class in a matter of days. I m really excited. And what s been so great is our families have a choice. They can stay in-person or online, Annemarie said. So about half of my kids are coming in-person with me and half of them are staying online. I m going to be teaching the kids in-person in the morning and then they ll go home. And then in the afternoons, I ll log onto Zoom and I ll Zoom with the rest of my kids, and every Wednesday we ll have a whole group online Zoom meeting. So I am so excited and ready to get back into the classroom. I cannot
SAN MATEO, Calif. (KGO) Summer camps to keep kids learning are already starting to fill up. This year, camps have had to get creative and be flexible in these COVID times. CuriOdyssey Science Playground & Zoo in San Mateo provides a fun learning experience for kids. Science, animals.it has it all!
But how do you set up your usual summer camp, when no one knows where we will be in the pandemic come June? ABC7 News Anchor Ama Daetz spoke with CuriOdyssey s director of education to find out. We have planned to have our camp be conducted in person and outdoors 100%. We are fortunate at CuriOdyssey to be in a county park, Coyote Point Park, and that allows us to have space outside of our walls to be able to conduct our camp programs, said Carl Oosterman. So that is number one. Because we don t know the state of what the pandemic will be come June, we are also moving forward with and anticipating needing all the safety guidelines set out by the CDC. So we are going to be asking kids
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) Part of Building a Better Bay Area means focusing on education. This school year has been interesting, to say the least, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Distance learning has been especially difficult for some young learners. So as we hit winter break, we wondered how progress has been this year, compared to previous school years, particularly for kids learning to read.
ABC7 News Anchor Ama Daetz checked in with Susan Lavelle, with Union School District in the South Bay, to find out if kids are keeping up or falling behind.
Lavelle says it s a bit of both.