The William S. Hart Union High School District welcomed students back to campus on Tuesday for the first day of the 2021 Fall semester.
Hundreds of students lined up at school gates across the Santa Clarita Valley on Tuesday, with some celebrating the first time they would step on the campuses of their new schools after over a year of distance learning.
“It’s electric. It’s exciting to see so many kids come back,” said Sal Frias, principal of Golden Valley High School.
According to Frias, around 1,700 students had already registered to return to classes, with several hundred more of the 2,200 members of the student body rushing through getting their packets and student identification on Tuesday.
See Related: Hart District Purchases Over 1,200 Air Purifiers Before Students Return To Classroom
While vaccinations have not been made mandatory for school staff as of Tuesday, most at Golden Valley are fully vaccinated, and many students and their families offered copies of COVID-19 vaccination cards for school files unprompted, according to Hart officials.
“Indoor (masking) is required, outdoor is optional, but if you look around most of the people are wearing their mask all the time, which tells you how serious our student body and our staff is taking this,” Frias said. “Our people are going to be responsible, safe and take care of one another.”
The classrooms are much the same as pre-pandemic times, except for requiring students and staff to wear masks indoors, and having air filters placed in every room.
“I think everybody understands that this is something we wish that we didn’t have to do,” Hart District Superintendent Mike Kuhlman said of masking. “We understand the necessity of it, and it’s one piece that we can do to make sure we get kids in classrooms.”
Kuhlman noted that while there is some reluctance in terms of returning to traditional schooling sites on campus — as evidenced by the swelling of the district’s independent study program Learning Post Academy from around 100 students to approximately 400 pupils — there were no surprises.
Golden Valley High School has not had a large number of students opt to continue distance learning, with many students stating that they missed the school and staff, according to Frias.
“I’m so proud of our staff and I appreciate how hard that they have worked to get to this day. Last week, I visited all the school sites and saw really high-quality professional development and enthusiasm for seeing the kids,” Kuhlman said. “I’m also thankful for the patience that our community has shown us. It has been tough for everybody. It continues to be tough. There are new challenges we probably will confront in the weeks to come as we’re looking at these Delta variants, but we will deal with those, we will confront those and we’ll find a way forward, as we have in the past.”
Kuhlman noted that the last school year has challenged Hart District teachers to “capture the good,” or focus on the positive, learn from pitfalls and keep moving forward. Between a scramble to switch to online schooling, adjust learning goals, and make sure that students received support, all while learning to use technology in new ways, there have been signs of promise for the future.
“This last semester we had to do things that we didn’t normally do, we used technology in ways that we haven’t used it before. Some of those things we’re glad to actually kind of move in a different direction from, but many of those things are helpful in certain circumstances to help students learn,” Kuhlman said. “So there are new pieces of technology, there are new ways of doing things that we will probably be continuing as we move forward. We think this, if done the right way, could actually just make us better at the work that we’re charged to do.”
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