BOISE, Idaho — On March 9, the Boise School District will begin bringing student in grades K-6 back for full-time in-person learning. The remaining students in grades 7-12 will return on March 29. This will we the first time many students and teachers are back in the classroom full-time in over a year.
Jaymie Hogg, an elementary teacher at Whittier Elementary School, says things will look and feel a lot different.
“Right now they are in pods so they have to stay in those spots, and when we line up I have dots that go all the way around that bookshelf,” she said.
Hogg expressed that not only are students excited for the return, but teachers have been wanting to teach their kids in person for quite some time. While Hogg will only have 16 students in her classroom when she would typically have 32, she says it's better than none.
“Online isn’t a substitute, we have learned a lot of things from online but really being here in person is such a different experience,” she said. “Building those relationships and seeing the kids interact and being with them and able to help them instead of you know, you just want to reach through the screen but you can’t reach through the screen to help them when they are struggling that alone, we are all so excited to come back.”
Six-year-old Mia Sharp goes to Grace Jordan Elementary School in Boise, and after a year of not being able to see her friends at school, she can't wait to get back.
“My first-grade teacher that I am going to start going to school with her name is Miss Emery, and one of my best friends from kindergarten is in my class, and she’s my lunch buddy,” Mia said.
Mia looks forward to seeing her friends at school, being taught by a teacher, and the lunch nachos in the cafeteria.
“I missed mostly my friends and the nachos, but mostly my friends,” Mia said. “When Ms. Philly taught me, it was funnier and more easier, when mama said she’s not a teacher, it was kind of hard to understand what she was saying sometimes when she was trying to make me understand but it was really hard because I didn’t understand.”
Mia's mom, Hannah Sharp, said the decision to return to in-person learning wasn't an easy one for her to make, but she feels it was the right one for Mia and the rest of the family.
“It’s hard for all kids but with kindergarten they had just started to be in the school environment and then it was taken away so quickly, I mean they didn't even get to finish their first year of kindergarten,” said Sharp. “It was just really hard and she was very vocal about missing her friends and being lonely.”
Hogg acknowledges that when students return there will be slight learning curve and new protocols in place that students will need to get used to, but she says it’s well worth it.
“It’s going to be okay, we are going to look at the content move forward with the ideas, and kids are resilient they really are, and teachers are in this profession because they care,” she said.