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School wraps up for Dewey Public Schools on Friday, and the principals at each school site have reported on how virtual learning has gone since a shift to online education in Oklahoma took place in late March because of COVID-19.

Jerri Moore, the principal at Dewey Elementary, said their plan for distance learning during the pandemic has been a success. She said parents have expressed gratitude because the process and transition to online learning has been easy for them.

The teachers at Dewey Elementary created five menus for five weeks of learning. Moore said each menu had 25 squares on it. Students were asked to complete activities for reading, math, social studies and writing.

Online resources were also listed on the bottom of the menu for students to use if they had access to the internet. Moore said when they produced the menus, it was their goal for the students to learn with or without a parent. She said they understood that parents may have needed to stay home and work during the pandemic, and they wanted to make the transition to distance learning easier for everyone.

Moore said teachers and staff have gone through professional development during the pandemic while students have been away. She said the training was free, and she appreciates everyone's involvement to grow while they were away. Next week, a drop off box for library books and menus will be available for parents outside the elementary school.

Brent Massey, the principal at Dewey Middle School, said DMS started in a better position than most schools in Oklahoma. He said they were prepared for distance learning thanks to K20 Grants and the support of the district to get devices to their students.

75-percent of Dewey Middle School students already had devices at home. Massey said the biggest challenge was getting devices to their sixth graders, who had them in class sets. He said they provided a drive-in pick-up of those devices for their sixth graders. It was a smooth transition.

Massey said they saw regular engagement from 60-percent of their students. 35-percent of student engagement was sporadic, and the other 5-percent of students were difficult to get ahold of during the process of distance learning. Engagement was high when the pandemic started, but Massey said that attendance has slowly tapered off as they have gotten closer to the end of the school year.

Calls and weekly check-in forms were sent out during the distance learning to see how students were doing. Massey said it was always good to see how students were doing when they called in. He said in virtual weekly staff meetings, they have discussed how they will fill the gaps for students that may not have been very engaged during the distance learning process.

There are still unknowns for the future, but they want to be sure that they are prepared for whatever may come their way. Massey said there will be challenges, but they will tackle them. He said he appreciates his staff.

Brent Dugger, the principal at Dewey High School, said the focus out of the gate was to identify their kids that were failing. He said credits were their main concern as they captured kids that were below the passing mark.

DHS also wanted to look at kids that were on the bubble of a letter grade. Dugger said they wanted to check on those kids because they did not want any of their students to have a negative, long-term GPA impact. He said it didn't matter if the students were seniors or freshmen; they wanted to look out for their kids.

Dugger said the teachers did an excellent job in identifying and working with those students. Looking at the big picture, Dugger said they could've had some serious ramifications otherwise.

Wellness checks also went out to students on Mondays to see how they were doing duing the process of distance learning. Dugger said an average of a hundred students would take the wellness checks. He said at the beginning of the crisis, 90-percent of students would be engaged in distance learning. That has since dropped to 25-percent as they near the end of the school year.

Some students did have connectivity issues. Dugger said about a dozen students had internet problems, so packets were delivered to them. He said they were able to connect and speak with just about every student when they had an issue or question.

This is teacher appreciation week. Dugger said it has been difficult to not see students and teachers in the hallways, but he is looking forward to the day when they can meet in person again. He said he appreciates all his teachers for helping their students during this difficult transition to distance learning in the last five weeks.