From left, Sara Antall, Alison Baloga and Aylin Farrell walk toward Wycallis Primary Wednesday. All three were fine with masks, though would like to see more of their friends in class. Alison was going to first grade while he other tow were heading to second.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Masked teachers greet masked tykes as Dallas opens doors
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With gear at her side and Mickey Mouse mask on her face, Megan Bradshaw, 6, waits for the doors at Wycallis Primary to open on the first day of classes for Dallas School District. While she was fine with masks, she had a preference: “I wish I was wearing face shield.” Full disclosure, Megan’s dad is a district principal
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Students wait on the bus for Dallas Primary school t to open the doors. With fewer than half the students attending on any given day (about 20% enrolled in the district cyber school, and the rest are taking turns in class different days), their was room to keep social distance between students on the bus.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Cody Barton sits on the Gym floor at the Dallas Intermediate School waiting for Physical Education class to start Wednesday. It was his first class of the new year, and this was a good thing for him. “I love gym class!” he said. Wearing masks and being so far apart was another matter. “It’s a little weird”
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Teacher Mike Vignole opted for a face shield at the start of class for Dallas School District Wednesday
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Students get a tour to learn where the restrooms are the first day of school at Wycallis Primary Wednesday.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Face shields and masks are among the gear waiting on desks for students at Dallas Intermediate school. For this third-grade class, about half the students were present Wednesday, the other desks left untouched for the other half, who will have their first day Thursday
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Half the Dallas Intermediate School gym is converted to serve as an extension of the cafeteria for breakfast and lunch. Note that the long tables were folded and used to create a barrier on the left. On the other side, Physical Education class was beginning Wednesday. In both the the gym and the cafeteria, the district replaced the long tables with individual desks and chairs to keep stuents apart due to the pandemic
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
Teacher Rachel Dunn discusses wearing masks and other safety protocols to kindergarten teachers experiencing their first day of school at Dallas School District Wednesday.
Mark Guydish | Times Leader
DALLAS TWP. — Nobody seemed to mind the masks, though there were opinions.
“I wish I was wearing a face shield,” Megan Bradshaw said while waiting in the back of her mom’s car for Wycallis Primary School to open its doors. She was fine with the Mickey Mouse mask she had chosen, and happy to be be heading into her first day of first grade. Though she bore the name of a famous Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback, the six-year-old eagerly pointed out her favorite football team is Notre Dame. And she was thrilled at soon seeing her school friends, but apparently wanted to really see them.
On a bus — one of many parked diagonally in the Dallas Intermediate School’s long bus lot — second grade students sat patiently, masks on, one to a seat or less, many too short to see their heads if they didn’t poke out into the aisle. Prodded by Superintendent Tom Duffy, they shouted a big “DALLAS!” and waved, a mask on every face.
Sara Antall, Alison Baloga and Aylin Farrell walked together on the sidewalk toward Wycallis, two of them holding hands, all wearing masks. Asked if they were fine with the new normal, they offered the equivalent of a verbal shrug: “Yeah.”
“It’s strange,” Cody Barton said as he sat on the gym floor of Dallas Intermediate School awaiting Phys. Ed., the nearest classmate at least six feet down the court boundary line. “It’s not what I’m used to.” But nothing detracted from getting his first class of the year to be his favorite class. “I love gym,” he said from behind a disposable paper mask looped around each ear. And the mask? “It gets a little hot, and it’s a little weird that part of the gym is a cafeteria.”
Dallas School District has cut the expansive gym in half, letting the neighboring cafeteria spill into one side. The district also nixed the long tables with bench seats in favor of individual desks-turned-dining tables. “Our cafeteria looks more like a classroom,” Superintendent Tom Duffy said. But the long tables are not going unused. Folded into tall triangles, they form a partition between eating and exercise in the the gym.
In his third-grade class, teacher Mike Viglone opted for a face shield, the better to see his smiling mug, while his students sat pretty much in every other desk, masks firmly in place. Under the Dallas hybrid plan, about half the students had their first day in the school Wednesday, while the other half will be there Thursday. As a clear sign of the times (literally and figuratively) every empty desk that awaited the next day’s student had books, tablets, masks and face shields.
Duffy said about 400 of the district’s 2,400 students signed up for the district cyber school — about double what had been anticipated just a few weeks ago — which is fully online but not taught in real time with regular classes. The rest are being taught in a hybrid system. One group is in class Monday and Tuesday while the other group learns live at home online. The groups switch Thursday and Friday. Wednesday, everybody learns at home. Having 400 students taking the asynchronous cyber school courses means there’s more room for the hybrid students, so social distancing should be easier.
But this week, hybrid group A had their first day in classrooms on Wednesday while the second group will be in school on Thursday. On Friday the district will use the online, live setting for all hybrid students to make sure it works before going to the five day schedule next week.
For Rachel Dunn’s Kindergarten class, Wednesday was their first day of school in Dallas, period. The experience was unlike their predecessors. Large round tables had been replaced by new small rectangular tables — “ironing board desks, we call them,” Duffy said, referring to the X shape the table legs made.
One thing hadn’t changed, the children got to sit on a rug for their first lesson, like many kindergarten classes. nearby a large screen projected an image of furry figures in face coverings and the words “How monsters wear masks.” A masked Dunn sat, leaning forward, talking to the masked tykes about the new rules regarding distance and face coverings brought on by the pandemic.
Masks may have hidden expressions, but on the first day of school among Luzerne County’s 11 districts, they exposed just how much COVID-19 is changing the world.
Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish