HARRISBURG, Pa. — When the school bell rings at 8:20 a.m. at Susquehanna Township High School in Dauphin County, what follows is silence. No laughter of kids at their lockers sharing stories of what happened over the weekend. No scampering of students' feet rushing to get into class before they're marked late.
Only the faint sound of teachers inside their classrooms, talking to unoccupied chairs and desks, the start of their daily lesson echoing through the empty halls.
This is the first day Susquehanna Township is fully remote. Students had been participating in one of three options: entirely in-school for four days a week, fully virtual as part of the district's all-remote-access (ARA) program, or enrolled in its cyber school, Hanna Cyber Academy.
Now, almost 100 percent of Susquehanna Township students will have to learn from home, until at least January 11, according to Superintendent Dr. Tamara Willis. Only a few special needs students are allowed to continue learning in the building.
However, in Elena Charles' business class, a few special guests are still hanging around. Printed out heads of celebrities, like Oprah, Kanye West, Bill Gates, and Sean "P Diddy" Combs sit taped to chairs, keeping Ms. Charles, as she's best known to her students, company.
"If Oprah and I can have in-depth conversations, I can do anything if I had her close by me," Charles says, laughing.
Simply put, she enjoys the company. Her only interaction with students is now done virtually through a platform run by Microsoft Teams. Even then, she occasionally has to remind her students to turn on their cameras. If no one volunteers to answer a question, the silence is even more awkward when it's coming through a computer screen.
Isolation, on top of learning and implementing new technology, is tough.
"it was so stressful to the point I was having anxiety attacks because of the technology. It was just overwhelming for me," Charles said, adding her mind would race elsewhere to wondering about the personal well-being of her students. "Are my students learning? Are they OK at home? What are their experiences at home? What stressors are they experiencing at home? Are they taking care of younger children while their parents are working?"
Charles says she would experience chest pains when school started in September, and even though she says her doctor upped the dosage of anxiety medication, she still struggles with the mental health aspect of teaching in a pandemic today. Part of the reason, she believes, is because for as much as she is struggling being alone at school, she knows her students are struggling not being able to be at school.
"I think the best way to connect to students is let them know they are not the only ones struggling at this time, and there are resources out in place to help them," Charles said.
The school bell sounds, and the first period of Susquehanna Township's new normal ends. Kids log out of their first class, and log into their next room.
For Joe Headen's second period U.S. History class, that means it's time to take a test. Yes, even exams are done virtually now. Today's exam is on the Gilded Age of American history. Headen gives his students a quick tutorial on how to take tests remotely -- especially helpful for the kids doing virtual learning for the first time -- and then it's silence.
Test taking is actually one aspect of virtual learning teachers, like Headen, really enjoy. He can keep an eye on the students which helps prevent cheating, and when they're done, the tests are automatically graded. For teachers, that means no extra grade work from home.
"The grades are already in there and it goes right to the gradebook," Headen says excitedly. "My wife's happy about that!"
Any chance to catch an extra breath is a win for Headen. In the class, and on the giant red-and-white banner that adorns the entrance to his classroom, he's Mr. Headen. Once school ends, he's Coach Headen, head coach of the Susquehanna Township football team, and this season brought on a whole littany of unexpected challenges. Because of COVID-19, positive cases in the school, on the team, and elsewhere, Headen's Indians, normally one of the better programs in the PIAA District 3, struggled to a shortened season 2-5 record.
"It was the most challenging year of football and education that I've ever had, from the aspect of making sure our lesson plans are done to try to organize a practice. Typically these are long days and this year they were longer.
"We adjust, adapt, and overcome," Headens aid. "And we make it work."
The decision to go entirely virtual was made by Superintendent Dr. Tamara Willis at a recent school board meeting. Rising COVID-19 case numbers in Dauphin County, and specifically within Susquehanna Township, she says were too alarming to ignore. Willis wouldn't divulge how many students had tested positive for COVID-19, but did say 14 teachers had contracted the virus since the start of school. Most of those cases, she said, had been resovled.
"[Our teachers] want to have students in building. We want students in the building. But we are also trying to balance that desire to have them in person with health and safety of everyone involved," Dr. Willis said.
When Susquehanna Twp. started its school year, 41 percent of all students, Willis said, chose to remain in-school. The responsibility to make sure those students, now forced into home learning environments, are up to speed on the virtual technology, falls onto teachers who are constantly changing their own teaching styles, and troubleshooting technological issues on the fly.
At the start of the school year, Susquehanna Twp. installed 360-degree cameras, which allows students learning virtually to see the lesson displayed on a projection board while also seeing the teacher.
In Dr. Stephen Sexsmith's third period chemistry class, 10 minutes in, a student chimes in from the computer speaker.
"Doc, we can't see you," the student says, interupting the lesson.
Sexsmith turns around to see that no longer is his lesson plan projected on the smart-screen board at the front of the room, but instead, the faces of his students.
"OK! I have no idea what just happened," he laughs, showing a mix of confusion and take-it-in-stride humor one gains after 25 years of teaching.
Sexsmith says later, "You have to adjust. [The students] need as much stability as they can get, and as long as I can hold it together, I can keep them in the class and engaged. But if I lose my cool, they're gone."
It's a challenge easier said than done, especially when teaching chemistry, which Sexsmith admits, is not typically condusive to a virtual learning environment. With no students in the class, there are obviously no chemistry labs, and the back half of the classroom, where normally beakers are clanking and gas burners are firing, is now empty, dark, and cold.
Sexsmith performs his own experiments at the front of the class which the students can still see through the lesson camera, but he knows it's not the same. Like everyone else, he wants his students in the class, and understands why they cannot be there right now.
"Faces tell you stuff. You can look at a student's face and you can tell, you’re not getting it, I can read that," Sexsmith said. "What do I want? I want all my kids in front of me so I can lay eyeballs on them. I have a screen here that shows nine of them."
Sexsmith hopes that is a fixable problem. His Microsoft Teams teaching screen only allows for nine students on a screen at a given time. Sexsmith has 20 students in his class.
In the meantime, he, like all other teachers, will just have to roll with the changes.
Adjust, adapt, and overcome.