Rocklin Unified teachers learn to use the virtual classroom right along with their students

On the footsteps of Gov. Gavin Newsom's March 4th State of Emergency declaration for California due to the state's first death from the COVID-19 virus, Rocklin Unified schools shuttered their campuses. By March 18, online learning became a virtual reality for the school district. Most teachers found themselves in a virtual classroom through a very-quick overview on how to teach online from some of their most technology-friendly peers. The hardest part, according to Melanie Bartholomew, a first-grade teacher at Antelope Creek Elementary, was assuring each student have the technology and that they and their "at-home" instructor understood just how this might work. Each student had to be contacted individually along with their parent, or educational guardian, with step-by-step instructions on how this was going to work, said Patti Shier, a fellow first-grade teacher at Antelope Creek. For each teacher that meant some 23-24 individual contacts. "What a success you feel," Shier said, "making that connection with that one student." Suffering with some difficulty at first, Shier said she set up her video camera and "pretended I was talking to my class as if they were right in front of me. "That was the first time I felt happy," she said. To be honest, Shier admitted, having the school close down had her "feeling pretty grim." "I felt like I had been run over by a truck the day they told us we couldn't go back to school," she said. But she, Bartholomew and the third first-grade teacher at Antelope Creek, Dennis Boehle-Silva, got to work, virtually that is. The three had already worked closely together but now they text each other throughout the day from the time they get up each school day morning. "The three of them have so seamlessly worked together, sharing lessons and information," said Ericka Schallmo, Antelope Creek English Language Development (ELD) and instructional coach. "They're our Dream Team." Even Bartholomew's sixth-grade son, Jack, has supplied assistance by reading aloud on video to the team's first-grade students. The team is very cohesive, Boehle-Silva said. "Having Patti, Melanie and Ericka makes it so much easier. "We are all learning this together," he said, referring to teachers and students alike. The district is still trying to get an iPad or Chromebook into every student's hands. Boehle-Silva still has a few students in need of their equipment, but it is being worked on, he said. Staff has been disinfecting equipment and contacting those who need a computer or iPad. Some of the elementary school teachers, including Bartholomew and Shier, are using Google Classroom for their classes. Boehle-Silva is using Flipgrid, which he finds, "really is kid-friendly," he said. His students connect with other students as well as himself, and he likes it so much he wants to continue using it in his physical classroom, when he gets to go back. "We only had a couple of days to figure this out," said Natalie Gutierrez, a first-grade teacher at Rocklin's Parker Whitney Elementary. "It's going to take time to explore all the tools that are out there." Gutierrez was tasked beyond her regular duties to aid other teachers with understanding the virtual classroom. She is using the SeeSaw Remote Learning program for her own classroom. "It's working really well for my first-graders," she said. Gutierrez said she's trying to be creative offering lessons that take students off of their computers too. She sends them on scavenger hunts and asks them to photograph or draw what they find and to identify the items. It's taken her the last three weeks to develop her new daily routine, according to Gutierrez, while allowing flexibility to the families of her students developing their own new routines as well. Debbie VanLiew, an ELD teacher and instructional coach at Parker Whitney Elementary, is quite technology savvy and has also been helping other teachers adjust to remote teaching. "Teachers are stepping out of their comfort zone," she said. "Even those technology-challenged teachers are really stepping up to the plate. "Just how this will revolutionize our whole educational system remains to be seen. It's a learning process for everyone, and it requires a growth mindset for everyone." Getting back to the physical classroom is one thing these teachers would like, for themselves and their students. But, one of Shier's students has found his voice in the virtual classroom. "Now he is a lot more vocal, sharing like crazy and occasionally with the whole classroom," Shier said. But despite some successes teaching online, "there is an overlying theme," she added. "It's how many times the children say they miss their friends. They want to go back to school." Shier wants all students to know that "the teachers want to go back, too."