• Sorrento during the COVID-19 Pandemic

    On March 13, 2020, the world began to shut down due to a new and dangerous virus spreading across the globe.  Parkway had just dismissed for spring break, and at the time, no one knew that we would not return to our school for several months.  At first, spring break was extended by one week.  It soon became evident that a longer closure was unavoidable.  District officials, school administrators, and teachers all rallied to create virtual learning environments for students so that learning and connection could continue remotely from home.  Teachers quickly learned how to load lessons into the "Schoology" platform and everyone learned how to use Google Meet (later, Zoom) to communicate face to face through their computers.  Getting Chromebooks to students (and for those in need, internet "hotspots") was a tremendous undertaking and after a few weeks of organizing, delivering, and training, the new "normal" began.  These times were hard and confusing, filled with great unknown.  Everyone was trying to figure out how to adjust to this new school experience, and everything else in life as well.

    The staff did their very best to keep learning happening, and most importantly, keep spirits up.  The principal made daily morning announcements from his basement and video messages for parents with updates on what was coming next.  Things were changing almost every day at Sorrento, in Parkway, and throughout the world.  At Sorrento, an online talent show was created to at least share in something fun at the end of the year. The Fifth-grade Clap Out and celebration took place through Zoom computer screens.  The retiring teachers were honored with cars honking in a drive-by parade as they stood in their front yards.  Everything was different that year and people showed great flexibility, understanding, and patience.

    In the fall of 2020, school did not begin as usual.  Students and teachers were again doing school from home and it wasn't until October 2020 before some students returned to their schools in Parkway.  Parents were given the option of having their students remain at home to learn virtually, or return to school in person wearing protective masks and practicing "social distancing."  At Sorrento, about 70% chose to return in person, and about 30% remained virtual.  Because of our small school size at the time (about 280 students) and the different choices by families, it became necessary to combine grade levels in some cases.  Kindergarten had two in-person classrooms and one virtual room that was shared with Oak Brook.  First grade had two in-person classrooms and one virtual room shared with River Bend.  Second and third grades combined to a multiage learning model and there were three in-person rooms and one virtual.  The same structure was in place for the fourth and fifth-grade classrooms.  The district's plans were changing almost daily at this very tumultuous time and getting communication out was a challenge.  For the first part of that year, the principal made almost daily videos for the staff with new changes and updates as there were no faculty meetings or any chance for the staff to be physically together.  Daily videos for the kids and families were also shared through email, Facebook, and Schoology each day in hopes of keeping the school community connected and updated.

    Ironically, this was the first year that a whole new faculty had started working at Sorrento.  In the previous year, the school re-hired the entire staff to design and launch a new model school for personlized learning.  The team was to develop the new model during the 2020-21 school year, then launch the new school in the fall of 2021.  Teachers (now called Learning Experience Designers, or LEDs) were trying to learn a new school, new families, and develop a new approach to learning, during the pandemic year.  The faculty was given the option by the principal to just put the new approach on hold until things returned more to normal, but the LEDs were adamant that they came to reimagine education and pushed to move forward with the new approach.  In hindsight, it was probably a good time to be reimagining education anyway and Sorrento was fortunate to have such innovative, adaptable, and risk-taking LEDs working together that year. 

    When in-person school resumed in October, it was done with a "hybrid" approach in which half the students in the class came on one day while the other half stayed home and worked "asynchronously."  Then the next day, the other half would come in person for their learning.  Everyone had "Virtual Mondays" and so school was only in person Tuesday through Friday.  Students only came to school two days per week in October through January.  It was so good when children and teachers were able to be together again for the first time in seven months. 

    Finally in January 2021, all the in-person students returned to school together from Tuesday to Friday each week.  Mondays remained virtual for everyone for the rest of the 2020-21 school year and remember, about 30% of the students chose to continue with virtual learning every day.  Masks were worn by everyone at school and social distancing was practiced as much as possible, which was not easy for young children.  In the cafeteria, extra tables were brought in to allow eaters to spread out more and plexiglass dividers were on the tables to hopefully provide some germ protection while people were eating without their masks on.  Eventually, students were allowed to remove their masks while playing outside if they stayed at a distance from other children.  Faculty meetings were all conducted through Zoom that year and teachers ate lunch in isolation in their rooms.  "Quarantining" was a common practice for anyone who had potentially been exposed to Covid and the quarantined individuals (students or staff) would be sent home for several days to watch for symptoms.  This created extreme challenges when it came to staffing as there were no substitute teachers allowed to go from building to building.  Sometimes, entire classrooms were quarantined and the whole group had to stay home, unless someone happened to be absent on the day of the possible exposure--they were allowed to continue at school and would join their group through Zoom.  The "contact tracing" was led by the assistant principal and the school nurse and took many hours each week to make determinations as to who would need to be quarantined and who could continue to be at school.  Teachers were doing their best to teach students in their rooms and students at home at the same time!

    The work of the teachers and parents that year was absolutely heroic. 

    At the end of the school year, a drive-thru parade took place to celebrate the end of the year.  Both virtual and in-person families decorated their cars and drove through the parking lot as staff members lined the sidewalks and waved to them.

    In the 2021-22 school year, parents were again given the option to remain virtual, but they would be a part of the "Parkway Virtual Campus" and would no longer be directly connected with their home schools.  Parkway's Virtual Campus Elementary (or VCE) was housed at two locations in the district.  Grades K through 2 were at McKelvey Primary, and grades 3 through 5 were housed in two extra classrooms at Sorrento that were divided into 8 cubicles where eight classroom teachers, a counselor, and an EL teacher worked online each day.  The Sorrento Assistant Principal, Jesse Burkett, served as the administrator for VCE in addition to his duties at Sorrento.  The virtual students also received their "specials" classes from the Sorrento music and art teacher who taught one day per week online.  A half-time PE teacher was hired to cover the virtual classes and she worked in the storage room behind the gym on the south side of the building.  Only one or two Sorrento families chose to remain virtual that year, so our Sorrento students and staff were finally fully reunited in person again.  Social distancing was still practiced at school and masks were still worn by all.  It wasn't until the spring semester 2022 when masks became optional, other than when the covid cases reached a certain rate, or there was a possible exposure.  The 2021-22 school year was filled with many challenges and some extreme moments of stress, but also a lot of excitement and promise.  This was the launch year for personalized learning at Sorrento, so even though the covid restrictions put a damper on daily school life and procedures, the learning opportunities the LEDs were providing students were meaningful, purposeful, and motivating.  The Sorrento staff of 2021-22 deserves a lot of credit for the incredible work they did under incredible hardships.    

    In the 2022-23 school year, enrollment in the virtual learning program was dwindling.  The entire VCE program was moved to Sorrento and Parkway had joined together with a few other neighboring districts to have a shared virtual campus where students could learn online.  This would be the final year Parkway offered an in-house virtual program for elementary students.  The in-person learning at Sorrento was growing.  Our school population had reached 300 students and masks were now optional for students and staff.  There were many achievement gaps to be filled after so many students had been away from the typical school experience for so long, but the staff and students worked hard to begin filling those gaps.  It wasn't easy though.  Children had been so isolated during their childhood that it took a lot of time and practice to build the social interaction skills that are needed to function in a group.  There were many social and emotional challenges, but with the guidance of a loving and determined staff, children began to make progress and each year afterward saw improvement.  While covid had an enormous impact on school and learning, what truly defined this era of the early 2020s at Sorrento was the shift to personalized learning and the exciting promise that it held for learners.  Visitors from other schools and districts were beginning to come to our school to observe our flexible learning spaces, co-teaching models, and innovative practices.  Be sure to visit the personalized learning page for more information.   

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    More videos depicting the circumstances of the Covid years: