Ovando students excel despite COVID-19 challenges

OVANDO – When Governor Steve Bullock announced his reopening plan Wednesday, April 22, he said that he has yet to talk to an educator in the state that feels their students are gaining during this time of remote learning. He obviously hadn't talked to the teachers at Ovando School.

Not only do teachers Leigh Ann Valiton and Andrea Tougas feel their students are gaining, they said they are excelling. While many schools grapple with the decision to reopen or not May 7, Ovando School finishes fourth quarter graduating an eighth grader and one kindergartner May 8.

Ovando School was just starting fourth quarter March 16, the first day of the Governor's statewide school closure issued March 15. Valiton, teacher of five, fifth-eighth grade students, and Tougas, teacher of two, kindergarten – fourth grade students and four preschoolers, met Monday. They put together the technology needed for each student including an iPad and laptop, a weekly list of assignments and gathered text books and workbooks.

By Wednesday, March 18 students had all the information they needed for remote learning and launched into new material for fourth quarter.

Blackfoot contacted the school and helped ensure that students had Internet access and enough access to facilitate remote learning from their home.

"The logistic side of things was already there and easy to implement," said Tougas.

The school board met with the teachers to create their plan for remote learning. Since Ovando School is on a four-day week, they discussed going to school on Fridays. This would shorten the school year in a time when families were sheltering in place anyway. With input from parents, they all agreed to five days of instruction.

Valiton and Tougas worked with the five families to create what the school day would look like remotely.

"We wake up, we go to school, you do your schoolwork, you have lunch, you get back to school and by 3 or 3:30 the day is done," said Tougas. "They are doing the work at home in a structured environment."

Tougas already used a lot of technology in the "little room" including Google Classroom on a daily basis. Switching to remote learning, she increased her use of Google Classroom and added a few platforms to access curriculum and enhancement exercises. She also implemented Google Hangout for interaction.

In the "big room," Valiton said she is not doing anything different with curriculum. She and the students meet on Google Hangout for their daily math, reading and social studies lessons. Spanish lessons are also online.

"Google Hangouts has been really good for us," said Valiton who meets daily with each student and as a group. "It really has worked well."

After the first week of remote instruction, Valiton and Tougas reached out to the parents for feedback.

"We wanted to make sure we weren't overwhelming families and students were having access to the curriculum that was working," said Tougas. "The only request was to keep doing it and give them more. They were moving through it at the same pace [as they would have in the classroom]."

Valiton added that bumping the end of the school year up to May 8 gave the students additional incentive to move forward.

The end of the week is now called "Friday Exchange." Valiton's students bring their completed work from the week and leave it in the plastic bin outside the school. Then they pick up the next week's materials and assignments. Valiton then grades assignments Friday and Saturday and returns them to their house over the weekend.

Tougas does not collect work. She does daily checks to make sure they are understanding concepts. They post their work and Tougas leaves comments and feedback daily, allowing them to correct when needed.

"We can't ensure testing security. Instead we are asking richer questions or more discussion questions that allows for book input, note use or parent support and we just take that into consideration," said Tougas. "Because of our small setting, we know where our students are coming from anyways so the assessments only help gather data. Through the daily work we kind of know right where they are."

The part time art teacher continued to provide lessons remotely once a month, ensuring students had access to supplies in the Friday Exchange. The school's librarian also offered lessons digitally.

Valiton has already sent progress reports with letter grades halfway through the quarter. Tougas is also using her standard grading system for the fourth quarter.

"Nothing has changed," said Valiton.

Tougas and Valiton agree that while they have had less discussion, they have done more work and covered more curriculum with five days a week. Unfortunately the students can't make up their annual May Day Tea, kindergarten and eighth grade graduations, track season or trip to Washington, D.C., all of which have been canceled.

"The kids have missed an awful lot at the end of the year," said Valiton. "It is just sad for them."

Tougas feels the quick, unified response from the teachers, board and parents and assistance from Blackfoot to ensure Internet capabilities helped them in their success. The board agreed to allow both Tougas and Valiton to work out of their classrooms, utilizing school resources, mainly Internet and keeping the janitor employed through the shutdown.

"Had I been asked to work from home, I would not have been able to reach out to my students in such a manner of live streaming Google Hangout," said Tougas. "The interactions on the Google platforms would have had to be slower just given our Internet capabilities at our homes. That is very fortunate at our facilities."

Tougas added that if even one family did not have Internet access or enough access to stream Google Hangouts, it would have significantly changed what they were doing.

Valiton recognized that having only five families in the school made a big difference. She said she could not imagine doing what they are doing in a larger school district.

"The school is kind of the heartbeat of the community and the parents support that view," said Valiton who has been working at the school in different capacities since 1993. "We've never ever had any situations with no support. At this point we have full support. Parents are making their children still toe the line."

Valiton added she is very thankful to have a younger person on staff that understands technology to help her out.

"We just go with the flow. That is what education is anyway, you just go with the flow," said Valiton. "We really feel very fortunate to be able to do what we are doing."