Secondary school students make long-awaited return to campus in Laguna Beach
The Laguna Beach Unified School District welcomed students back to its secondary school campuses Wednesday for the first time since distance learning began a year ago due to the coronavirus pandemic.
At Laguna Beach High School, students began arriving around 8:30 a.m. at three designated points of entry, where they had their temperatures checked before making their return to physical classrooms.
The district’s reopening plan called for hybrid learning to take place in cohorts, so about 350 students returned to campus Wednesday. A second group of a similar size will participate in in-person learning on Thursday.
Laguna Beach Principal Dr. Jason Allemann said about 200 of the district’s high school students remain in distance learning full time through the virtual academy.
Allemann was among those who welcomed students at the front entrance to the school near the Artists Theatre, along with a display of school pride in the form of several cheerleaders in uniform.
“You just can’t beat the energy of a high school campus with kids on it,” Allemann said. “It’s indescribable and it just keeps you young.”
Allemann sympathized with students regarding what they have lost over the last year, noting events such as modified graduation ceremonies for seniors and the loss of the traditional first day of school for freshmen.
“The resiliency of our young adults and their ability to be flexible and adapt to what’s been thrown at them over the last 12 months, I think that to me is the most empowering and warm feeling from the education perspective,” Allemann said.
In-person learning is resuming this week in the district after Orange County progressed from the most-restrictive purple tier to the red tier on Sunday. The district had originally planned to bring back students to its secondary schools — Laguna Beach High School and Thurston Middle School — late last November, but a purple tier assignment derailed those plans.
The hybrid learning protocols were on display in Dawn Hunnicutt’s classroom. Six students sat physically in the creative writing class, with others joining the class virtually. A tripod was set up on a front-row desk with a camera that livestreamed the lesson to those participating in the class online.
Signs with the words, “Desk is not available,” promoted physical distancing between the students in attendance. Masks were also worn by all in the classroom.
Austin Plank, 17, a junior, was hanging out with three classmates before the start of the school day. Social interaction is one of the things that those returning to the classroom said they were most looking forward to.
“I think it feels good just because I feel like I like being in a class more than online because you can actually form a relationship with the teachers,” Plank said before heading off to a multimedia production class.
Tim Wald, 49, dropped his freshman daughter, Savannah, off at school. He said the family recently transferred into the district from Irvine.
“It’s been tough socially, right, because she wants to make sure that she’s meeting people, so she’s super excited,” Wald said. “I think we’re all excited.”
Students were enrolled in two classes per trimester this school year. Allemann said that the school hopes to return to a more traditional class schedule next year.
Egan Butler, 14, said he landed somewhere in the middle regarding his thoughts on the two-classes-per-trimester format.
“I’m kind of neutral on it,” said Butler, who added that he will be studying English and Health to close out the school year. “I like how it kind of controls the maximum workload because then you can’t really get overloaded with just two classes, whereas if you had six online classes, you could really easily.”
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