Hollidaysburg Area High School Marching Band drum line members perform during practice at the high school on Sept. 2, 2020. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series looking back five years at the COVID-19 pandemic.

When then-Altoona Area High School senior Addyson “Addy” Burchfield heard there would be a two-week break from school in March 2020, she didn’t think much of it.

But when that temporary break turned into the rest of the academic year, Burchfield realized it would be more impactful than she, or anyone else in education, ever imagined.

Burchfield first heard of the coronavirus as a “whisper” among her friends.

“We didn’t know what to expect,” she said, adding that halfway through the first week, “we still said ‘no way we won’t graduate.'”

But as schools closed and remained closed, the reality of her situation began to sink in.

“It was definitely a difficult adjustment, being halfway through senior year, people were having a hard time adjusting,” she said.

That came at a critical time for Burchfield’s classmates, as many of them were gearing up to take SAT and ACT exams that are crucial for college admissions.

The remainder of her school year was challenging, as many facets of student life were dramatically disrupted, she said.

“We did everything online. Prom, extracurricular activities all went away,” Burchfield said.

Burchfield, who was the 2020 class salutatorian, gave her salutatory speech to an empty gym where there should have been hundreds of classmates and cheering family members.

“It was surreal,” Burchfield said, “it was an anticlimactic ending in a way … it was disappointing, like graduation is supposed to be something for you to look forward to through all of high school.”

Her first semester of college at Penn State University in fall 2020 wasn’t much different, Burchfield said, as her classes were mostly online so she was confined to her dorm most of the week.

It definitely wasn’t what she had expected, she said.

Her sophomore year felt like what her freshman year should have been, Burchfield said, as she and her fellow classmates were eager to take advantage of the relaxed social distancing restrictions to make up for lost time both academically and socially.

“Everyone was just excited to meet and chat, excited to make friends and have this exploratory social phase,” Burchfield said.

Adjusting to in-person classes again after nearly two years online was tough, Burchfield said.

Many students like Burchfield had to relearn essential study skills and find new motivation for school.

“Getting back in the classroom was hard. … I definitely feel like I lost a bit of that focused, academically minded person,” she said.

Even now, a fresh college graduate living in Pittsburgh working at her new job in finance, Burchfield said that she still experiences the lasting changes from the pandemic.

“That period of my life definitely shaped me as a person. I’m definitely a more adaptable person, but looking at the big picture, more appreciative,” Burchfield said.

A huge transition

As an educator with more than 20 years of experience working with elementary students, Michelle Berkhimer knows the level of personalized instruction students need to succeed.

When Baker Elementary moved to online education in March 2020, it was a huge transition for both Berkhimer and her class of fourth graders.

In order to give her kids the most continuity possible under the difficult circumstances, Berkhimer hurried to transition her science, math and social studies lesson plans online.

“Our students are used to learning in the classroom, so (moving everything online) was kind of rushed,” she said.

There was a definite learning curve with the new format, Berkhimer said, as many of her students relied on face-to-face instruction when they got stuck during a lesson.

“It was harder to deliver the curriculum and meet student needs and to monitor their progress,” Burkhimer said.

The inability to pull students aside to help them with their individual questions was a constant struggle, she said.

Her science and social studies lessons were easier to conduct online, as they generally had more engaging materials for the students than math, Berkhimer said.

Berkhimer began to pull students into breakout individual video calls after the school day in order to ensure she could address all of the questions she could not cover during the day.

“I was actually very surprised, they did an amazing job, the number of students that were able to keep up with the curriculum,” she said.

Her students’ innate level of tech familiarity proved useful, Berkhimer said, as it helped them acclimate to the online learning platform without much difficulty.

“Everything happened so fast,” Berkhimer said. “It was a two-week break, then it seemed like the year just ended.”

The lack of closure in not being able to say goodbye to her students at the conclusion of the school year was hard, Berkhimer said.

When she returned to in-person instruction in the fall, it was another period of transition.

She said it was a process for her students to adapt to the structure and time constraints of the classroom when compared to the more free-flowing pace of virtual instruction.

Meeting her students’ emotional needs, and explaining the risks of the coronavirus, were two of her top concerns.

“We just emphasised ‘school is a safe place’ and that wearing your mask was to keep you and your classmates safe,” Berkhimer said. “It was a bit harder to explain to them because they’re young, and a lot of them were scared.”

According to Berkhimer, the pandemic period drove her to “pivot and dig deep” to find new, engaging ways to deliver the curriculum while still caring for her students’ individual needs.

“I will never take for granted face-to-face (instruction) and just how important that is for building a relationship with your students.”

All-hands-on-deck approach

As the largest public school district in Blair County, and one of the largest educational institutions in the region, Altoona Area School District is a de facto community leader.

So when the coronavirus struck, the district sprung into action, coordinating a response to protect its more than 7,000 students and hundreds of staff.

According to Superintendent Brad Hatch, the district needed to be flexible and reactive to brave the first phase of the pandemic, managing the early transition to online education in March 2020.

It took an all-hands-on-deck “team approach” to ensure everything ran smoothly, Hatch said.

“We had to react to the current situation, and we had to prepare for what might happen,” he said, noting that the long-term progression of the pandemic was uncertain in the early days.

Thankfully, Hatch said, the district was already on its way to implementing a program to give personal devices to every student in the district, so the basic infrastructure for the transition to Google Classroom was mostly in place.

“We were in a position to be able to adjust in light of the pandemic,” Hatch said. “We had systems in place that … made the transition a possibility.”

Another important part of the early response was keeping everyone in the district informed with day-to-day developments, Community Relations Director Paula Foreman said.

With the degree of uncertainty and constantly updated guidelines on safety procedures, keeping everyone in the AASD community on the same page with accurate information was paramount, she said.

Hatch credits Foreman and the district’s “really great” technology department for maintaining the lines of communication with the public.

Altoona Area, like every other school district in the country, received a direct cash infusion from the federal Department of Education to sustain essential payroll and expenditures during this period through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund established by the Education Stabilization Fund through the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act in 2020.

Altoona received a total of $41,838,530 through three rounds of funding, Foreman said.

At the time, some community members were “not thrilled” by the masking and other safety mandates imposed on the district, he said.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Hatch said, “and looking back now, the reality is people were dying, everyone was touched in some way.”

The students themselves often bore the weight of the pandemic, Hatch said, with many students reporting depression and anxiety over this period.

To combat this, the district worked with school psychologists, teachers and third-party mental health specialists to provide a wide variety of support options for students who were struggling.

“We were actively trying to meet (student mental health needs) at all hours of the day,” Hatch said.

According to Hatch, one of the lessons the district learned from the pandemic is the importance of flexibility.

That importance became apparent over the pandemic, when AASD teachers had to move their lesson plans online and adapt to a new style of teaching, he said, and students needed to adapt to changing conditions as the pandemic progressed.

“We have to meet people where they are,” Hatch said.

Adapting to change

Students with an Individualized Education Program use a wide variety of services in addition to regular in-class instruction, including physical therapists, vision support and behavioral counseling, among others, which are often critical to their success in school.

The arrival of the pandemic in March 2020 disrupted the delivery of many of these services, which are primarily conducted in-person, according to Appalachia Intermediate Unit 8 Chief Education Officer Amy Woomer.

According to Woomer, it was a “great challenge” to adapt to the constraints necessitated by the pandemic.

“Despite the fact that IU8 had been offering virtual educational services through our World of Learning program, the division of Educational Programs and Services (that provides) special education supports and services to learners ages 3-21 were in-person, face-to-face,” Woomer said. “This division did not have the structure in place to be able to quickly respond to such a drastic change in how we served our learners.

It took a coordinated effort from technology support staff, program supervisors and teachers to ensure that their students had the online resources available when traditional in-person instruction was not feasible.

IU8 returned to in-person instruction for preschool students in fall 2020 and worked with individual school districts to determine when their respective students could return to their usual instruction method throughout the remainder of 2020 and 2021, Woomer said.

“It also is important to recognize these tremendous efforts were given while all were personally navigating the circumstance of this pandemic on themselves and their families,” she said.

The pandemic forced IU8 to “embrace a new ideal of education and services.”

“They say the mother of invention is necessity, and the pandemic placed us all in a position to re-think and re-imagine teaching and learning under extreme conditions. I believe we learned a lot about ourselves and our profession from the pandemic and the challenges it presented,” Woomer said. “Mostly, I am left with pride in our organization and its people, who are incredibly capable, resilient and dedicated to their profession and serving others.”

The challenges in special education over the pandemic were felt across the public/private divide.

According to Soaring Heights Altoona/Johns­town Executive Director Amanda Boland, her staff worked to provide a wealth of online and physical resources to their students when the pandemic reached the region in March 2020.

Soaring Heights Schools is a private academic intuition that offers educational and behavioral programming for students up to 21 years old who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and/or need emotional support services.

Staff worked with students to provide virtual services and clinical support on platforms like Google Classroom and BlueJeans.

For students who were not able to access the online resources, Soaring Heights provided them alternative physical resources in order to stay on track with their skills, Boland said.

“(Online education) was a challenge due to the level of needs our students have. Online learning is not ideal for any student; however, when you provide it to special education students, it does make it more difficult,” Boland said.

Despite the inherent hurdles with the delivery method, Boland’s faculty jumped in and took initiative to provide their students with the best level of education they could virtually.

Soaring Heights returned to in-person instruction during their Extended School Year program in June 2020.

According to Boland, Soaring Heights gained the flexibility and expertise to use online educational resources from its experience over the pandemic, but face-to-face interaction is still their preferred method.

“In-person learning is the way our students learn best, and it allows them to gain skills both inside and outside of the classroom,” Boland said.

‘Whole universe shifted’

Since the institution was founded by the Religious Sisters of Mercy in 1853, Mount Aloysius College has relied on its Catholic values of mercy, justice, hospitality and service, according to President John McKeegan, all of which were put to the test when the pandemic reached Cambria County in March 2020.

According to McKeegan, one of his first priorities when it appeared that spring break in March would become a much longer shutdown was to move quickly to adopt online technology to ensure the “uniformity” of the student academic experience.

That took immense flexibility from both students and staff, he said, as many of the Mount’s class offerings relied on in-person instruction, especially their variety of health care programs.

“It was really disruptive for our students who were doing clinical internships out in the community,” he said.

The disruption was felt across the entire campus, McKeegan said, as every program had to reevaluate how to deliver their curriculum remotely.

“It’s like the whole universe shifted,” he said.

When the semester ended, there was no in-person commencement. Students instead participated in a muted online program in lieu of the traditional jubilant fanfare.

Over the summer, the college’s administration team met to figure out the best approach to the fall semester, which would incorporate more in-person elements in accordance with updated state guidance, McKeegan said.

That included converting many public, and outdoor, spaces into ad hoc classrooms to ensure proper social distancing requirements and mandatory contact tracing efforts for all students, he said.

McKeegan and his team of school leaders relied on the mercy values during this period, he said.

“We really focused on how this was an opportunity to respond with a sense of service, mercy and hospitality, and our community’s willingness to live those values helped us tremendously,” McKeegan said.

At the same time, the administration was intent on maintaining positive channels of communication with this community, according to Sam Wagner, vice president for marketing and communications.

The Mount walked a fine line between being too pessimistic and dark with being too cheery and upbeat, Wagner said. Because so many people looked to the school leadership for guidance during this time, it was critical to keep a cool head and strike a balanced tone in official communications.

That emphasis on the institution’s fundamental values helped ensure public buy-in, McKeegan said.

When the school had to communicate the necessity of masking, contact tracing and social distancing, they focused on a value-based messaging strategy.

“Masking became a volatile issue nationally, so we asked people to comply out of a sense of our mercy values, not just because it’s an order from D.C.,” McKeegan said.

Leading with empathy for students and staff was essential to the overall effectiveness of the mitigation effort and subsequent recovery process.

“People want to be taken seriously, to have their voices heard … just to show concern for people going through a hard time and sharing their personal reactions,” he said.

McKeegan is still grateful for the trust shown by the Mount’s community during this difficult time, and for how the school persevered in the face of difficult circumstances.

“A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not why ships are built,” McKeegan said. “Life itself is a risk proposition.”

Across the driveway from the Administration Building on the college’s Cresson campus stands the Grotto, a monument built in 1918 to honor the work of the Sisters of Mercy in caring for patients during the national influenza epidemic.

The Grotto serves as a physical reminder of the struggle, survival and indelible societal change from that time, McKeegan says.

It remains to be seen what marker, whether physical or immaterial, will commemorate the coronavirus pandemic.