Seward School District Administrators: Dr. Matt Dominy, Director of Curriculum and Staff Development, and Jill Johnson, SHS Vice Principal, who are both members of the Seward Rotary Club, presented a program on “How The Seward School District is Coordinating the Education Process and Dealing with the COVID-19 Virus.” The presentation was made at the recent Seward Rotary Club meeting via Zoom, a
cloud-based communications software, on April 15 th , 2020. Rotarian Todd LaVelle served as the program chair and coordinated the program. Prior to their presentation, SHS Senior Blair Souchek was introduced and honored as the April Youth Rotarian, and Rotary President Kurth Brashear conducted a short business meeting, complete with the Pledge of Allegiance, prayer, and recitation of the Rotary Four Way Test. Rotarian Mark Suhr hosted the Zoom meeting.
cloud-based communications software, on April 15 th , 2020. Rotarian Todd LaVelle served as the program chair and coordinated the program. Prior to their presentation, SHS Senior Blair Souchek was introduced and honored as the April Youth Rotarian, and Rotary President Kurth Brashear conducted a short business meeting, complete with the Pledge of Allegiance, prayer, and recitation of the Rotary Four Way Test. Rotarian Mark Suhr hosted the Zoom meeting.
Seward School District Administrators: Dr. Matt Dominy, Director of Curriculum and Staff Development, and Jill Johnson, SHS Vice Principal, who are both members of the Seward Rotary Club, presented a program on “How The Seward School District is Coordinating the Education Process and Dealing with the COVID-19 Virus.” The presentation was made at the recent Seward Rotary Club meeting via Zoom, a
cloud-based communications software, on April 15 th , 2020. Rotarian Todd LaVelle served as the program chair and coordinated the program. Prior to their presentation, SHS Senior Blair Souchek was introduced and honored as the April Youth Rotarian, and Rotary President Kurth Brashear conducted a short business meeting, complete with the Pledge of Allegiance, prayer, and recitation of the Rotary Four Way Test. Rotarian Mark Suhr hosted the Zoom meeting.
cloud-based communications software, on April 15 th , 2020. Rotarian Todd LaVelle served as the program chair and coordinated the program. Prior to their presentation, SHS Senior Blair Souchek was introduced and honored as the April Youth Rotarian, and Rotary President Kurth Brashear conducted a short business meeting, complete with the Pledge of Allegiance, prayer, and recitation of the Rotary Four Way Test. Rotarian Mark Suhr hosted the Zoom meeting.
Dr. Dominy opened the program and presented a timeline of how the School District of Seward handled the educational implications of the Corona-19 virus as it unfolded. On March 9, 2020, a scheduled SPS Staff Development day was revamped to focus on “How we best serve the students with a Distance Learning Program” in preparation of a possible school closure by the Governor. According to Dominy, staff members in the various buildings met to begin to “look at a plan and develop a strategy for online learning in every class situation.” He noted that the Seward School District was fortunate to have this advance plan time and as a result, the district could begin an online program of study and keep classes on schedule. Dominy felt the district was about three weeks ahead of many districts, as Seward Schools had a plan and the teachers were ready for this new mode of curriculum delivery.
When the school closed on March 16, Dominy stated that the teachers worked that day to finalize their eLearning transition plan and the entire district “went back to school with remote learning” on March 17th. He shared that a variety of tools are being used to connect students to information including Google Classroom, Screencastify, and Zoom. He stated, “We were on top of this distance learning process as we had the tech in place and the programs in progress. Remote learning was going to be happening at the School District of Seward and when the time came, we dove in and had the structure to make it all work and still keep the best practices of education in the forefront.”
Jill Johnson commented, “the teachers really stepped up to the challenge of creating eLearning classrooms that work best for their situation and content.” While it is different than if they had the students in face-to-face class, the new situation works. The school has sent home sewing machines, potter’s wheels, books, small engines, plants, and a variety of other materials that students may need to continue their learning and complete assignments.
She pointed out that the entire aspect of social interaction is also a very important component, and the staff is doing their best to ensure students feel connected to the school. Johnson noted the school counselors have worked hard to Zoom with students to address social and emotional issues as a result of this new learning environment. She praised SHS counselor, Noelle Baker, for creating and hosting an ongoing evening Trivia Tournament via Zoom that has become very popular with students to help keep spirits high.
Dominy shared that “high stakes testing” by the Department of Education has been waived for this school year, including the ACT test, which serves as the Nebraska state assessment for high school juniors. Dominy hoped the state would offer juniors a voucher to take the test for free at a later date. The School District of Seward is still grading all student work. The teachers use PowerSchool Gradebook, a software program that allows the parents and students to see the student’s grades. PowerSchool continues to help promote work being completed on time and alerts the parents that a student may need extra support to complete an assignment.
Dominy noted that paraprofessionals continue to work and serve the district through custodial and maintenance positions. The additional maintenance and custodial employees has allowed the School District of Seward to get a head start on cleaning the rooms and begin some much needed remodeling in area bathrooms and selected facilities at each campus. Teachers are working from home, however, the school secretaries, administration, and counselors are in the school buildings to continue to monitor a variety of situations and issues. Spring sports and activities have been cancelled per the Nebraska School Activities Association.
Dominy noted that the school district continues to serve approximately 70 hot lunches each day at the high school in a drive by pick-up program. The service also includes a breakfast component for the next morning. He noted that the school also distributes about 45 backpacks each week provided by the Kiwanis Club, including delivering some through the school bus program. Dr. Dominy made special note to thank the food service employees for their dedication and commitment to provide this vital service.
Youth Rotarian Blair Souchek, an SHS Senior, commented that the biggest drawback of online learning is that the students really miss seeing each other in person, but she enjoys all of her online classes. She said it is different but still very interesting. She also spoke on the challenge of coordinating her online classes and her employment schedule at the hospital, but felt it is all coming together and working out. Blair also commented that the PowerSchool Gradebook program has kept her up to date on her assignments and grades, and she thanked all of the teachers and administrators who are working so hard to make this education process happen as smoothly as possible.
Jill Johnson commented that the SHS seniors have been forced to miss milestones with the COVID-19 pandemic as they had their Prom, state and national conferences, and the spring sports and music events cancelled. She said SHS seniors were invited in five minute increments to stop at SHS in cap and gown for a photo and video shoot with their diploma that will be developed into a graduation program to be aired on Striv TV on May 10th at 2:00 p.m . She also announced that the goal is to have a traditional graduation ceremony at SHS for the Class of 2020 on August 1 st , 2020 at 10:00 a.m. That is the first day the Governor has declared graduations can proceed.
Johnson went on to share that SHS Honors Night, announcing all of the scholarships and awards for the Class of 2020 would air on Striv TV on May 5th at 7:00 p.m. She noted that “Seward High had a special yard sign printed and personally placed in each seniors’ front yard to remind them of how proud we are of them.”
Matt Dominy addressed the security issues with Zoom and felt that the School District of Seward has done a great job of keeping security measures in place and the security is working, with credit given to our outstanding IT team of Craig Williams and Nathan Buss.
A question and answer time followed.
Dominy noted that one silver lining of this journey is that “we now know we can put an effective online education program into place.” SPS is examining how they can incorporate the program to assist with student absences and other times when students will be home and out of the normal school settings.
Both Matt Dominy and Jill Johnson expressed sincere appreciation to all involved with the new educational eLearning scenario, with a special thank you to the teachers, students, parents, support staff, administration, and good people of the Seward School District, who all made this a total team effort that is working well for the School District of Seward.