April 22, 2021
One by one, students arrived at Lucerne Valley Elementary School this week. Before entering the campus, a staff member handed masks to students who needed one. They then had their temperatures checked as they made their way to their classrooms.
One of the first districts to reopen last August in a hybrid mode, the small district in Southern California’s high desert is now among the latest across the state where all 840 students through high school have the option to attend classes in person for five days each week.
Credit: Jennifer Molina/EdSource
Students outside Lucerne Valley Middle High School.
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Even in the most frustrating, hopeless, boring, grief-filled days of the pandemic, California families found slivers of joy.
In Los Banos, the Ruiz and Gutierrez family played indoor badminton and learned American Sign Language together. In the Lucerne Valley, 8-year-old Colton Reichow careened over the desert hills on his dirt bike and learned how to butcher a cow at his grandfather’s farm. In Los Angeles, Shari Abercrombie found a way to make math fun for her son with special needs.
And just about everyone in EdSource’s families project rediscovered the simple comfort of talking to each other. In the third installment of our year-long series “California Families Struggle to Learn,” on how families are coping with distance learning, we asked families for their bright spots: What’s helping them survive this most challenging of school years?