PINEHURST –– Students weren’t the only group of people who were excited to get back to school.

When schools abruptly let out earlier this year in March, with the exception of the graduating class, most students and staff were denied the sort of closure that comes with the regular wrapping up of a ‘normal’ school year.

Teachers were forced to suddenly figure out a way to navigate digital and remote teaching styles that were anything like what they had been doing prior and even the ones who found any sort of success still felt that they had let their students down.

At Pinehurst Elementary School, students have been broken into Purple and Gold groups where they have just 50% of their normal capacity at any given time.

Principal Mike Groves has been thrilled with the innovation that he has seen from his teachers as they navigate the current educational climate.

As Groves was making his daily rounds throughout the school, he came across his 3rd Grade Teachers, Mrs. Delgado, Ms. Beehner and Mrs. Stutzke, Mondays are Gold Days in the Kellogg School District so the Gold Day students were in attendance, each student in attendance had a Chromebook with a Google Meet session open with one of the Purple Day students.

“The teachers were covering material and asking questions of the students,” Groves recalled. “They would then ask ‘who would like to unmute and answer the question?’ All of their kids were participating in the lesson at the same time whether at home or in the classroom.”

Watching his staff use technology to overcome the obstacle of having just half of their classroom in physical attendance made Groves exceptionally proud and confident that he and his staff will still be able to make it through a year of school even if the current restrictions remain in place.

“With this kind of model, despite having students here only part-time we can still teach five days a week,” Groves said. “We've certainly had our growing pains with the new digital side but these folks have persevered and are making it work.”

Groves has also observed his staff banding together by grade and figuring out solutions that work for all of them so that they can operate on the same page, even if it requires that they work over the weekends to figure out these solutions.

“Dedication like this from our teachers as well as the support provided by our IT department is making this work to get us through this time when we can't have all kids at school,” Groves said proudly.