Lee County teachers back to school for first day amid pandemic

Reporter: Sydney Persing
Published: Updated:
Teacher Denise Castro prepares her classroom. (WINK News)

Lee County teachers are back in the classroom, ready to make a difference in your children’s lives.

It’s the first day of school for teachers in Lee County — a day they’ll never forget.

“It’s definitely a lot of emotions today,” said Alex Gonzalez, a fourth-grade teacher at Spring Creek Elementary School. “I’m excited to be back.”

“I’m really just nervous about being able to do my job well. I want to make sure the students feel safe and that they’re learning,” said Mary Jean Cooper, a first-grade teacher at Spring Creek Elementary School.

That’s what this most unusual and state-ordered return to school is all about: safety while learning.

“I realize there’s a lot of people out there who need us to be open,” said Cooper.

“We have a lot of students here who speak English as their second language and a lot of the students had difficulty with online learning,” Gonzalez said.

Online learning: To call it difficult would be an understatement for a lot of parents. Lee Home Connect Teacher Denise Castro knows there will be hiccups as she begins teaching her class online in two weeks.

“If something goes wrong over Zoom working if it’s not working and I can’t really do too much about it, and I’m kind of wasting their time,” she said.

But the lingering question for these teachers is what happens if they or one of their students gets sick? The Department of Education wants each district to check with the state first before ordering a quarantine.

“I think if we had a school-wide outbreak, I would probably feel safer at home,” Cooper said.

Most teachers in Lee County now know if they’ll teach in person, online or both. As for the number of students in each class, that’s still a work in progress.

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