AUSTIN (KXAN) —Despite a global pandemic, teachers have gone above and beyond this year to make sure their students continue to get an education.
Each teacher has their own way of keeping kids engaged which is important especially when many kids have been learning away from the classroom.
Gianna Altanero, a first-grade student at Becker Elementary School in the Austin Independent School District, has been learning virtually since the pandemic first shut down schools. She hasn’t seen many of her friends aside from Facetime or Zoom meetings.
“It is real tough on them,” said her father David Niegsch.
David tries to make things as normal as possible for his daughter, but sometimes the situation can be hard for a child to understand, he said.
Paloma Gonzalez, Altanero’s teacher, is doing everything she can think of to interact with her students and see how they’re feeling.
“We have a slide with different emojis and different numbers how they are feeling and then they share that with me,” Gonzalez said.
She checks on her students every day, and one day, she noticed something was wrong with her.
“She started crying, she started bawling, she was very sad. She said she was sad because she wasn’t at school and she missed her friends and her teacher,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez asked Niegsch if she could stop by their home for a patio meet-up.
“I expected her to come by for 15 or 20 minutes, but she ended up staying an hour with my daughter that day,” Niegsch said.
The two spent that hour connecting, looking over some classwork and playing a few games on the iPad. It was an interaction with her teacher Gianna hadn’t had in a while.
“She missed that,” said Gonzalez. “Having that time to connect and I spent that time at her house and just talked and laughed. And to see an entire body and entire person. It was different and I think it helped her.”
Gonzalez has stopped by all her students’ homes. She says with the pandemic keeping people separated, it is nice to have some interaction with her classroom — wearing masks and social distancing, of course.
Becker Elementary Principal Travis Barrett says teachers like Gonzalez are making a difference during these tough times. He says there are other teachers at the school doing visits similar to what Gonzalez is doing.
“The staff is amazing. They have been bending over backward for our teachers and students and that has been amazing to see,” Barrett said.
While Altanero and Gonzalez only spent an hour together, it meant the world to her.
“Thank you for being my teacher,” Altanero said.
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