Gregory Heights Elementary School
16201 16th Avenue SW Burien, WA 98166

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Hybrid Continues

Hybrid Continues

It is almost one year to the day since the pandemic closed our school buildings to students, staff and families. Today we welcomed back Pre-K, kindergarten and first-grade students, as well as students in our IAC program in grades K-12 across the district.

Superintendent Susan Enfield comes to you from Gregory Heights Elementary, one of her many school visits as students returned for hybrid learning.  She shares how it went today and what comes next.


Transcript 

[MUSIC PLAYING] He just kept on singing his song.

(SINGING) My buttons, my buttons, my button, my one groovy buttons. My buttons, my buttons--

Hello, Highline. Hard as it is to believe, today marks almost one year to the day that we had to close our schools to students, staff, and families. That's why the fact that I am coming to you today from Gregory Heights Elementary, where we have been able to welcome back our pre-K students, kindergarten students, and first grade students in our hybrid model, along with students across the district in our IAC programs is so, so special.

I want to take a moment to thank everybody who helped make this possible, our staff, from our teachers to principals, to office staff, custodians, bus drivers. Everybody played a part in making it possible for our students and families who chose to return to do so. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. The smiles on the faces of our students and staff, I can tell you right now it was worth it.

And I know that our middle and high school students are wondering when they may be able to come back into their school buildings for some kind of in-person interaction and instruction, and we are working on that right now. We will be reaching out to our secondary staff and families in the coming weeks to see who prefers to remain in distance learning and who would like to return to their school buildings. And then we will figure out what kinds of opportunities for in-person we can provide for our middle and high school students. So just know that's coming.

So I'll end with this. The last year has been incredibly hard. We can all agree on that. And I remain so grateful for how we as a community continue to come together, even in the hard times, to make sure that we supported one another but mostly our children. Our students relied on us to make this happen, and we did.

So thank you, Highline. I look forward to seeing many of you in person soon, from a distance, with a mask. But until then, stay safe, stay strong, stay healthy.