School resumes on islands
Students returned to The Sanibel School on Aug. 10, kicking off the start of a new year.
Principal Jamie Reid explained that while students last year were given the choice of face-to-face instruction or virtual learning, all of the island school’s youths have returned to the classroom.
“We are thrilled to see our students back for face-to-face learning this year, and welcome back many of our students who were doing virtual learning last year,” she said. “Lots of happy faces.”
Currently, approximately 270 students are enrolled at the school.
“Happy to see so many new families join us for the 2021-22 school year,” Reid added.
She reported that the first week ran smoothly.
“For the most part, students behaved like they never left school for the summer,” Reid said, noting that they walked quietly in the halls, listened and followed the routines like moving through the cafeteria.
Many of the safety protocols implemented last year due to the ongoing pandemic remain in place, including frequent hand washing and hand sanitizing, physical distancing in the classrooms, one-way halls, assigned seating, tiered dismissal process, and frequent cleaning of highly touched surfaces.
“We will follow district guidelines to ensure the safety of our students,” she said.
One change is the wearing of masks, which families can opt out of.
“We are following the Lee County School District’s safety mandates of requiring mask wearing while inside, but allowing families to opt out of masks if they submit the district opt-out form,” Reid said.
“This is a district change,” she added.
Based on what she has seen, Reid estimated that over 75 percent of the youths are wearing one.
“Most of our students are wearing masks and most of our staff are,” she said.
The school has put in place programs and strategies to support the students’ emotional well-being.
“We value our academic progress, but also recognize many students needing additional social emotional support,” Reid said. “Some of them are things we did last year, but we’re just making sure we do it better.”
The middle-schoolers will take part in a mentoring class each week, where they will spend time with the mentor teacher and talk about how to be successful in school, while building a support system. For the first two weeks of school, the six through eighth grades will meet daily with their mentor teacher.
She explained that the school counselor will also do a “lunch bunch,” where she will sit with different small groups of students to eat and talk. The counselor will also teach mental health in the classes.
“She’s going into classrooms,” Reid said.
On the topic of academic progress, the school has received its test scores from last year.
“The Sanibel School prevailed, despite the pandemic, scoring as the number one school in the district in every category,” she said. “Our scores were also among the top 5 percent in the state.”
As a nationally-recognized Blue Ribbon School, Sanibel’s students are known to excel.
“We always do well compared to the rest of the district. However, I really had my doubts because it was a struggle, particularly with students doing virtual learning,” Reid said. “For those kiddos, I was really concerned we would see some declines.”
The school does progress monitoring throughout the year, so she was “cautiously optimist.”
“We did pretty comparable to what we did when we took it (state tests) two years ago. That is just amazing,” Reid said. “I just pat everybody on the back. I’m really really thrilled.”
As for this year, the school has a couple new faculty faces, including middle-school reading teacher Rachel Stokes, middle-school intervention specialist Paul Warren and speech pathologist Anna Hosner.
The school plans to continue with its “Leader in Me” initiative, which is based upon Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highlight Effective People” and is used as a program in both schools and businesses.
“We’ve done it for a number of years now. It’s basically developing our students into leaders,” she said, adding that they take responsibility for their own learning, learn to lead, set personal goals and more.
Also this year, the school will continue to develop its STEM program.
Reid explained that STEM teacher Kelly Johnson attended additional training at the end of last year in robotics, computer programming and more, and intends to bring that knowledge into the classroom.
“She’s hoping to add some of her new learning and share that with the students,” she said.
The school has also added advanced programs, such as Cambridge, for its higher performing middle-schoolers. In one area, students will investigate and discuss global topics, with related assignments.
“I think our Sanibel students can really run with it,” Reid said.
In addition, the school has re-enacted its safety patrols in the outdoor spaces and re-enacted the recycling club. There is also the creation of a new art club in works, with its members to take part in school beautification projects. An art teacher interested in the environment is spearheading that.
“I know it’s going to be centered around some environmental projects,” she said.
While the situation with the pandemic remains fluid, Reid is hopeful for the year.
“I’m very optimist about this school year, even though we still have safety protocols,” she said. “We know how to do this; we’ve been successful. In the worst-case scenario, we will tighten up.”
“We’re going to make it happen,” Reid added. “And the kids have really gotten off to a great start.”
For more information, call the school at 239-472-1617 or visit sbl.leeschools.net.
The Sanibel School is at 3840 Sanibel-Captiva Road, Sanibel.