Ready or not, back-to-school season is coming. Here’s opening info about local districts
As collective U.S. rituals go, August back-to-school preparations are some of the most ubiquitous and, perhaps, some of the most dreaded. Thousands of families across Pierce County will head to retail stores like Walmart and Target; 64-color Crayola sets might spark kids’ imaginations of what they could draw over the next nine months, and TI-89 calculators might remind them of all the math equations they have forgotten.
This year’s festivities combine familiarity with novelty. For students entering a grade above second, 2022-2023 will mark the fourth school year impacted by COVID. Out of necessity, terms like mask mandates, personal protective equipment and rapid tests have become common nomenclature to students and their families.
But thanks to the virus’s refusal to stop mutating and replicating itself, parents once again enter this period with a litany of concerns they would not have had five years ago. What should I do if my child’s classmate has COVID? What type of mask should I send with my kid to school? How many backup masks should I pack in their lunchbox?
Answers to COVID questions
Some of these answers can be found in the Center for Disease Control and Infection’s back-to-school guide; most Pierce County school district representatives the newspaper spoke with cited it and the Washington State Department of Health guidelines as their road maps for the upcoming school year. Still, there are some questions parents might have that will remain unanswerable until schools face the situations; for instance, no one knows what COVID will be like in the winter months.
“We’ve been facing unpredictable circumstances and unpredictable rules,” Shawn Lewis, the Steilacoom Historical School District’s executive director of planning and communication, said in a phone call with the newspaper. “That’s never going to be an easy situation for adults or children.”
Despite concerns, Pierce County school districts are optimistic about adapting to unexpected obstacles this school year. Lewis said district administrators are confident that it has developed ways to address new problems, and he feels confident that everyone is better prepared.
Thomas Seigel, the Bethel School District superintendent, told The News Tribune that if all goes well, 2022-23 will be the first complete school year since 2018-19 in which all of the district’s intended in-person classes are held in-person. Most of 2021-22 classes were held in their intended format, but classes started out virtually last fall.
“I’ve asked that we start slowly,” Seigel said. “Have a chance for everybody to reestablish relationships. We had kids that basically lost two years.”
New programs
Even in an environment dominated by continuous COVID concerns, both Lewis and Seigel were excited about upcoming projects. Seigel noted that Bethel was in the process of an expansion project for its chapter of Running Start, a program throughout Washington State that allows students to earn an associate’s degree by the time they graduate high school.
For students who want to become health professionals, Bethel aims to help these students earn Bachelor’s degrees two years out of high school at no cost. The project is far from set in stone and would need assistance from the state Legislature, but Seigel hopes that it could be implemented as soon as fall 2023.
“That way you can crank out people into medical careers faster,” he said. “You know they’re gonna be guaranteed employment, and they’re gonna be paid well.”
At Steilacoom, Lewis said that teachers and administrators participated in trainings that taught about the neurology behind child learning and development. Lewis is hopeful that these classes will translate in a teaching practices reflective of the latest science.
“I think our teachers are going to be implementing our neural education program with greater emphasis on meeting every student’s needs,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting.”
Tacoma/Pierce County School District Information
Note: Most Pierce County school districts anticipated increases in school enrollment in the coming weeks. The following numbers are the latest projections for each school district during the week of August 15.
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 27,575
▪ Start date: September 8, 2022 (kindergarten starts September 13)
▪ End date: June 23, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 22,450
▪ Start date: September 7, 2022 (kindergarten starts September 12)
▪ End date: June 22, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 20,433
▪ Start date: September 6, 2022 (kindergarten starts September 9)
▪ End date: June 23, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 12,174
▪ Start date: August 31, 2022 (kindergarten starts September 6)
▪ End date: June 15, 2023
Sumner-Bonney Lake School District
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 9,596
▪ Start date: September 6, 2022 (kindergarten starts September 9)
▪ End date: June 21, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 8,475
▪ Start date: August 31, 2022 (kindergarten starts September 6)
▪ End date: June 21, 2023
Franklin Pierce School District
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 7,370
▪ Start date: August 30, 2022 (kindergarten starts September 6)
▪ End date: June 22, 2023
University Place School District
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 5,470
▪ Start date: August 30, 2022
▪ End date: June 16, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 4,349
▪ Start date: September 1, 2022
▪ End date: June 14, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: unavailable, according to the school district.
▪ Start date: September 1, 2022
▪ End date: June 16, 2023
Steilacoom Historical School District
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 3,000
▪ Start date: September 1, 2022
▪ End date: June 16, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 2,595
▪ Start date: September 1, 2022 (kindergarten starts September 7)
▪ End date: June 16, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 1,800
▪ Start date: September 7, 2022
▪ End date: June 16, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 1,370
▪ Start date: September 6, 2022 (kindergarten starts September 9)
▪ End date: June 16, 2023
▪ Projected 2022-23 enrollment: 180
▪ Start date: August 31, 2022
▪ End date: June 15, 2023
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the start and end dates for Tacoma Public Schools. School starts Sept. 8 (kindergarten Sept. 13) and ends June 23.
