Schools have started to reopen around California but are still taking safety measures so that all their students are safe. During this transition, Rosemont Middle School held their annual Open House over Zoom, and it was a new and fresh experience for everyone.
The Open House was held on March 25 from 5:45 – 7:30 P.M. Parents and students were encouraged to hop- on to each link corresponding to the teachers that the students have. For the first 15 minutes, all parents joined a Zoom for an opening webinar. The school’s principal, vice-principal, and counselors explained what would happen in the next few hours and how to join each link. Soon enough, all the parents and students joined another Zoom for the first class, which was History. Each period was set up for fifteen-minute increments where the teachers talked about what the students had learned so far and what they would be taught in the last quarter of the year. This was repeated six times for the six different periods that all the students go through each day.
Teachers presented their information in different ways. For example, some teachers created presentations just like they would when they taught their students. They brought up an agenda and passed out activities for the parents to do themselves, with affiliate links they could go to. One math teacher sent parents and students a link to an interactive workspace where parents had to answer questions just like their students have to do each day. Another teacher used a popular website, Kahoot, to “quiz” the parents in the exact way she would her students. Most teachers also used a Google Slides presentation or a Powerpoint to go over the topics that needed to be touched upon.
7th-grade science teacher, Erin Lynch, explained, “Open House via Zoom went remarkably well. I was afraid that parents would have a hard time going from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting every fifteen minutes, but they seemed to have no problems. While not nearly as much fun as Open House in person, it was still great to see the parents’ and the students‘ faces together and be able to share some student work with them.” She then explained the negative aspects, stating, “Pros–parents don’t have to rush over to school after a long day of work and walk around to all the classrooms… I usually love Open House, as I can set up some activities for the students and their parents to do and start a lovely conversation about the science of the activity. Students and parents are also free to wander to whichever classes they want to visit, in whatever order they wish to pursue. All of that said, Zoom Open House was hugely preferable to no Open House. It was great to touch base with the parents even if it wasn‘t in person.”
