Quarantined with the Principal

While we are almost at the two-month point of the partial province-wide lockdown, students are getting the swing of things while finishing their semester at home through digital classes, chatting to their teachers and classmates online while their parents try their best to supplement that education with some in-home learning.  

Now imagine if you’re parent also happens to be the principal of your school.

That's the case for Evann and Elliott, whose father Jay Steeves is the principal of Spruce View School, a K-12 school about 25 minutes west of Innisfail that holds about 300 kids.

Recently, his family went a little viral around the Chinooks Edge School District, after they produced a short video about their daily schedule where Steeves tries to make things as normal, and fun, for his kids as possible.

He and his two daughters proceed to emulate what a real school day looks like from their home, complete with a ride to school, the national anthem, morning announcements, lunch time, and recess, with his wife Crystal directing things behind the camera.

Steeves says it was their attempt to have some fun during a less than ideal situation, especially when he’s also busy trying to remotely run the entire school.

“It’s kind of a unique experience because I ultimately have the responsibility of the education for all 300 and some kids in our community as well, and try to make sure that my teachers are able to meet their needs…our learning curve is steep hear trying to figure out all the technology that goes on with this as well. And so I’m helping out with that behind the scene and then also helping out at home here trying to teach as well. It’s a bit of a challenge from my standpoint.”

However, he and his family are making the most of their time together.

“That good sense of humor and just that quality family time. I’ve been trying to stress it a little bit. Even in the video you can see it to we kind of mock it a little bit. But just the concept of getting up in the morning and trying to maintain some sort of routine and try to kind of have some focus with it, because there is naturally going to be some downtime, it’s not like kids are going to be focused on studies you know, 6 hours a day, so how to keep their focus that way too.”

For his daughter Evann who's in 7th grade, she says it makes them feel like they are back in school, with a few notable changes.

“It felt like we were replaying a regular school day: Get off the bus, go to the front door and he greets you. You go back in, unload at your locker and you go to class kind of thing. They do the national anthem, and just all this stuff, I’m so used to doing it in the regular school building. Of course, normally it’s more normal and my dad’s not wearing a tie and shorts.”

You can check out their Quarantined with the Principal video below.