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Ever wonder what it’s like to build a course schedule for a public high school? In Canyons District, we refer to this undertaking as “building a board,” which makes it sound like a parlor game. But the process of making sure the courses you offer align with the faculty members who are certified to teach those courses and with what students want or need to take in order to graduate, is more like piecing together a Spiderman puzzle with thousands of pieces that are all the same shade of red. It’s a heroic effort, it’s complicated, and in this pandemic year, the stakes are higher than ever. To accommodate the needs of students as they shift from online to in-person learning and back again, schools are having to rebuild their boards, not once, but several times.

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What’s the recipe for student success? Relationships, relationships, relationships. Call it a twist on the “three Rs,” but relationships are truly the foundation of all learning, from the time we are infants enthralled in a game of peek-a-boo to the mentors who influence our path through school, college and the workplace. To borrow an oft-quoted phrase:  Students don’t care what you know (about reading, writing or arithmetic) until they know how much you care. So, how can schools create the right conditions for relationships to flourish? According to Dr. David Allen Parker, they must intentionally work to build, through practice and discipline, “authentically inclusive” classrooms where each and every student, parent and staff member is accepted, celebrated and validated. Earlier this year, the consultant, storyteller and University of Utah professor conducted an authentic inclusion workshop with Canyons District counselors, therapists, nurses and school resource officers, and agreed to chat with us for a few minutes.

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This unique school year is giving student body organizations the opportunity to get creative and reach out to students in more meaningful ways. They’re leading by example, adopting new routines, and finding new ways to stage events and assemblies — and while the school year looks different from what they could ever have imagined, they’re willing to do what it takes to stay in school. As Brighton High student body president Will Rahaniotis puts it: “If I get to see my friends for six hours a day but I lose some of the fun activities, to me that’s worth it.” Listen to how they’re staying connected with their classmates, while also striving to help the District keep students safe and healthy.

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Midvalley Elementary Principal Tamra Baker arrived at school bright and early on Monday, Aug. 24 to make sure final preparations had been completed in time for an historic moment for her school community. It would be a day of firsts for Baker’s Jr. Huskies: The first day back at school since the COVID-19-related dismissal of schools five months ago, the first day of the school year, and the first day in a shiny new school that was completed just in time for classes to start. The usual first-day jitters, felt by students all across Canyons, were compounded by the fact that Midvalley Elementary students had never before set foot into their new building, and they had only been able to greet their new teachers via online meetings. But Baker strived to make sure the first-day events went off without a hitch.

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The right of a fair trial by a jury of one’s peers has taken on new meaning with the creation of Canyons District’s Peer Court. Peer courts, also known as youth or teen courts, are a diversion program where youth charged with minor offenses, such as vandalism or fighting, agree to come before a sentencing panel of their peers. Peer Court sentencing is geared toward holding students accountable for righting wrongs, repairing harms and restoring relationships. As an alternative to automatic expulsion, suspension, or referral to juvenile court, this type of sentencing aims to keep students connected to their school, to the caring adults who work there, and to their peers. The Canyons Peer Court will be the second in Utah sponsored by a school district and will hear its first cases this fall. We recently met some of the students who will be serving on the inaugural court panel during a training where they learned about the importance of their role and three important pillars of justice: empathy, compassion and equity.

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It’s been said that the world has reached peak disinfection as we work to rid our homes and workplaces of any trace of the COVID-19 virus. Indeed, the pandemic has heightened everyone’s interest in the many germ-fighting tools we have at our disposal. But public schools have always prioritized disease prevention, whether we’re talking about common colds and the flu or vaccine-preventable illnesses. So, what can our neighborhood schools teach us about the strategies that work best? How is COVID-19 different, and what extra precautions are schools taking as we look to resume classes in the fall? We recently caught up with Canyons District nurse Jennifer Gerrard and BJ Weller, Responsive Services Director for Canyons District, the department which, among other things, works to maintain safe, healthy learning environments in our schools.

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The COVID-19 health crisis has tested us all, and as the school year approaches, many of us are feeling uneasy about what the future holds. But over the past five months, scientists and medical professionals have learned a great deal about this disease and how to combat it — professionals like Dr. Brandon Webb. A Canyons District parent who works with the Division of Infectious Disease and Clinical Epidemiology at Intermountain Healthcare, Dr. Webb works with people who are sick with COVID-19 every day. When case counts started to rise in Utah, he says the medical community was feeling the same the sense of unease that educational professionals are feeling today. Fear comes in facing the unknown and in life there will always be circumstances we can’t control. The trick, according to Dr. Webb, is focusing on what we can control, and being personally responsible for doing what we know works to stop the spread of COVID-19, while being prudent, or taking care to anticipate and plan for all possible contingencies. Medicine, as you know, is a hands-on profession where physical distancing is not always possible. But by taking precautions and being cautious — keeping a distance when possible, wearing face coverings, and practicing good hand hygiene and disinfection techniques — Dr. Webb’s team safely treated the patients who came to them in their moment of need. They accomplished this in the highest-risk environment possible, and while achieving an astonishingly low transmission rate among caregivers. Canyons District’s new Superintendent Dr. Rick L. Robins recently had an opportunity to meet with Dr. Webb and talk about reopening schools.