THUNDER BAY — Teachers at a city separate school want their students to know they are thinking of them, and are just as anxious as they are to get back to the classroom with all their friends.
"We miss you. Dance and be kind," says a message tagged to the end of the video.
Staff at Holy Cross Catholic Elementary School took up school principal Flora Jedruch's suggestion that they produce a dance video to help motivate and cheer up the children.
About 15 teachers contributed segments, which they recorded at their own homes. Many included their own family members.
"We are so disconnected from our students. We've heard from some of them through Google Classroom. They've wanted to know when they're going back to school, if there's any homework they could be doing," teacher Nina Morrow told Tbnewswatch.
Morrow said a number of teachers have reached out to students by email or phone, "trying to give them some encouragement to continue, maybe review the work we've done, giving them math challenges or other things they could do at home to make things fun."
The video, she said, helps to remind the children to stay physically active while their normal activities are disrupted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It's really important to keep our bodies healthy...and we just wanted to let them know we're in the same spot they are in, and we're thinking about them. We want them to stay home, stay healthy," Morrow said.
When she checked on the response to the video Monday morning, she was surprised to see 21,000 views on the school's Facebook page, and about a hundred positive comments.
Morrow had expected the video would only get a couple of hundred views.
"I can't believe how many people have shared it. It seems like everybody is excited to see the teachers doing this and reaching out to make sure everybody keeps a positive mindset through all this," she said.
There's more to come.
The Holy Cross teachers plan to produce an add-on using the popular Snapchat filters later this week.
