SUSAN JOY MCKINNEY/OUR COMMUNITY
Jamie and Matt Skovran are teachers with Danville District 118. Both are looking forward to the beginning of a new school year.
Matt & Jamie Skovran
Teachers miss face-to-face time with students
BY CAROL ROEHM
[email protected]
Married Danville District 118 teachers
Matt and Jamie Skovran said the most
difficult part of the COVID-19 pandemic
is not being able to interact with their
students face-to-face.
“We get our energy from the kids,” said
Matt, who has taught for 17 years in the
district. “The hardest part for us teachers
is not having that connection; that constant
flow of back and forth is gone.”
Matt has been the Project Lead the Way
teacher at South View Upper Elementary
School for the last 12 years after teaching
at North Ridge Middle School for about
five years.
Jamie has taught high school level
24 OUR COMMUNITY 2020
courses for six years at Kenneth D. Bailey
Academy. Before that, she taught for 12
years at South View.
“I miss hearing the stories from the
kids, even if they are just telling me what
they did over the weekend,” Matt said. “I
miss hearing the chatter of a school.
“It was eerie when the administrators
let us back into the schools in May to pack
up,” he said. “It was deathly quiet. We had
no closure.”
Jamie, who has taught for 16 years in
the district, said her alternative education
students know they can reach her
through Messenger, which five of them
did recently.
“I told them ‘I love you guys; I miss you
guys,’ and they said ‘Love you, too, Mrs.
Skovran,’” she said, tearing up. “These are
kids I’ve had for four or five years.
“We have our home kids, and we have
our school kids,” Jamie said. “That’s the
hardest part. We miss the kids.”
When schools statewide closed abruptly
in mid-March, Matt, whose class is predominantly
hands-on, said he and some of
his South View colleagues who teach math
and science developed online coursework
that crossed their content areas.
“Collectively, as a staff, we came together,”
he said. “We made weekly assignments,
such as design your own restaurant
and design your own zoo. It was all
project-based learning.”
For example, a weeklong lesson on
space travel included math word problems,
such as if a spaceship takes off from
one place, how long will it take to get to