Planning to virtually honor veterans

CHENEY – School district students and staff are planning a time-honored tradition of recognizing veterans on Nov. 11 — it’s just that they are planning on doing it a different way.

With Covid-19 protocols keeping most schools shuttered to all but the youngest learners, students at Cheney and Westwood middle schools along with Cheney High School have been busy putting together virtual presentations for Veterans Day. The presentations will take the place of in-person assemblies — currently prohibited — but will have all of the features.

At the high school, language arts and leadership teacher Jenna Tamura said the leadership students have been busy assembling video and slide presentations for an “asynchronous video” that teachers will play for their students on Nov. 10. The presentation is scheduled to begin with several high school choir members singing the national anthem, followed by several guest speakers answering a “prompt/question” and then slides honoring veterans.

Tamura said they plan to post the presentation to the high school and school district web pages for the public to view as well.

Cheney Middle School Assistant Principal Eli Holm said their presentation will begin message from the staff, recognition of veterans connected to the school, music from the music department along with special music from country artist Radney Foster and a keynote speaker. Holm had tried to shoot big for the latter by sending an invitation to address the students to former secretary of defense and Eastern Washington native Gen. James Mattis, but received an email from his spokesperson that he wouldn’t be able to do so due to a previous commitment.

Instead, Holm said the keynote address will be delivered by 11 different staff members reading a portion each of the same message.

Westwood Middle School leadership students have produced an assembly to be delivered in two parts, science and leadership teacher Rachel Abel said. Part one is a “life lesson plan” from teachers that includes presentation of the colors, videos, history and guest speaker interviews from Fairchild Air Force Base personnel.

Part two is an interactive slide show with pictures and descriptions of military members of students and staff members’ families along with details about each branch of the military.

Like the high school, both middle schools plan on making their Veterans Day presentations available to the general public. Abel said Westwood would have links available Nov. 9 and 10 for students, with students able to share these Nov. 11.

While planning these presentations has always been challenging for the schools’ leadership classes, doing so under current coronavirus restrictions has been more so — teaching new lessons and requiring different thought processes.

“One unique challenge is trying to get all things in a digital format,” Tamura said of the high school presentation. “Another challenge is getting it all organized earlier than usual due to the fact that we have to get it all recorded and formatted together in one video so that it can still run as one assembly.”

“Video has become a highly active media for us,” Cheney Middle School’s Holm said.

Both agreed the experience has been beneficial to everyone involved, revealing things about the community they might not have considered in the past. Holm said they are looking at doing other presentations for some upcoming holidays to connect with the community.

“I think it’s great to have this opportunity,” he added. “One of the things I think will come out of this whole Covid related shutdown is that it has forced us to work harder to engage our community in meaningful ways.”

Tamura agrees that the shutdown has put an “interesting twist on the situation.”

“But we also feel that we still need to do things we would typically do in an effort to provide some sense of normalcy, even if it has to be done differently,” she added.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].