FAIRMONT — The honeymoon period of distance learning is over, and teachers and students are settling into the new normal for the remainder of the school year.

Martin Luther High School in Northrop is no exception, and Principal Paul Steinhaus discussed what programs and platforms the school is utilizing, as well as how students are adapting. Steinhaus noted that Zoom meetings among staff and students has been one of the preferred methods of communication.

“Other than that, Google classroom has been our primary platform to share and assignments,” he said. “That’s really all brand new to everybody, and it meets with varying degrees of success.

“We’re trying to do student surveys on this, specifically there’s concern about the amount of screen time kids get on this whole thing. It’s one thing for kids to play games, but if we’re commanding about eight hours a day for school we’ve got to help create balance within that arena.”

Steinhaus is concerned about the lack of social interaction adversely affecting students.

“Everybody’s been at this a little while and if there was any adrenaline to keep you going or excited about what’s happening, that’s gone,” he said. “For high school in particular, the social dynamic is so important to what high school is.

“So now all the athletics and extracurriculars are gone, but so is the interaction between classes in the hallway. A Zoom meeting really does very little. There’s no passing notes in class, none of that useless high school nonsense that creates part of your social dynamic.

“I had a survey that talked about screen time, how the families are doing, and an open-ended question in regard to stress levels. What we’re finding in terms of families is that they are making the major adjustments, but they’re doing all right. For the families that have younger kids where the parents have to take a bigger role, the juggling act is tough.

“So there are kids that are really struggling, but we’ve got a pretty good parent and kid group here. I’ve got to commend the kids on being very resilient. They certainly are demonstrating a degree of patience and success.

“We are getting some feedback on stress levels and that kind of thing, but you have no baseline to make any decisions on. It’s not like we did any of this last year and it’s really tough. You’re treading new territory and trying to make the best decisions almost in a reactive sense, which makes me uncomfortable both as a teacher and as an administrator.”

Steinhaus noted that teachers are going through their own learning curve.

“In terms of finding ways to be creative, I would say that every teacher under the sun who’s used to doing face-to-face teaching has to be very innovative. Any lesson plan you had you’ve got to modify in a completely different sort of way.

“The other thing that becomes a big story line in terms of us making decisions is how do we graduate our seniors and provide them a meaningful exit from their high school career? That’s a huge concern. Prom is going away; there’s no awards night or traditional graduation ceremony. So we’re looking at how we make it meaningful for our students, and we’re still in the process of what the timelines are.”