Since opening school on Sept. 1, the Telluride Mountain School (TMS) has conducted in-person learning for students in Montessori preschool through grade 12 without interruption. While there have been some school community members impacted by COVID-19, none of the virus has been detected in the school and therefore there’s been no shutdown to date.

Reticent to tempt fate, Head of School Andy Shoff feels lucky.

“We need to be humble,” Shoff said. “We have really good protocol and are fortunate to be a small school with a good building. We also need to praise our parents for doing the hard work of keeping kids home when they or their kids are sick.”

While TMS doesn’t force students to learn in-person, they currently don’t offer a long-term hybrid learning programs either. However, if a student is uncomfortable coming to school, TMS offers home learning on a short-term basis via a new, web-based school information and learning management system.

Director of TMS Upper School Jamie Hozack points out that it can be challenging to engage students online.

“Our strength is in-person connection and engaging in-person experiences, so we’ve prioritized being in-person, if possible,” he said. “But I think we also did a good job of engaging students 100 percent online last spring. Managing hybrid classes is extremely challenging, more so than we predicted going into the fall. There’s just a lot more to manage when navigating multiple formats, and student learning in one format already requires managing thousands of things.”

Hozack said it took a lot of work from teachers, families, community organizations and students to maintain in-person learning for the entire fall trimester.

“This has really pushed us to grow and strengthen as a school, both in terms of developing new skills and getting back to practices and values we always thought were important,” Hozack said.

While TMS doesn’t force students to learn in-person, they currently don’t offer a long-term hybrid learning programs either. However, if a student is uncomfortable coming to school, TMS offers home learning on a short-term basis via a new, web-based school information and learning management system.

Director of TMS Upper School Jamie Hozack points out that it can be challenging to engage students online.

“Our strength is in-person connection and engaging in-person experiences, so we’ve prioritized being in-person, if possible,” he said. “But I think we also did a good job of engaging students 100 percent online last spring. Managing hybrid classes is extremely challenging, more so than we predicted going into the fall. There’s just a lot more to manage when navigating multiple formats, and student learning in one format already requires managing thousands of things.”

Hozack said it took a lot of work from teachers, families, community organizations and students to maintain in-person learning for the entire fall trimester.

“This has really pushed us to grow and strengthen as a school, both in terms of developing new skills and getting back to practices and values we always thought were important,” Hozack said.

According to Tara Barnett, TMS Admissions Director and Director of the Lower School and Montessori preschool, it’s also challenging to uphold a strong sense of community given social distancing and limited parent participation.

“We have overcome this challenge in many ways, from multiple curriculum sessions, parent-teacher conferences, and our weekly morning meetings all via Zoom,” Barnett said. “While we’re not in the same room, we strive to uphold these strong connections with families and across our multi-age cohorts.”

Throughout the warm and sunny fall, TMS students were outside as much as possible in accordance with Shoff’s motto, “Outside will be our classroom, our teacher and our inspiration.” However, with the onset of colder weather, teachers will need to adjust.

Last week, TMS implemented Friday remote learning in the morning for students in grades 7-10 with skiing in the afternoon.

“It’s distance learning on a distance learning day,” Shoff explained. “Should we need to move to distance learning more broadly, either because of internal or external conditions, our students and teachers will be practiced at it.”

In fact, TMS will conduct Ski P.E across all grades this year.

“Ski P.E. is like a pressure release valve on our indoors. Big chunks of time where we have more space,” Shoff surmised.

In spite of the pandemic, outdoor education trips, a cornerstone of the TMS curriculum, moved forward successfully earlier this fall, presenting a unique opportunity to teach leadership skills, teamwork, resilience, and the importance of connecting with the natural environment, as well as a chance to unplug from technology and daily life stressors.

“We were fortunate that there was very low community transmission in early-October when the trips took place,” said Shoff. “We also followed example schools who had successful trips with effective protocols, which resulted in robust week-long programs of outdoor education learning.”

TMS lower school — grades 1-6 — focused on “exploring our own backyard,” staying closer to home than usual, and had no overnights due to restrictive guidelines. While transportation was a challenge, students still enjoyed daylong activities like mountain biking, rock climbing, and hiking in the Telluride and Ophir valleys.