ALBERTVILLE, Alabama — Albertville City Schools started phasing students in for in-person learning on August 24th.
It's now been a week since all the students at Albertville Intermediate School have been back in the building, and both the teachers and students are adapting well.
Albertville Intermediate School Principal, Robert Sims, said, "The teachers here are fantastic. They're wonderful. Our motto is doing the best we can. You know, we want to do what's best for our students and they all know that and we all get on board with that and we just do what we have to do."
The kids are separated by plexiglass in each classroom, but just getting to see their friends is enough.
"We don't get to sit beside each other because we have to stay at the same tables, but that's okay because in PE we still get to see each other and we can still talk to each other, so it's not that much different," said Jesslyn Johnson, a 6th grader at Albertville Intermediate.
Teachers now get to school earlier, and students go straight to their homeroom class to get their temperatures taken.
Sixth grade teacher, Katie Tiner, said, "Instead of going into the gym, they'll come down to my homeroom class and go ahead and get started on the day, and as the kids come in, we do temperature checks."
When it's time for lunch, instead of sitting all together in the lunchroom, they line up, get their plate, and go back to their classrooms.
"It's a little bit more of an intimate setting. They can watch Dude Perfect videos and have fun while they're eating lunch, so I think the kids and the teachers really enjoy it," said Sims.
They have had to send some students home to quarantine for showing COVID-19 symptoms, but they've got a back up plan for those students.
"We have had extensive training in Schoology, which is our new system that we've rolled out this year, and so we've had to like pre-record videos for any of our kids who happen to be absent," said Tiner.
When kids are sent home, the school does contact tracing to determine who that student has been around just in case they do test positive.
Albertville City Schools has had three students and one teacher test positive for COVID-19 so far this school year. Click here for the most recent update on COVID-19 cases at Albertville City Schools.
WATCH: Albertville Intermediate staff talk more about going back to school during the pandemic
