Jordan Beck | Daily Press Paula Lundin, right, teaches a chemistry class to juniors and seniors at Gladstone High School Wednesday. Local K-12 students returned to school for the 2020-21 school year earlier this week.

ESCANABA — Local K-12 students returned to school for the 2020-21 school year earlier this week. Representatives of high schools in the area said things have been going relatively well over the past few days.

“They’re actually going smoother than we expected,” Escanaba Area High School Assistant Principal Jessica Garber said.

Escanaba Area Schools began its fall 2020 semester Monday.

“We have been working to get the kids in the right place, manage computer requests and learn how to do many new things,” Garber said.

Among these “new things” are livestreamed classes.

“The teachers are teaching to students at home right in their classrooms,” Garber said.

As part of this, teachers have had to make sure their lesson plans can be used to teach students learning in class and at home.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Garber said the school has also stepped up its sanitization efforts.

“Teachers and students are helping clean desks in between each class,” she said.

Social distancing and masking requirements have been implemented at Escanaba Area High School, as well. So far, the majority of students there had not had issues wearing masks.

“We thought it was going to be a little crazier than it was,” Garber said.

Gladstone High School’s first day of the new school year was Tuesday.

“Yesterday went very well — it was a very smooth start,” Principal Andrew Jacques said Wednesday.

Jacques thanked teachers, custodians, students and parents in the district for making this possible. Additionally, he highlighted Technology Director Brad Doyen’s hard work.

“He has done a fabulous job of getting us set up with the technology in our schools,” he said, adding that Doyen set up nearly 1,000 devices in three weeks in preparation for the fall 2020 semester.

So far, students at Gladstone High School have taken masking requirements and social distancing measures at the school — which include staying to their right and not stopping in hallways, putting their phones in cell phone holders during classes and wearing masks while not seated in the cafeteria — seriously.

“They have been so mature about this,” Jacques said.

This semester, students at Gladstone Area Public Schools can attend classes fully in person and fully online. They can also opt to take a mixture of both in-person and online classes.

“What we’ve been seeing is more students realizing they want to be in school,” Jacques said.

He noted 88 percent of Gladstone Area High School students have opted for either fully in-person learning or the hybrid model.