Huntington UFSD Always Rises to the Occasion

The first day of public education in the Huntington community was February 11, 1657. Since then the town has seen revolution, civil war, several economic depressions, two world wars and countless other conflicts, presidential assassinations, scandals, social upheavals and industrialization, the end of slavery, women’s emancipation and the rise of the United States as a world power, but never before had schools seen anything quite like the changes necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It wasn’t the first time that Huntington UFSD had been through a serious public health crisis. The so-called Spanish flu struck from February 1918 to April 1920, infecting fully one-third of the entire population of the world at the time. Four successive waves of exceptionally deadly influenza infected 500 million people of all ages across the globe. The death toll is estimated to have reached as high as 50 million with some claiming that as many as 100 million actually perished.

Huntington UFSD consisted of only three buildings at the time of the 1918 flu; Lowndes Avenue School, which opened in 1913, and the Main Street School and Huntington High School, with the latter two structures being located side-by-side on Main Street. The two buildings are still standing today and currently in use as Huntington Town Hall. The larger of the two was the high school, erected over parts of 1909/10. The Main Street School was built in 1898. The two were connected by a covered colonnade that is now enclosed by glass panels.

The 1918 pandemic saw masks being worn by teachers and students, building temperatures raised to their highest possible settings and windows thrown open even at the height of the winter. Classes were held outdoors to the extent possible. There were quarantines throughout the country, including in Huntington. A lack of modern medicine, including effective drugs and facilities complicated matters. Through it all, schools in New York never closed.

As the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the country and world, Huntington UFSD had to modify its programs across the board from how it delivers classroom education to how students are distanced while transported to school and fed each day. Clubs and athletics went on hiatus. Students largely followed a hybrid format and later a mix of in-person and remote education. Such was the state of technology in 1918, or lack of it thereof, that remote learning was not possible 100 years ago.

The 1918-20 influenza outbreak is thought to have infected 28 percent of all Americans living at the time. About 675,000 Americans are believed to have died or 10 times the US deaths in World War I. About half of all American soldiers that died in the war were felled by the virus.

The faculty and staff of Huntington UFSD has always rallied and risen to the demands of the occasion, working long hours to provide students with the best possible education for as long as a pandemic or world crisis lasted.

During the most recent pandemic, teachers and students worked hard to maintain their important relationships as best as possible. Students on every level adapted to the new rules, including having their temperature taken each morning at the front doors.

Teachers were never taught how to provide remote education while in college. Dozens of workshops were held to help faculty members transition to distance learning. There were bumps in the road, to be sure, but officials were impressed with how well it went.

The world collectively hopes there will never be another public health crisis, but whatever happens, Huntington UFSD and its staff and students will get through it; together.