Winter ESSO Club

By:  Selim Kim, Emi Levine, Sophie Ma, Andrew Yuan

ESSO [Exeter Student Service Organization] club co-heads have faced unprecedented changes amidst growing pandemic concerns. Despite this, however, they have finalized plans to relaunch ESSO Children’s clubs.

To protect students and visitors during meetings, most clubs will resume activities in February. Exceptions include ESSO Music Lessons, Tutoring, Girls Who Code, and Buddy Up, which will meet virtually, as well as ESSO Skating and Swimming, which will meet in person. 

Upper Lauren Jebraili, the co-head of ESSO Basketball, explained her goals for the club this winter. “Our main goal is to have fun with basketball. It’s going to be really hard because of COVID, we’ve already had to cancel our meetings for this whole month, but we really just want the kids to have fun. I did ESSO soccer in the fall, and I enjoyed it a lot, so I think basketball should be just as fun,” she said. 

While Jebraili is excited about starting ESSO Basketball, she also noted the challenges that come with not meeting during January. “It’s mainly that there is less time for us to work with the kids. Not meeting at all is definitely better than doing meetings over Zoom, that just wouldn’t work well, and I think it’s better to do basketball in person,” Jebraili said. 

Upper Dax Knoll, co-head of ESSO Swimming, discussed his visions for the club. “Our main goal for faculty children who aren’t too comfortable in the water is to facilitate an experience to make them more confident and comfortable when swimming. Having them willingly get into the water, and be able to float and swim around, is the top priority. For the swimmers that are more intermediate, trying to teach them actual strokes, such as freestyle, backstroke, is the main goal,” Knoll said. 

Knoll noted pandemic precautions the club will take. “There’s going to be masks on the pool deck, but when they’re in the pool, obviously, they’re not going to be wearing masks. That shouldn’t be an issue though, as the Exeter pool is chlorinated,” he explained. “We’re going to try our hardest to play games with them and try to make this fun rather than focusing on being hyper-productive,” Knoll continued.

Upper Jenny Drevitch, a co-head of ESSO Skating, is also looking forward to teaching skating in-person. “For the first half, we’re not going to get kids from Exeter, but we’ll have faculty kids with us. Starting February, we’re going to be bringing the Exeter community kids in,” Drevitch explained. “The plan is to assign each coach one or two children and have themed days. Maybe we work on our stride the first day, then next week we might work on our stopping or turns or maybe skating backwards, etcetera.”

Like ESSO Swimming, ESSO Skating plans to take many COVID precautions to ensure a safe environment. “Everyone will have to wear a mask. The parents themselves are allowed to come drop their kids off and watch. They’re just not allowed to roam around the building,” Drevitch said. 

Drevitch added that coaches and skaters will also practice social distancing. “Masks are essential, and we’re going to be trying to distance ourselves. So, like when we’re coaching, we won’t be going up to them in their faces and talking. If we’re ever doing drills with other people, we’ll be making sure that it’s not close contact.”

Drevitch believes adjusting to pandemic guidelines won’t be easy. “One thing that might be a little troubling is that when the new kids join us in February, they might not be in the same spot as the kids that have been with us for the first month. So, we’ll have to try to split that up and like, and then also reallocate different coaches to different kids.”

Upper and co-head of ESSO Computer Science Chloe Zhu anticipated a return to in-person meetings but hoped to improve virtual learning experience for the children: “We want to safely help as many children as possible improve their computer programming skills. Our meetings this month have been canceled.”

“However, we are preparing to have in-person meetings once the school approves. We might also try to develop an online learning capacity,” Zhu added. “Computer programming is taught on a website, so we think a virtual format would actually not be very hard to organize.”

Zhu recognized potential challenges. For example, children may have varying access to technology. “We want to make our decisions carefully, taking everyone into consideration. Our kids are grades five to eight, which is on the young side for virtual learning; they may lose their focus faster. Additionally, screen time concerns for children are another consideration,” Zhu continued.

Upper and co-head of ESSO Spanish Alexa Murat shared similar concerns with Zhu over potential distractions of online learning, as well as her plans for ESSO Spanish once COVID restrictions are lifted. “It’s definitely a little hard to have children pay attention to the entire meeting on Zoom. I’ve experienced it. I would just look at my phone or other distractions. I think having our facilitators’s engaging presence would help to ensure that children are not bored,” Murat said. 

“We are hoping to have kids to come in and have conversations in Spanish, teach them about Hispanic cultures and help them in any way with whatever they are learning in school,” Murat continued. “We will begin to show a lot of YouTube videos, movies and other forms of interactive visuals that help kids learn.”

Though COVID restrictions have signaled an uncertain start to the ESSO clubs, many co-heads remain hopeful. “I’m just excited to be able to get back to work,” Murat said.