EdNC. Essential education news. Important stories. Your voice.

Search ednc.org

Here’s how one teacher used home visits to reconnect with disengaged students

Share this story

Our republishing policy

EdNC is a nonprofit, online, daily, independent newspaper. All of EdNC’s content is open source and free to republish. Please use the following guidelines when republishing our content.
  • Our content must be republished in full. If your organization uses a paywall, the content must be provided in full for free.
  • Credit our team by including both the author name and EdNC.org in the byline. Example: Alex Granados, EdNC.org.
  • If republishing the story online, please provide a link to EdNC.org or a link to the original article in either the byline or credit line.
  • The original headline of the article must be used. Allowable edits to the content of the piece include changes to meet your publication’s style guide and references to dates (i.e. this week changed to last week). Other edits must be approved by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
  • Photos and other multimedia elements (audio, video, etc.) may not be republished without prior permission. Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you are interested in sharing a multimedia element.
  • If you republish a story, please let us know by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you have any questions. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Canonical tag

Please include the following canonical tag in the <head> of the republished story.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.ednc.org/heres-how-one-teacher-used-home-visits-to-reconnect-with-disengaged-students/">

HTML content

This includes the title, byline, content, and tracking pixel required for republishing this story.

Copy & paste HTML
This story is tagged:
Steven Gupton in his old classroom before his move to Durham. Photo courtesy of Steven Gupton.

This article is part of the Future Forward series. Find the full series here.

For many educators, teaching became increasingly challenging when the pandemic hit. Having to shift to virtual learning in an instant brought a whole slew of changes to the classroom, from adapting lessons to suit an online environment to teachers having to learn new technologies fast. Steven Gupton, a teacher at Shepard Middle School, faced all of these challenges and more.

“We have not stopped teaching. In fact, I, along with a lot of other people, are working even harder now, to build those relationships, to plan those lessons, because this is completely different for us. Unless you were someone who taught virtually or taught distance education from the beginning, this was all brand new.”

Steven Gupton, teacher at Shepard Middle School

Midway through the pandemic, Gupton switched jobs. He went from teaching in his home county, a rural area, to Durham County, a more urban environment. The switch has been mostly positive for Gupton, but it certainly added to the long list of changes in a year ripe with uncertainty. 

It’s always about serving students for Gupton, which is what he held onto during this tumultuous year. Remembering his “why” allowed him to try innovative approaches in his classroom, like following up with students at home after virtual classes.

“Home visits have been a hit,” said Gupton.

For many of his students struggling to engage online, having their teacher visit them at home bolstered their feeling of connectedness to both their teacher and their education. 

“I want to ensure that I am continuing to build intentional relationships with students,” said Gupton.

Listen to the full conversation here.