INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana’s teachers won’t get to see their students in the classroom again this school year, but some educators have been showing how much they still care.

Teachers from Lakeside Elementary School in the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township put together a caravan to go through their students’ neighborhoods and waved hello.

The small gesture helped students and teachers deal with the long period of learning from home.

“I want to go sit across the street from them and wave from my car,” said Forest Glen Elementary’s third-grade teacher Chelsea Isley. “I’m trying to figure out a schedule to be able to to do that just so I can see them and they know that I’m still alive.”

Many teachers told News 8 they were blindsided by Thursday’s announcement of school buildings remaining closed for the entire academic year in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

• K-12 schools in Indiana to conduct remote learning through remainder of school year

“I just want to hug them one more time at the end of the summer, you know, that they’re going on to fourth grade and that they’re going to have a different teacher and you have that closure when you know it’s coming,” Isley said.

Teachers have been trying to support families who don’t have internet access at home and make virtual learning entertaining.

“That relationship between a teacher and a kindergartner for their first year in school is so critical and it’s such a loving and nurturing environment and they’re not getting all of that,” said Angie Tinsman from Chapelwood Elementary.

Educators said they continue to keep an open line of communication and be an additional resource for families during these times.

“We are going to do the best we can for our students and rally around each other and those students to make the best of a pretty horrible situation,” said Ben Davis High School ninth-grade science teacher Kathy Winsor.