School is supposed to start tomorrow. Today I should be frantically gathering all of the kids' school supplies to take into their classrooms. We should be making sure their new backpacks are ready to go with their new dangling keychains. The kids should be bouncing off the walls with excitement to see their new friends, their new teachers, and because now they are the big kids on campus being in 5th and 8th grade. They should be laying out their new school clothes and fretting over whether everything matches. They should be comparing their schedules with their friends, setting up their locker decorations, and mapping out their route between classes. But they're not.
Adams 12 announced that they were going to be starting the school year with 100% remote learning. They'll reevaluate on Sep. 25 if they can make any changes and bring the kids back, but we all know that's not going to happen this year. Maybe, maybe if we are really lucky and the data looks good from the thousands of other school districts who went back to 100% in person learning, we'll be able to go back to school in January.
My heart is breaking. I am so sad for my kids. They are taking it like champs because that is what they do. But I know what they're missing out on: the school plays, the talking at the lockers, the lunches with their friends, the playground games, the friends...the friends...the friends... I seriously considered finding a charter school or a private school to send them to this year simply so they could be in a classroom. However, I wasn't the only parent with that idea and I couldn't find anything nearby. We could move to Highlands Ranch. We could move to Utah. Oh, Utah. I'm looking at all of my friends on Facebook who are sending their kids back to normal school this week and it's just painful. True, they have to be masked all day, but isn't that a small price to pay for being there in person? I also seriously considered sending Kelton to live with Stockton for the semester. When it came down to it, I didn't want to be away from him for four months. That's a really long time, almost a quarter of a mission. I didn't want to miss his first lost tooth, Halloween, or those other simple experiences with him. But now as I look at what our back-to-school season should look like-but doesn't-I wonder if I made the right decision.
The school district has set up a schedule for every student in the district. They all need to be logged into their computers at 8:00am and then they proceed with their school day. They rotate between live lessons with their teachers to independent work time, but they are logged on until 3:00pm. Every day, all day, when they should be in school, they are going to be logged into their computers staring at a screen. I'm trying my best to make this a positive experience for my kids. I'm trying to convert the office into a classroom. The girls have helped me set up normal school decorations: a word wall, a calendar, cheesy motivational posters, math charts, grammar posters, a number line, and a blackboard. Each kid is going to get their own desk, their own Chromebook, their own headphones to tune into their individual teachers. But I don't know what else I can do to help these kids. I need to set up social meet-ups so they can see their friends and play, but I can't replicate what they're missing by not being in school.
Every month coronavirus has brought a new set of challenges. I honestly think that this might be one of the worst. This is really the last nail in the coffin indicating that life will never, ever be the same again. I can't. I just can't...
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