One year. It’s been one year since I’ve been at school with students. One year since I met with colleagues in person. One. Whole. Year.
It was a Wednesday afternoon and I was finishing up a weekly coach/administrator meeting. My vice-principal looked up from reading a text. “My wife says SPS is closing schools tomorrow.” Four of the five of us in the room had children in SPS schools, the school district next door to the one we worked in. We all exchanged glances, the uncertainty of the time weighing down.
Before I left school that day, I went to our library and checked out enough books to fill a large tote bag. I wanted to make sure I had enough books to keep my 3rd grade son reading. I also grabbed a couple of professional books that had been on my reading list for a while. All the books from the library were read. The professional books are still in the bag that I brought them home in.
The next day, a Thursday, the district I work in announced that schools would be closed starting the following week. And then the following day, Friday the 13th, our governor announced that he was closing down all schools for six weeks. I remember looking at the calendar, finding the date in May that marked six weeks away. It felt surreal to think that we would be out of school for that long.
And now here we are. One year later. On Monday, my union voted and agreed to begin reopening schools on March 11th. So tomorrow, on the one year anniversary of closing down, some preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students will return to school. But families had a choice whether to return or stay remote, and only one-third of the students at my school opted to return in person. So a few teachers will be in the building teaching, but most, like myself, will still be teaching via Zoom.
It’s been one year. One. Whole. Year.
shawndastories 
This anniversary is a hard one- so much of what we are used to doing has changed in the last 12 months. We have been in person/hybrid – and fully remote, and in person/hybird, then fully remote, and back in person/hybrid. Some of the hybrid students were pulled into a fully remote class in the fall when our numbers supported it. So the way I’ve been teaching since August seems like it has changed every month. So I hope your rest of the year goes well.
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I wonder what is worse: to be in distance learning for a year and then return to face-to-face or to experience distance learning for two months last spring, have face-to face learning this school year and then to be sent to distance learning again. As the rest of the world slowly opens up, here in Estonia we entered the second lock down today.
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Wow-what a roller coaster we’ve all been on! Best wishes to you and your community through this lockdown. Hopefully we will all reach the other end of this tunnel soon.
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For some reason, despite this anniversary coming, it took your post to hit me that — WOW — my daughter has been learning from home for an entire year. It’s gone fast at some points and slow at others. Unlike your kiddos, she’s staying home the rest of the year (our choice) since she’s in an all-remote class.
I wish you well with your return to school!
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I completely agree! Looking back, I feel like it’s been both the longest and fastest year of my life.
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I haven’t been in the classroom all year either. I am teaching online, loving it most of the time and wondering why I even opted for this on the harder days, ‘ cause they’re all hard. Hang in there! We can do hard things!
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