Monday Musings - School is Back On, and So Are Masks

 Writer's Note: I'm not sure why I've been getting more a one-week-on, one-week-off schedule to my blogging, but I'm hoping that will change to the Monday-Friday, every week schedule that I want to have.

Tomorrow, my youngest starts 7th grade.  My oldest, 10th.  Neither has regularly been in a school building since March 2020.  This year, as much as I'd prefer to keep them home with the surge of COVID cases all around, the state Department of Education won't allow any schools to go either all virtual (unless classified as such) or hybrid.  I can understand their reasoning, to an extent.  When the numbers came back for testing, there was a lot of learning loss.  But still, I worry about the youngest students that aren't eligible to be vaccinated yet.  I worry about the virus mutating again and the vaccines not even being enough.  But I'm still sending them to the school building anyway.

Part of it is because of the schools they are in.  Pete is at the local (but not our zoned) middle school.  I know the teachers and administration there, and they know Pete.  If he has a meltdown (far more rare now than in elementary school), they know how to handle it.  And they know how to keep him on task for his schoolwork, something I found increasingly difficult while he was virtually learning.  Tedd is at one of the two academic magnet schools, which needs not only excellent academic scores but luck of the lottery to get into.  He's been there since 7th grade and if I were to pull him out to put him in virtual for a year, he wouldn't be able to get back in.  Plus I don't expect that he'd get the same level of classes in virtual that he gets currently, and he wouldn't be able to sing in chorus, which is one of the things he looks forward to most of all at school.

Thankfully, even at the threat of the Speaker of the House calling a special session to prevent it, our school system has put a mask mandate in place, so my kids will be ready for school with plenty of masks to wear and mask washing happening weekly.  All of the parents and teachers I know personally are very happy about this.  Though based on the rate of transmission and the low level of vaccinations, I do think that the DoE will have to make the choice between allowing virtual schooling or closing schools all together because there won't be enough students or teachers making in school education viable.

Regardless of all of this, tomorrow my kids will be off to school.  No more carrying Pokemon backpacks stuffed with crayons, safety scissors and washable markers.  No more matching shirts and pants, happy grins on little faces.  No more meeting one new teacher for the year, and a classroom full of kids they'll be sharing their whole day with.  Instead, there will be laptop bags stuffed with laptops, pens and folders for paper homework.  There will be baleful glares through long hair and over masks with all the disdain a teenager can give.  There will be meeting many new teachers, a few new friends and several old.  There will be moving from class to class, finding a place to sit, and trying to blend into the background.  (Because, after all, these are my kids.)  It will be a new year, and a different year, even from before March 2020.  But I'm hoping it will also be a great year.  Because after the past 18 months, a great year is something they should have.

First day of Kindergarten and 3rd grade

Getting ready to start 7th and 10th grade*

* If I can/remember, I may come in an put new pictures in of them after their first day tomorrow.