We’ve talked a lot about distance learning, remote teaching, whatever you call it.
I’ve shared many ideas regarding distance learning, including specific ideas for using choice boards, recording video minilessons, and celebrating the last week of school.
There’s something else that’s weighing heavy on my heart that we need to talk about and we need to remember: packing up a classroom during this pandemic.
For most of us, our classrooms stood frozen in time. My whiteboard said “March 16, 2020,” because when students left school the week before, that’s when they planned on returning.
By 5:00 on March 12, Atlanta schools had been closed indefinitely.
If only, IF ONLY, we had had a few more hours notice. We could have sent students home with supplies for learning and some personal belongings.
Instead, we had no time to prepare and hoped for the best for the next few weeks at home.
March 13th had already been a scheduled teacher work day for us. I reported to work and got my classroom ready for the students’ return. I cleaned, I sharpened pencils, I replenished supplies.
As you know, weeks turned into months, and the school year is coming to an end without the students ever setting foot back inside my classroom.
I feel naive looking back on that teacher work day when we thought we’d be back after spring break.
Now, we prepare for summer.
Now, we return to our classrooms that are frozen in time.
Now, we pack up our classrooms during a pandemic.
My coworkers and I signing up for time slots to pack up our classrooms for the summer while maintaining CDC recommendations – no more than 10 people in the building at one time.
We wear masks and gloves in order to enter the building.
And it all comes down to this: students’ belongings in trash bags: notebooks with plenty of space left, unfinished projects, books with bookmarks in them, and trinkets that should never have been in their desks in the first place.
Families will report to school during assigned time slots based on last names to pick up students’ belongings in a drive-through fashion.
This is the reality of packing up a classroom during a pandemic.
We won’t finish the learning together.
We won’t celebrate the last days of school.
We won’t say goodbye.
It’s still a disappointment that our year together ended so abruptly without warning or closure, but I’m feeling okay with it now. Hopefully I’ll get to hug these kids in the fall.
As weird as it is for the year to end this way, I am feeling much better after a few mornings of getting organized and making forward progress.
My room no longer feels frozen in time… instead, it’s starting to feel like summer.