(This week we are rerunning former editor Mike Brown’s column about back to school from Aug. 20, 2020. It’s amazing to us how far we have NOT come. We are back to square one with the Delta variant, and school is starting again during a huge spike in cases just like in 2020. We all know what happened last year and nobody wants a repeat of that. And the Delta variant is far more easily spread. We have nearly surpassed Milam County’s highest ever number of COVID cases from December 2020. Please send your kids to school with masks on so we don’t go back to homeschooling by Zoom classes. The Reporter hopes the students, teachers and parents have a much more normal year in 2021.)
Standing on the front steps 0f Rockdale High School at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, two things were obvious, simultaneously.
This looked just like the first day of school.
This didn’t look a thing like the first day of school.
That sounds odd, but the odd is the normal in this topsy-turvy year of 2020. What stood out above everything else were the masks. The kids were wearing masks, the teachers were wearing masks, the administrators were wearing masks.
You don’t need this writer to tell you why.
Students filed in through an already-open door, open so there wouldn’t be any transmission of you-know-what from everyone pushing the same handle.
They were ready. Yep, ready to get on with it. In mid-August that’s what they’ve done most of their lives, go back to school. The last time they’ve used those steps was the final day before spring break.
Does it mean anything that two-thirds of the families in the Rockdale ISD chose to send the most precious things in their lives—their kids—to an in-person learning experience.
It certainly implies a great deal of trust in the decision makers in the Rockdale ISD. And well it should.
Remember Rockdale ISD, like every other school district in the state, was told two things: 1. You will offer in-person learning as we start school; and 2. Do the best you can.
Which they have. Will there be obstacles, problems nobody has thought of? Yes. Will they give it their best shot? You better believe it.
How can we help? Support not only the kids but the teachers, administrators, custodians— how would you like to be a custodian this fall?— as they go about their duties.
And yet, there were moments of “this does look like a typical first day of school” Thursday.
A mom pulls up in the semicircle to drop off daughter, who piles out of the passenger side and heads toward the school’s front door.
Mom: “Woot woot! Good-bye senior!”
Daughter: (Hurrying up the stairs) “G’bye.”
Mom: (Louder) “WOOT-WOOT!”
Daughter: (Half-turning, and looking around to see if anybody else heard) “Mom, stop it!”
For a moment, it was just a first day of school.—M.B.
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