School’s out. Thursday classes ended and Friday was a faculty/staff “drive-by parade” that zipped past our house 30 minutes early. Serendipitously, I had sent the kids out on the front porch early to make a thank-you/we-will-miss-you poster, so they saw the cars flying past the house. The school principal was standing up through a sunroof and shouted our our family name. And that was it. The end of the 2019-2020 school year.
This weekend I grieved the loss of a meaningful end to the school year and the loss of a summer break. Each of the kids had an online awards ceremony with their teacher, classmates and a few parents that they watched on our big TV rather than on the school iPad or Chromebook. My fourth grader seemed distracted during his event until the “class party” started with interactive games including a scavenger hunt. My Kindergartener twins seemed lost and confused as they tried to pay attention to what the teacher was saying while watching the gallery view of their classmates – the ones who showed up and unmuted their cameras – sitting in various places inside and outside their homes. With so little contact time and not everyone unmuting their cameras (especially since the sessions were being recorded), they had started to forget their classmates and confuse them with their preschool classmates. The most poignant end to the year was watching the class slide show my daughter’s teacher prepared with joyful pictures of each child at school events during the year. Afterwards, my daughter cried and said she didn’t want to graduate from Kindergarten.
Now what?
Like someone who has had a leg amputated and still wakes up with a feeling the leg is still there, I have felt a reflexive sense of relief each Sunday afternoon at the thought of Monday morning ushering in a week of eight hour blocks of time for work and household responsibilities. Within minutes, like waking up in a fog, my thoughts drift from “that’s not right” to “but the kids are still in school” to “oh no, there’s a pandemic and we’re on lockdown” to “so the kids are staying at home for distance learning” to “there will be little time for work or anything else tomorrow.” The chain of thoughts repeats each school night. On what used to be weekend nights, my thoughts cycle through a similar chain about what fun plans we have for the weekend, with a similar ending. Work and household responsibilities are squeezed in here and there and mostly at night when the kids are asleep.
Summer break has started. What does that mean anymore? All the carefully selected and prepaid summer programs have been canceled or moved online. Because my kids did not engaage well with distance learning, I opted out and got full refunds instead. I had to start over again with a blank schedule. The school has encouraged a continuation of the online learning programs and we certainly have enough “can do” optional lessons to supplement playtime and outdoor activities for a few weeks. And, we will try some of the free online summer classes (such as varsitytutors.com).
So, we all will say goodbye to this memorable school year and move on. Tomorrow is the start of the school break.
Same schedule, different day.
