A year later, parents still worried about sending children back to school
On the first day of school, my daughter held her younger brother’s hand as we waited in the winding line that led to the school’s entrance — their small faces covered by colorful masks.
She left behind friends and teachers she loves at a small day care with about 50 kids to enter a new world of kindergarten at a Houston public elementary with some 600 children.
We’d been preparing for this moment for months, practicing packing lunches and backpacks. Trying on the school-uniform separates in different combinations, adding hair bows and talking about what a big girl she’ll be at her new school.
As we prepared, we thought we were coming out of the pandemic; I would be able to walk her into the building and give her a big hug at the classroom door.
But that’s not what happened.
I, along with a group of parents, stood almost paralyzed at the front glass window as we watched our children enter the school door, escorted by teachers as they walked the long hallway leading to the classrooms.
“God, please protect her,” I thought as she slid from my grasp and marched off into the school in her tie-dyed sneakers. She turned her head every few steps to make sure I was still watching. I waved every time.
A year ago, I wrote a column about the angst I felt sending my children back to school after nearly seven months at home. Here we are again. That same feeling, but this time it seems much worse because it didn’t have to be this way.
Somewhere in this tug-of-war of wills — the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, the masked and the unmasked — we have lost focus on our children. Protecting them, above all, should paramount, even shielding them from the anxiety weighing many parents down right now. It’s too much.
A few days after Brandice Pierre, a lawyer who is now a stay-at-home mom, sent her masked 5-year-old daughter, Pozie, off to kindergarten in Humble, the child began showing symptoms of COVID-19. Neither the teachers nor her classmates wore masks, only Pozie. A photo of the classroom shows children huddled together — no social distancing, no masks.
After two years of living in Japan, Pierre, her husband and daughter had returned to the Houston in March. Masks and regular hand-washing were a part of their everyday routine in Japan. Nothing would change here.
The headache came first, then Pozie began complaining of a sore throat. Then came the fever that hung at 103 or 104 degrees and the projectile vomiting.
“My daughter was in public school for four days and got COVID,” Pierre said. “I sent a slew of emails to the school and the superintendent and applied for virtual learning. Then I got COVID, and my husband got it yesterday.” Both Pierre and her husband are vaccinated.
“I’m enraged and exhausted,” she said. “There’s an emotional toll of having to make decisions for my child while watching the COVID numbers rise and not trusting that the school or the district are prioritizing the health and safety of my child.”
At Eagle Springs Elementary school, where her daughter attends, there are more than 80 active COVID cases among the 600 students, according to the Humble ISD website. Unlike Houston ISD, Humble does not require masks.
Pozie, her sweet, sympathetic child, apologized for bringing COVID into their home. “Mommy, I’m so sorry I gave you the coronavirus,” she told Pierre.
The coronavirus likely will define our generation of children. Social distancing, maskwearing and hand-washing may be part of their social DNA.
It’s become routine for Jennifer Smith, an entrepreneur in Cypress-Fairbanks, and her sons, Jaylen Botts, 17, and Dillan Botts, 15, who decided together to get the COVID vaccine this summer.
“Wearing masks and taking our vitamins have become a lifestyle. They have adjusted well,” Smith said.
Her sons attend Bridgeland High School in Cy-Fair ISD, where they play sports and have watched peers come down with the coronavirus.
Though Cy-Fair does not mandate masks, parents of students in pre-K through fifth grade may request that their child be placed in classrooms with other masked students.
“I really believe this is causing all of us to change how we think about health, safety and wellness. We now are buying hand sanitizer in bulk at Costco, and my boys carry masks in packs. It’s a part of our lives,” Smith said.
Though Casey Curry, corporate citizenship director at alliantgroup, has stressed over sending her 7-year-old daughter, Winnie, back to school in person in HISD, which requires masks, after a year of virtual learning, she knows her daughter is happier in class.
“I didn’t want to send her back, but I trust her school will do what they can to keep her safe,” Curry said. “Everyone wears masks, and the kids are spaced out. That helped reinforce that we were making the right decision. I do believe kids need to be around other kids.
“She’s thrilled to be playing and running with her friends. Wearing a mask is no big deal to her. She doesn’t care that she has to wash her hands 100 times a day. She wants to be with her friends. I’m worried, but I know the school is doing the best they can, and Winnie gets to be a kid again.”
I spent that first day of school hardly able to focus, scared that I had sent my child off into a wilderness of COVID germs and terrified that she would return home sick. But after school, she bounced into the car, mask still on, ready to tell me about her day — how a classmate gave her cookie and how she shared her small bottle of hand sanitizer with several other children at lunch.
I asked her if she was tired. I got an emphatic, “No.”
Within minutes, her head slumped over in the car seat, and she was asleep.