SCHOOL STRESS
Some classrooms reopen in US
On Monday, many of America’s children went back to school and to the risk of coronavirus exposure. And at home were the parents who sent them, many torn between the need for their children to develop socially and educationally, and the duty to guard them against the spreading disease that has ravaged the world.
The nation’s schools are offering a range of options in response to the virus. Some will bring different parts of the student body to the classroom on a rotating basis. Others will offer an at-home alternative to sitting with other children.
DALLAS, Ga. – Putting your child on the bus for the first day of school is always a leap of faith for a parent. Now, on top of the usual worries about youngsters adjusting to new teachers and classmates, there’s COVID-19.
Rachel Adamus was feeling those emotions at sunrise Monday as she got 7-year-old Paul ready for his first day of second grade and prepared 5-year-old Neva for the start of kindergarten.
“We have kept them protected for so long,” said Adamus, who said her aunt died from COVID-19 in Alabama, and her husband’s great uncle succumbed to the virus in a New Jersey nursing home. “They haven’t been to restaurants. We only go to parks if no one else is there . ... And now they’re going to be in the classroom with however many kids for an entire day with a teacher.”
The Adamus children are among tens of thousands of students across the nation who resumed in-person school Monday for the first time since March.
Many schools resuming in-person instruction offer parents a stay-athome virtual option. Other schools are planning a hybrid approach, with youngsters alternating between in-person classes and online instruction.
But an uptick in COVID-19 cases in many states has prompted districts to scrap in-person classes at least for the start of the school year.
In Mississippi, where the virus is spreading fast, Emily Thompson’s son started the sixth grade at Newton County Middle/High School in Decatur. Thompson, a pharmacist, said she felt relief watching him get in line to have his temperature taken before entering the building.
She and her husband, who also works in health care, found it was a “nightmare” trying to keep the boy and their two other elementary school-age children on track with their studies.
“I think they’re going to get more interaction at school. They are going to learn more at school,” she said. “They just need to be in that setting.”
In Indiana, where schools reopened last week, a student at Greenfield-Central Junior High tested positive on the first day back to class and was isolated in the school clinic.
“This really does not change our plans,” School Superintendent Harold Olin said. “We knew that we would have a positive case at some point in the fall. We simply did not think it would happen on Day One.”
Other Paulding County, Georgia, parents were eager for in-person classes. Jenna Thames drove 8-yearold Brantley to his first day of third grade and 6-year-old Rhett to his first day of first grade.
Thames said that no one at her house is high-risk and that as a former teacher, she thinks her children will learn more from teachers than they did from her in the spring.
“I absolutely trust our administration and our teachers to do what it takes to keep them safe and keep themselves safe,” Thames said.