Ready or Not, School Is Here

Well, here we are at the beginning of August and school starts on Thursday. Hard to believe we've already burned through summer break. Also hard to find normal when life seems to be saying it is anything but normal now.

I know the return to school is a patchwork of different strategies right now. Our school polled our parents at the beginning of July and right at half responded with 94% of those parents saying they wanted their kids to return to school this fall for face-to-face, or mask-to-mask instruction. The last time I looked at the numbers about 14% of our students plan to do distance learning with the rest planning to be on campus. Of course, a handful of infections or an executive order could change all of that in a moment, and if that happens we just switch to distance learning mode and keep rolling with our classes. And given that Nate is a student at DA this means that we will both have to quarantine from school if either of us suspect exposure. This is sort of like living in anticipation of a snow day all year long but without the bonus of having the unexpected day off that comes with it. It's going to be a year to remember.

I'm wondering what this is going to look like on many levels. First of all, I have unexpectedly discovered in all of this that I have a pretty serious anxiety issue with masks, both wearing one and seeing them on others. I won't go into the details here, but this is like finding myself stuck in an episode of the Twilight Zone or in a Stephen King movie and not being able to leave. I will be allowed, at present, to teach without a mask as long as I stay socially distant, but I am wondering how I am going to do looking at masked students in my classroom five periods a day.

Our Class of 2020 finally had their graduation back on the 23rd. After two cancellations, once the day before the event, they wound up having a drive-thru ceremony. Also, one of our very talented seniors wrote a musical that was supposed to be performed as our spring show. That got pushed back to July and she was allowed to have an in person performance for parents only. The good thing was the show was recorded and we were able to have a larger crowd come to see her production on the big screen at the Franklin Drive-In. So this is how Nate's senior year of high school will begin. Who knows what stories will be told about it over the next ten months? I think these kids in school right now will be affected in a way that we haven't seen since World War II.

Ben will move back to Cookeville in a couple of weeks. He and several friends in his Bible study group are renting a house just outside of town this year. He actually moved a load of furniture there today. Jenna has begun her fourth term (of seven) now and has returned to campus for clinicals and is able to go to some local hospitals for training now. This term is by far the busiest, and maybe the hardest, as it packs a 14 hour course load to be completed in nine weeks.

So that's the news from our house. It feels to me like it might be dull reading, but I'll take dull without complaint right now.

Joe