For MS Coast schools, return to class was not a return to normal. ‘Just feels surreal.’
Nicholas Peterson arrived at St. Martin High School just before 7:45 on Thursday morning.
He wore the face mask his mother had reminded him about, and a red T-shirt that identified him as a Sting Mentor, tasked with advising freshmen. (The St. Martin mascot is the yellow jacket.)
On Monday, the Sting Mentors and freshmen went through a dry-run of the school’s new coronavirus measures, learning how to move through the building safely. Now, as Peterson walked across the parking lot toward the school building, he was struck anew by just how strange this first day of school would be.
“They told us it’s going to be different, and we knew that,” Peterson said. “But it’s different to actually be here.”
Thousands of students and teachers across six Mississippi Coast districts headed back to school Thursday morning — Harrison County, Hancock County, Jackson County, Gulfport, Ocean Springs and Long Beach. Biloxi schools were first to start Wednesday.
Thousands more students turned on laptops to learn virtually. For everyone, it was a first day with far more firsts than usual.
The start of any school year is a mix of chaos and bureaucracy. But if Thursday is any indication, the return to school in Mississippi will not be the return to near-normalcy many reopening advocates hoped for.
In Hancock County, parents waited for an hour to drop off kids at East Hancock Elementary. In Harrison County, virtual students struggled to log in to their online learning accounts and school phone lines were so tied up that parents couldn’t get answers to questions.
At St. Martin in the Jackson County School District, teachers and students said there were moments when it felt like a typical day, except that everyone was wearing masks. But then they would remember how quickly it could all change, how a single case could upend —and seriously hurt — the community they were so excited to rejoin.
“Everyone’s worried about coughing on someone, getting a little too close,” said Byron Swetman, senior class president.
English teacher Lindsay Stewart lives with her elderly parents. As she prepared to return to the classroom, she made the decision to stay with another teacher, at least for a week or so, to see how things go at school. She was excited to be back, and grateful to see her students again. But she was also anxious.
“There’s a tension in the air,” she said. “Everyone is very apprehensive.”
The ‘traditional’ model
Principal Dina Holland, who has worked at St. Martin for nearly 40 years, stood in the foyer, wearing a lime green face mask and greeting students as they arrived. She hadn’t seen most of them since March 13.
“Without the students and staff in the building, it’s not a school,” Holland said. “For me, it’s emotionally overwhelming just to see their faces. It’s my 38th year, and this one just feels surreal.”
Jenny Bristow, a teacher stationed to hold the front door for entering students, put it a little differently: “We all feel like first-year teachers.”
Among the many changes at St. Martin, beyond mandatory mask-wearing: students must go directly to class or to the cafeteria to pick up breakfast. Free time in the courtyard, a staple of years past, is gone. Temperatures are checked before students enter first-period class, and if they are running even a slight fever, they report to a designated quarantine room. There are four lunch periods instead of three, and only four people to a cafeteria table at a time.
Class transitions are staggered to ease crowding in the hallways. During those changes, students must walk one direction down the hallways and use staircases designated up or down, rendering some commutes through the building absurdly long. Signs remind students to stay 6 feet apart from each other.
But even the most detailed plans can only offer so much protection. The American Federation of Teachers says it considers in-person school safe in communities where fewer than 5% of coronavirus tests are positive. Mississippi’s positivity rate is above 20%, and Jackson County is just outside the state’s top 10 counties for case incidence.
At St. Martin, Holland said, 15% of students chose virtual learning. With so many teenagers in the building, maintaining distance during class transitions was difficult.
One illustration of the level of transmission among teens on the Coast: Before Biloxi Public Schools started back on Wednesday, four Biloxi High students let the school know that they’d tested positive for COVID-19, and 11 had been exposed to someone who had, said Cassie Killpack, a registered nurse at the school. All 15 stayed home from the first day and are quarantining.
The last first day of school for seniors
Stewart started the morning stationed outside her classroom, shouting, “Happy first day of school, baby!” as students came up the stairs. The wall next to her door said today was “Thankful Thursday;” Stewart wrote she was thankful for strong coffee and stronger friends. Typically, she said, tomorrow would be “High-Five Friday,” but “we had to tone down the high-fives.”
Stewart’s first class was homeroom, all seniors. Stewart asked the group to share how they were feeling. The answers ranged from “anxious” to “excited;” a plurality were “just chilling.”
If 2020 were a movie, Stewart asked, what movie would it be?
“San Andreas,” one student volunteered, referring to the film in which a massive earthquake devastates California. “The one with the tsunami.”
They discussed the new safety policies.
“We’re trying to protect you, and especially protect your families,” Stewart said.
Were there any questions?
“So say a student in your class got corona — how would that work?” one student asked.
Stewart explained the school would follow Centers for Disease Control, state and district guidelines. Anyone with symptoms at school would go to the quarantine room. After a positive test, “we’ll make some decisions.”
When the bell rang, students in even-numbered classrooms poured into the hallway, followed minutes later by those in odd-numbered classrooms. As soon as her homeroom kids left, Stewart grabbed a spray bottle of disinfectant. She darted around the room, wiping down tables and chairs as her English students lined up outside.
Virtual learning a work in progress
The first day brought challenges for many Coast families that chose virtual learning.
Some Harrison County parents said they were unable to obtain their children’s log-in credentials for the online learning platform. When they did get in, schedules were missing and they weren’t sure what to do. By the end of the first day, some families still hadn’t heard from their students’ teachers.
For Scott Endsley’s kids, virtual learning was essential because one of his sons has a rare genetic disorder. Endsley made sure his three kids were logged in and ready to learn by 7:30. But not much happened at first.
One son had a 20-minute meeting with a teacher, and the other had a three-hour reading lesson in the middle of the day. His sixth-grade daughter was finished with her assignments by 11 a.m., but had to stay logged in all afternoon to meet the district’s attendance requirements. They never heard from her teachers.
Endsley said his children’s teachers are “awesome” and he’s hoping the issues with virtual learning will be worked out. It’s a new situation for everyone, he said, so he doesn’t understand why the district didn’t delay the start of the year to smooth things out.
“To be rushed into this is not cool,” he said.
Harrison County announced that it would make virtual learning an option for everyone on July 24; that left schools and teachers scrambling to figure out how to prepare for a traditional school year while also serving the 22% of students that chose virtual learning. In a letter to parents the day before school started, Superintendent Roy Gill said virtual learners wouldn’t be penalized for log-in issues.
Long car lines in Hancock County
New check-in procedures also brought traffic jams to many schools on the Coast.
Felicity Edwards, a parent in Diamondhead, made sure her kids each had a mask in their pocket plus another in their backpacks. She checked each child’s temperature and had everyone out the door before 7 a.m. But the line to drop off her fourth grader at East Hancock Elementary School stretched for an hour, as each student’s temperature was checked before they went inside.
By the time she dropped off her middle-schooler, she’d spent nearly two hours in the car.
“The teachers are doing the best they can,” she said. “They’re in a really hard situation.”
Long Beach splits students into 2 groups
Long Beach is the only district on the Coast that didn’t attempt a mostly traditional reopening on Thursday. Instead, students were split into two groups: white and maroon. The groups will come to campus on alternating weeks at least through Labor Day, and complete assignments at home during their off-weeks.
The policy meant that the first day at Long Beach High School was unusually quiet. On Thursday, the maroon team attended class; the white team will come on Friday.
Junior Trinity Britt said it had been a “completely different” first day of school, from the very beginning.
“Walking in, I just saw nobody in the hallways,” she said.
With less than half the student body on campus at any given time (about 80 of the roughly 900 students chose distance learning), social distancing and learning new sanitation routines is easier, Principal Talia Lock said.
“I’m hoping this keeps us in school longer,” Lock said.
When the day ended, students trickled out to waiting cars and buses. Teachers stood outside to monitor the process. Many of them wore olive green T-shirts with a quotation printed on the back: “Tough times don’t last, tough people do.”
This story was originally published August 7, 2020 at 5:40 AM.
