THCreate

The first day of school is always a joyous day. Many parents enjoy the freedom of sending their child to school, while every student adjusts to the new norm of Monday through Friday learning. But something is different this year and no thanks to the Coronavirus Pandemic, I may miss out on a memory I’ll never get back.

I received a letter from my student’s school Assistant Principal this week and I about dropped to my knees when I read the letter. Many parents may enjoy sending their child to school so they can go hurry to work or school, but I enjoyed the first day of school for my son in 2019 before the Pandemic hit.

In the Fall of 2019, I had the luxury of escorting my son to his first day of school. My son, who has a speech deficit, due to what I have suspected could be autism, was a crier on his first day of school. This would have been the first day in his five years of life where we became separated as he never attended daycare of the preschool setting. While his sister is a bit more independent, not being able to walk both of my children to school on their first day of school due to the surge in coronavirus cases is upsetting.

I consider myself to be a very involved parent in and out of the school setting. I volunteer my services, I attend school field trips when available, I get involved in donating extra supplies such as canned goods, sanitizer and tissues and even include my children in extracurricular sports to keep them active and healthy.

Even my due diligence of being a great father is not going to give me the green light to capture the memories I had hoped to see for my kindergartener and second grader. The pandemic a year-and-a-half later is still disrupting activities when we thought it was near over. The only memories I will be able to make are what I will be limited to, and that is taking pictures on the first day, not as I am escorting my children to their classes respectively.

I long for what any caring parent wishes, and that is to ensure my child is safely escorted to their class, assist them in their soon-to-be routines and the peace of mind in knowing my child feels safe when they are in their classrooms.

Virtual learning has taken hold of most of the public schools’ lives in 2020 and 2021 and I can only imagine that with the masks mandate it will cause a similar sort of disruption to the learning process, nonetheless, a hassle to be enforced. I hope I didn’t make a mistake sending my child back to school because I sense another shutdown coming.