Today is the last day of online learning.
Usually the last day of school follows a pretty predictable format. We have about 1.5 hours in the morning. We watch a movie (Magic School Bus or such), then at 10:00 we have an awards ceremony were lots of kids get some kind of recognition. Then parents mob us to check their kids out early and take them home. There are lots of hugs and goodbyes. There are drawings given out, and yearbooks to sign. At least one kid has a sharpe and runs around getting people to sign their shirt after assuring me their parent said it was okay (followed by the inevitable appearance of a parent asking "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!)
We go out for a loonnnggg recess (45 minutes) with the last 5-7 kids still lingering in each class. We play tag, 4-square, basketball. Then it is lunch. There aren't enough kids to justify eating in the lunch room, so we grab the food and go back to the classroom. A silly movie gets played (I am a big fan of Pixar shorts) and they ignore it as they eat and talk.
I get to work tearing apart my classroom. We have to pack everything up and get it ready for moving because we don't have any permanent shelving so it all has to get moved for carpet cleaning. My mode is to throw everything in a huge pile in the middle of the room. The kids are done eating so they help me pick through the pile and organize it into boxes. They do a lot of, "Can I have this?" To which I usually shrug and say sure, except to my plastic sword they all want but I keep for dress up days. A bunch of odds and ends end up in their backpacks. In the middle of this there is always someone who pokes their head in with left over ice cream or popsicles from a party, and we break to snack.
Slowly the last few trickle out till we only have maybe 3-4 kids in the entire building. We send them to call parents and get an ETA. Often we set them free in the hallways to help whatever teacher needs it, as long as they tell us where they are going. Our art teacher always manages to convince a few that staying is the BEST THING EVER and so we make her come over and admit all we are doing is cleaning. At least one kid is just hanging out because school is their safe spot and they don't want to go home and know that is where they will be for the next two months.
It is always a sweet day with a touch of bitterness. There is so much hope for the next year though.
This year is so different. The sweetness isn't there, just the bitterness and it feels so hopeless because no one knows if we WILL see one another again next year. I'm doing a lot of crying, and so are my kids.
