Across the Washington region, more students headed back into classrooms as Maryland’s two largest districts and D.C. public schools began classes Monday.
For parents and students, the first day was an opportunity to meet new teachers and reunite with old friends. For educators, the first day followed a year of challenges that caused many of their colleagues to leave the profession. Still, many hoped to return to some semblance of normalcy after two difficult school years.
The line outside School Within School at Goding in Northeast Washington wrapped around the block as parents waited with students to step into their newly modernized building early Monday. Inside, colorful reading nooks, a glass-walled, two-story library and rows of rainbow pencils awaited them.
Administrators at the elementary school hustled between families, collecting proof of negative coronavirus tests. D.C. public schools has maintained its “test to return” policy that was enacted last school year, which requires proof of a negative test before students and staff can return.
Cenequa Brown, 32, pulled up a photo of her son’s negative test on her phone. Sunah, 7, is starting second grade after a summer spent playing video games, he said.
“I think it was important to do that,” Brown said of the school district’s policy, “to make sure all the children are negative and safe.”
In Prince George’s County, students and staff arrived for school in masks, a mandate reinstated by the public school system earlier this month due to a high level of covid transmission in the county. The rate has since improved to a low level of transmission, according to the CDC. School system CEO Monica Goldson said she anticipates moving the school system to a mask optional policy later this week.
“We still need to be conscious and keep our hands clean and social distance as much as possible,” Goldson said in an interview Monday.
Late Monday, Prince George’s County authorities said they confiscated two loaded guns at Suitland High School in District Heights. A Prince George’s schools spokesperson confirmed that two students were arrested and that officials are investigating. No one was harmed, and Goldson said she appreciated the “swift response” from law enforcement.
Earlier in the day in D.C., Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) helped welcome students to the School Within School campus with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
In a speech, she said the district must work hard to catch students up academically after more than two years of learning loss incurred during the pandemic. Black and Hispanic children have suffered worst: The literacy proficiency gap between young White students and students of color continued to widen during the second year of the pandemic, according to data released by D.C. Public Schools.
“We know that all of the work that we have to do across all of our public schools in accelerating learning, especially learning that was lost over the pandemic, focusing on the social and emotional well-being of our students is going to be key,” Bowser said.
Some families throughout the city worried that complications with HVAC systems and other facilities would still be unresolved by the first day. Keith Anderson, director of the Department of General Services, said the city has prioritized 874 work orders from the public school system, although about 100 remained open as of Monday. The open orders include issues such as a water fountain that has come off a wall, Anderson said, but nothing that is preventing instruction.
“There’s nothing that is impacting any facility from opening,” Anderson said. “All schools are open and functioning.”
Along with welcoming back students and testing them for the coronavirus, school officials are also working to fill remaining teacher shortages.
Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools is 99 percent staffed as of Monday, according to superintendent Monifa McKnight. The district, the state’s largest with about 160,000 students, has around 159 teaching vacancies left to fill, including 89 special education teachers. The system is also short 32 bus drivers and around 400 support staff.
McKnight said the district took a more active approach to recruiting teachers this year, setting up pop-up shops in commercial centers and partnering with community groups. The district reached an agreement with the teachers union last week on an incentive package for special education teachers, but McKnight said it was too early to assess whether the package would help bring in more special education teachers. Teaching vacancies are currently being filled by substitute teachers, including retirees.
Prince George’s County Public Schools, which enrolls about 131,000 students, had about 900 teacher vacancies and still lacked roughly 100 drivers Monday Many of the teacher openings there are in special education, which districts across the country have struggled to staff for years — even before the pandemic. The school district has told families who rely on the bus to expect delays for the first few weeks, as drivers get used to new routes.
Bell schedules have also shifted at some schools in response to the delays. At Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Principal Portia Barnes said the first class period of the day was longer than usual Monday to accommodate students on buses that might be running behind.
“We are saying it is all hands on deck,” Goldson said. “I’m really grateful for the number of people who have said, ‘Hey, I’m here to help,’ instead of standing on the sideline and watching.”
D.C. Public Schools has reported about 150 teacher vacancies. School district leaders have tapped central-service staff to fill in classes during the month of September. Contracts for substitute teachers have also been expanded, officials said.
The job losses come as D.C. is preparing to welcome an influx of new students: Lewis Ferebee, chancellor of the city’s public school system, said last week he is aware of 40 migrant children who may enroll this fall. The children are part of a wave of migrants, originally from countries including Venezuela and Nicaragua, who have arrived in the District on buses from Arizona and Texas.
At least some of the children were able to start school Monday, but a school official did not disclose enrollment numbers. The district is working with the city’s Department of Human Services to support families through the enrollment process, said Enrique Gutierrez, a schools spokesman.
Nationwide, many educators left the profession during the past school year amid complaints about burnout, low pay and unsupportive environments, particularly after the pandemic disrupted in-person learning. The Washington Teachers’ Union has gone three years without a labor contract with the public school system, much to the ire of members.
In addition to its test-to-return policy, the District is mandating that students older than 12 be vaccinated against the coronavirus — a requirement that makes it an anomaly, not just among schools in the region but in the country.
The measure, the result of legislation passed by the D.C. Council last year, has drawn criticism for its potential to keep students out of school. Education officials in the city recently decided to give students more time to comply — children who are not fully vaccinated against the virus will be notified Nov. 21 and will need to get their shots by Jan. 3.
Beyond those requirements, most schools in the area have relaxed many coronavirus protocols. Mask mandates have been dropped — except in Prince George’s schools — and policies that required students and staff to quarantine after being exposed to the virus have been eliminated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose recommendations many school systems follow, relaxed its covid guidelines for schools earlier this month.
Meanwhile, amid and despite worries over the virus and learning loss and teacher shortages, school got underway Monday like it does, in some fashion, every year.
In the bright halls of Harriet R. Tubman Elementary School in Gaithersburg, students settled down to complete their very first assignments. Stickers and markers littered the tables as several classes began to decorate their new hallways and lockers.
Third-grade teacher Megan Smith tasked her students with creating name tags for their lockers. Smith said she was excited to teach in Gaithersburg, her hometown. Her first year as a teacher ended remotely in 2020 when the pandemic began and schools shut.
“It was definitely difficult and challenging,” Smith, 24, said. “But I also feel like I was able to push my career forward. Being a ‘zillennial’ I have some experience with technology, so I got to be a leader at my school community that way and help people.”
She reveled in the scene in her classroom Monday, as kids busied about with crayons and markers, looking exactly like how she always imagined school should be.
In second-grade teacher Michelle Goulet’s classroom, Sofia Lovo Sanchez, 7, filled in a worksheet with an icebreaker question. She had the jitters going to school because it was new, she wrote underneath a pencil drawing of her and her younger sister. But the new school building excited her.
“My sister said she wants to be in this school because it’s so big,” Lovo Sanchez said as she colored in the border of the worksheet with a yellow crayon.
Hannah Natanson contributed to this report.
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