From The Edge

 It's not really a slow slide. It is more like someone left the door open and work just wandered in. The emails. The texts. The requests for my time. The time I had been parceling out in little dollops between actively recovering from Covid and staying on top of the daily chores around the house. A meeting here, a phone call there. Not much to squeal about. 

Yet. 

I know that the calendar will change and the page that said "summer" on it will fall to the floor. I hope I have time to bend down and pick it up before the whole commotion begins in earnest. Somewhere out there class lists are being prepared. Numbers are being reviewed and rooms are being set up with what we hope to be the proper combination of desks and chairs. 

Three less rooms than last year. Three less teachers. The "science" of staffing an elementary school continues to be alarmingly inaccurate. The predictions based on last year's trends and the attendance we were able to achieve in the year following being online full-time will give us a starting point. That and the fact that the student assignment office was actively discouraging families from signing up to our school because "you know they're going to close." 

And yet, those of us who continue to be assigned to teach at Horace Mann Elementary are currently wringing the last bit of vacation from our week and beginning the quiet contemplation of working in a school with the looming specter of this being the last year. The last set of class lists. The last batch of name tags. The last introductions to the bathrooms, the cafeteria, and the poor old playground. 

It is during this time each year that I have felt a tug of anxiety as I prepare for my umpteenth "first day of school." This year will be different, because first and last will be mixed together in unsavory ways. But we won't show it. Kids still need to read. Kids still need to multiply. Kids still need to go to school. We are going to give them that chance. 

The countdown continues.