First Day of School.... In a Global Pandemic

 Mid-August, Addi's daycare opened back up, and she was SOOOO excited to go back to school. Although you couldn't tell from her smile. They are taking a lot of precautions, but pre-schoolers do not have to wear masks. Also, with daycare being on campus, they have a number of college student workers. She was back a little over a week before one of the student workers who had been in her room tested positive for COVID. Of course being back at school she had already developed a runny nose and slightly elevated temperature (99.3). She had to go into quarantine, but the rules for who quarantines and for how long are so strange and unclear. We had her tested because of the runny nose. She was very brave, and thankfully, she was negative. But she still had to quarantine for two weeks and they closed her whole class down for that time. The news of her exposure was timed so that we had to cancel the hair cut appointments that I had finally gotten up the nerve to schedule for the girls. Alexia was devastated because she really wanted her haircut before school. Fortunately, Addi's test result came back in time for us to be able to go to Alexia's meet the teacher and for her to be able to go to her first day of school.

Alexia's first day of school was September 8th this year, and the school district decided to go back hybrid. The state has very clear guidelines regarding the case rates in the community for whether to be everyone in-person, hybrid, or all virtual. The numbers were relatively low as we went into the school year, but they wanted to test the hybrid system. However, the cases have been going through the roof for both Clay and Cass County as the colleges also started back, and we have stayed in the hybrid system thus far. I have been pretty impressed with their system. She goes into her classroom with only 8 other kids for either 2 or 3 days a week, and interacts with no other kids all day. They all wear masks, and they get to have two recesses outside (with only their class). It is really different from previous years for her, but she is just so happy to be back in school. She likes her teacher who is back in Moorhead after teaching in Colombia for the last few years. I hope the hybrid system holds up. The cases are so high in the community right now that the high school is already to all virtual. Fingers crossed.