Grace Sampson was sitting with her mom in their home, and a text from one of her North Scott teachers stopped her cold.
The message was short, and in a nutshell, read something like, “Hey guys, I’m so sorry the school year has been cancelled for the rest of the year.”
It literally took the Lancer senior’s breath away.
“It was just kind of a shock to the heart,” said Sampson. “It’s definitely not what I wanted to hear. I was really hoping we’d go back in May. I got teary-eyed with my mom at the kitchen table, and then went to the high school and sat in the trunk of my car with three of my friends. It was a tough day.”
It was 11:08 Friday morning when the educational world took a punch to the gut as Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds announced that schools across the state would not reopen to finish the 2019-2020 academic year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
With those words, school doors were shuttered for the year, and students and staff were left to ponder a future none could have predicted.
All the educational rites of spring were effectively cancelled. At North Scott, there will be no year-end awards ceremonies, end -of-the-year music concerts or senior prom.
Graduation will look decidedly different, if it’s even held at all, and who only knows about individual graduation parties.
There will be no junior high spring dance, and the popular elementary Field Days competition that brings fifth- and sixth-graders from all across the district to Lancer Stadium won’t take place.
Retiring teachers, including long-time administrators Frank Wood (associate principal at the high school) and Kelly Rohlf (principal at John Glenn Elementary in Donahue), won’t be able to bid final farewells.
Spring sports never got started. State tournament dreams were dashed, and the future of the summer baseball and softball seasons was put on hold, and delayed at least until June 1.
Still, education will continue. Supt. Joe Stutting was not surprised that schools will not reopen, and he learned the official news while watching Reynolds’ press conference.
He said the district had been planning for such a scenario since schools were originally closed on March 13, and it’s been a focus of school staff to formulate essential learning plans for all students.
“Even if we came back, we knew we were going to have a shortened school year, so we were going to have to pare our education down to the most essential learning,” he said.
Now that he knows students won’t be returning to classrooms, Stutting said it’s important to keep them engaged.
“We will continue to work on getting our teachers better and better at doing online,” he said, “but more importantly, we want 100 percent engagement of our kids. We are really geared to tracking who is engaged, and how do we get the highest engagement of our kids as possible.”
District-wide impact
All across the school district, students and educators tried to process the news that they wouldn’t be returning to their classrooms after being locked out since March 13.
“I feel bad for the seniors,” said Dion Ayers, a sixth-grade teacher at Neil Armstrong Elementary in Park View. “This is supposed to be the best four months of their high school career, and then I think of my own class of little sixth-graders, and it’s so tough not to be able to finish the year with them and have some closure.”
No one will be impacted more than the Class of 2020, and school administrators are working diligently to still honor them in some way.
“We’re going to make it as special as we can for them,” said Stutting. “Our seniors deserve recognition and a graduation. It’s heartbreaking for all of us to think that all the kids lost a quarter of this school year, but especially your seniors.
“All those things we do in the fourth quarter of the school year are gone, from prom to concerts, and everything. They won’t happen, and for seniors, they won’t ever happen again.”
Coming up with a solution for graduation is at the top of high school principal Shane Knoche’s to-do list.
“These next few weeks, I have two goals,” he said. “The first one is to make sure seniors get the recognition they deserve, and in some way that will be special. Secondly, I have to make sure all of our students are accessing their learning and that they are being successful.”
However, the senior recognition weighs heavy on his heart.
“Selfishly, this is the time of year I look forward to the most, and one of my favorite things is being able to move that tassel over,” said Knoche. “Plus, I just think of all the things the seniors are not getting an opportunity to enjoy, and that’s just heartbreaking.
“We’re brainstorming anything out of the box that we can still do for these kids.”
Knoche is working on several possible graduation ideas, and had even investigated the possibility of holding it at a drive-in theater prior to Reynolds’ announcement. He has since learned that won’t be possible.
Other ideas hinge on whether or not the CDC and Reynolds loosen social distancing guidelines. He’s looking at a way to utilize Lancer Stadium if gatherings can be increased to 100 or 200 people, and then have students come in groups of 25 or 50, with the graduation speeches being played on the video board and the whole ceremony could be live streamed.
With nearly 230 students in the graduating class, that process might have to be spread out over two days, and then weather could be a factor.
“That would be a long couple of days, but it would give the kids some sort of sense of hearing their name called, walking up and having some of their friends there,” he said. “I think we can keep the social distancing, but again, all is dependent on CDC.”
If that doesn’t work, he is looking at a virtual graduation ceremony that will require more time and planning, but is more likely.
One idea being floated is having students come into the auditorium one at a time, with their families, and no more than six people. Students would have their names called, go up on stage and receive their diplomas. Families could then take pictures.
The whole event would be recorded on video, and all the segments would be spliced together. If each student was allotted five minutes, that would still be two eight- to nine-hour days.
“We’d have to be very organized,” said Knoche.
For certain, there is a parade in the works for Graduation Day on Sunday, May 31.
“The students would be in cars, so there would be social distancing, but they could still have fun,” said Knoche. “We’d have to get the parade route figured out, but I think we could make it work.”
Knoche said that there will also be some sort of virtual recognition in place of the numerous year-end awards ceremony.
Tough on graduates
Even if there is some sort of graduation ceremony, it won’t totally relieve the sting of what’s been lost.
“It’s really sad,” said senior Avery Woods. “It’s not only missing out on the big events like going to prom, or senior yearbook signing, or seeing my teachers, but also all the little things we won’t be able to do. It’s really kind of upsetting that we won’t get to participate in making all those small memories with each other.”
Senior Abbi Lafrenz said not getting prom and other activities is nothing short of heartbreaking.
“This is not easy,” she said. “When I think about prom, there is so much invested in that already. There are girls that have $500 dresses that are going to sit in their closets and never be worn, unless they resell it.
“It’s like a lot of this stuff was promised to us, and all the classes before us got to do it, and in the blink of an eye we were told we couldn’t. That’s what sucks about it. I hope that the next classes get to have a better experience than we did.”
Senior Cidney Hoerner is of the same mindset.
“I feel like everyone else has gotten to experience all these things, and it makes me jealous of the years before us,” she said. “It’s like it’s expected, but it gets taken away from you.
“It’s kind of upsetting because everyone was excited for prom. It’s like everything we prepared ourselves for, and it gets thrown down the drain. We don’t get that end-of-senior-year feeling that everybody gets to experience. It got taken away from us.”
For Hoerner, missing graduation would be the worst.
“It’s sad not to be able to do all the awards banquets, and I was just looking forward to getting the scholarships and them calling my name. But graduation is the biggest thing. I really wanted to walk across the stage because it was my turn, and I’ve watched so many other seniors do it. It was my time to shine.”
Sampson, who is scheduled to be one of the commencement speakers, acknowledges that she’s disappointed with the turn of events, but also that she has faith in school administrators to do the right thing.
“I’m really frustrated about graduation,” she said. “I’m an only child, and my mom is like, ‘Please tell Mr. Knoche that you want to walk.’ He knows that we all want to walk, and I trust him. I put my faith in him and Mr. Stutting, and I know that whatever they decide, it will be a good way to honor the seniors.”
Georgia Nissen is one of the girls who joined Sampson in the high school parking lot last Friday, and she said she’ll miss not being able to say goodbye to all of her friends.
“I think I can handle no prom better than I can handle graduation,” she said. “I did experience prom last year, but I think everyone in my grade worked so hard all four years of high school, and I feel like it was one final goodbye that I hope we get to have some way or another. I’d like to see everyone one final time.”
Sampson also said that the governor made the right decision, and that she totally accepts it.
“Being realistic, I knew it was highly unlikely that we would go back,” she said. “There isn’t even a treatment for COVID-19, and no way of protecting kids and families. I knew that going back to school would be a huge issue, and I understand that.”
Senior Riley Sindt also understood the decision, but that didn’t keep him from being “bummed and upset” when he heard the news. However, he’s trying to stay positive, and has a message for his fellow classmates.
“As much as a bummer as this is for the seniors,” he said, “I want everybody to remember that the walk across the stage is just symbolic of all the achievements that we have made throughout our school career, regardless of the coronavirus and the situation at hand.
“The achievement will still stand, and nothing will stop that.”