PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — It's the first day of class in the School District of Philadelphia. For many older students, this will be their first time back in the classroom after a year and a half of learning from home.
At the brand-new building housing Samuel Powel Elementary School and Science Leadership Academy Middle School, Mayor Jim Kenney and Superintendent William Hite rang the bell to signify the start of a new school year.
After an all-remote start a year ago, the district shifted grades K-9 to a hybrid model to end last school year for families who chose to send their kids back in. And now it is a return to five days a week in the classroom for the first time since March 2020.
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But with the coronavirus delta variant throwing a curveball to everyone, this is definitely not business as usual. Masks are required at least to start the school year off. Indeed, the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf is poised to issue a mask mandate for all Pennsylvania K-12 schools.
The school board also approved a vaccine mandate for teachers, staffers and other district employees. The details of that are still being worked out.
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Families at Science Leadership Academy Middle School in University City on Tuesday morning expressed excitement and relief about students going back full time and in person. Monica Velazquez walked with her son to school and recalled how difficult things were for much of the last 18 months.
"So hard," she said. "I was working from home. I teach too. So I was teaching from home. He was learning from home. We live in a very small apartment, so it was really hard to deal with."
Velazquez described a sense of relief that now home could just be home -- not home plus her office plus his classroom.
"It was too much for him, too much for me. It affected my work. It affected his schooling. It was so hard, so hard to deal with everything, to juggle everything," she said.
Latora Brown talked about the extra steps of bringing her daughter, Dior, to her grandmother's house for remote learning. But now, she said, they can get back on track.
"'I can work in peace, knowing that my daughter is safe in the school," she said. "The fact that she has to wear a mask. She’s used to wearing a mask."
And Dior, now a sixth grader, said what she is excited about: "Learning. Education. And having friends that like the same thing as me."
Seventh grader Aurora was also happy to get back to the swing of things.
"It’s gonna be exciting, because I’m gonna be seeing friends I haven’t seen in a while -- for, like, a year now. And I get to see teachers, it’s gonna be a whole new experience."
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She said she trusts that the school has taken all the appropriate COVID-19 mitigation measures seriously,
"I trust that the school has at least the basics under control," she said. "Because, as long as we keep a safe distance, make sure people are following the rules, keeping clean, I think the school has it under control."
What also eases fears, Aurora says, is that she is fully vaccinated.
Not every Philadelphia school is opening for in-person learning. There is one exception. Students at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber in West Philadelphia will start the school year remotely because of ongoing construction work in the building that has raised concerns from the community about safety.