Students woke up bright and early Monday, eagerly awaiting their first school day in more than five months.
As they arrived to school, they excitedly jumped out of the cars in long dropoff lines and greeted their teachers, smiling behind their masks and ready for whatever the day would bring.
Lawson Elementary School Principal Patricia Tavenner said it was great to see students and staff and see the Jefferson City School District's re-entry plan play out Monday after months of planning.
"We love what we do, so obviously, we're glad and excited to have kids back," she said. "It was pretty awesome to see the kids get out of the vehicles today because you could tell the excitement that they were having."
Superintendent Larry Linthacum, who visited all 18 schools in the district, said the best part of the first day was that everybody got to see each other again and regain some normalcy. Seeing students and staff connecting and engaging and seeing students excited to be back was inspiring and encouraging, he said.
"It just reaffirmed that our kids need to be in school," he said. "We were just so excited to have all our students back. It was great seeing them and their smiling faces," Linthacum said.
Other than a few small challenges, the new procedures went as expected. Preparation and planning alleviated most challenges, Linthacum said, and students followed directions well.
"I did not see a child without a mask on," he said. "Our kids were practicing social distancing; our staff was engaging with the kids. Honestly, it went really well."
One challenge COVID-19 presented was that some students were not familiar with the building because the district provided virtual tours instead of open houses this year.
Capital City High School Principal Ben Meldrum said this was the only challenge he experienced, which is typical for any first day.
"Our team here did an outstanding job of being resources for kids and helping them and allowing our day to go on as it should be, regardless of our circumstances," he said. "We're blessed to have a great team here that cares about kids and wants to be here for kids, and it shows with the efforts that they put in."
Another challenge was more students were dropped off instead of riding the bus, so the dropoff lines were longer than normal, which the district will work to alleviate, Linthacum said.
At Lawson Elementary, the dropoff line is also in a different location this year, so the new procedure and the increase in car riders slowed down the dropoff process.
"But they were all so very gracious," Tavenner said. "The parents had smiles on their faces, waving, and they were very understanding of that, so we thank them for all their patience with us."
Tavenner said she expected younger students to struggle with wearing masks, but she was pleasantly surprised and impressed.
"Even in kindergarten, I was amazed how great of a job our students did wearing masks," she said. "It was like it was routine to them as they would go out into the hallway to go to the restroom where we had social distance markings or to the cafeteria where we had social distance markings, they smiled and did just everything that they would normally do with their masks on."
Tavenner said it felt like a normal school day despite the new safety procedures, and she enjoyed engaging with the students.
"We can still show love and concern and relationship building with our children despite all of the social distancing," she said. "There was definitely connections and relationships built today with our kids, so that was very exciting, and I think that went very well."