First week of school during COVID | Atlanta Child Photographer

This past Monday, the public schools in my county started back. I really wasn’t anxious about it at all because last month or so the powers that be decided that they would have the children return to the classroom virtually. Needless to say, I was rather happy about it, along with quite a few other parents. To be honest, I’m very fortunate in my situation. For one, I work for myself at home and two, my son is in high school. I really don’t have to worry about him getting into any trouble if I actually did have to leave the house. Sure, he can get distracted but I don’t have to worry about him doing things like playing with fire or sticking metal objects into the outlets. Plus, DFACS won’t come to arrest me for leaving him home alone for a few hours. 

If you ask my son how he feels about it, you’ll probably get a blank stare and he’ll say, “It’s still school.” In fact, I asked him on a scale from 1 to 10, how was his day. His exact answer was, “School”. He really doesn’t like school. At one point in time, he seemed to but I’m not sure what happened. He also used to love math until the fourth grade. My hypothesis is that fourth grade was when math became a bit more rigorous and he didn’t like that. I hate that he doesn’t like school but having to do things that you don’t like because they have to be done is actually a regular part of life. How many things do you have to do on a regular/semi-regular basis that you absolutely don’t want to do? I can list several but that’s not what this post is about. 

Anyway, from what I understand, some students had issues logging into the various platforms available to them for instruction. As far as my son has told me, he didn’t necessarily have any problems, even though one of his teachers did. Actually, it seemed like this one particular teacher was a bit confused about the time his class was going to start, thereby sending out a Zoom meeting request while the students were actually in another class. Oops. Since it’s the first week of school, they really haven’t done any work yet. Evidently, that’s the only thing that my son enjoyed about school. Well, that and the fact that Monday and Tuesday were both early release days. Turns out that their school days are considerably shorter than a regular in-person school day and the kicker is that Wednesdays are a “school free” day. Let me expound upon that. Wednesday will be used as teacher workdays, parent/teacher conference days, student tutorial days, and study hall days. It’s cool because it lets the kids have a day just to work on their assignments but it’s going to be a bit challenging for me because I have to keep checking in on him to make sure he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing.  I am not a micromanager!

I figure that this school year should be pretty interesting, hopefully in a good way. I really would like for him to enjoy his high school experience but he seems determined not to. To be honest, my high school experience wasn’t all that great. I had a much better experience in college. Perhaps he will latch onto something that he enjoys, besides tennis, that will bring him joy. Until then, I’ll have to keep talking to him and encouraging him. Aside from all of that, I guess school is going well but it is only day three. Currently, we’re working on not procrastinating and better time utilization. Heck, I still have issues with those two things. Perhaps I shouldn’t be the one to try to teach him what he should do. However, I do have a solution for one of them but I am also my accountability partner, soooo…. At any rate, I hope you other parents are faring well with this entire process. I really feel for those parents who have young ones. Bless your hearts. And we can’t forget about those parents whose children are remanded to be in-person at school. I know my prayers are with you. 

One last thing. Even though I am a photographer, I never made a habit out of taking my son’s first day of school pictures. I think I may have done it once or twice throughout his 10-year school career. Well, my husband determined that he wanted one taken so that he could send it to my mother-in-law. I have some totally great images of our son I took about a month ago. Oh, my bad, they weren’t taken on the first day of school. (insert eye roll). So, here is the image he sent her.

Don’t mind his semi-pained expression. It’s because his dad coerced him into the photo and made him put on one of his uniform shirts. At least when I took his pictures before he didn’t mind and also didn’t give me this crooked smile I’ve never seen before. My husband called it the “money shot”. I just looked at him like he was crazy. Anyway, good luck to everyone and your children. Have a successful school year!

I’m pretty sure this sums up how my son feels about high school or school in general.