Allen Fort has been a strong advocate for rural schools in Georgia for decades. Fort is Taliaferro County School District superintendent and also the principal of the 170-student district. Fort retired this year, but is still serving in the role, so, this week, he oversaw his 46th first day of school.
It was like none other.
Fort wrote this the night before his small district opened Wednesday for remote learning only.
By Allen Fort
Today, we had our “Back to School Bash.” In the past, it is where we have all of the students and parents back to meet teachers, see their rooms, find their desks and get supplies from local churches, the sheriff’s office and health clinic and play in the gym for a while.
Today, in dealing with the virus, we had a drive-through Bash. Cars were wrapped around the school, out of the driveway and all the way to the four-way stop, causing a traffic jam at the Dollar General (the Mall).
We got a great laugh at the traffic jam. Every sheriff was called in to manage the traffic and distribute book bags, all six deputies.
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
Students excitedly let down their windows to meet their teachers and pick up work; we had already given the students their computers. Outside, hot and sweating, (many of us came to the conclusion we would all pass out from suffocation long before the virus got us, realizing the 24-hour deodorant did not fulfill its promise today, either), teachers, wearing their masks, leaned into cars a bit to welcome students to their class (many wearing masks, along with the parents) and give instructions on what they’ll be doing these first few days of school. I talked to all the families. Many parents were asking, “Can I drop them off and come back in May?”
Our school will be empty Wednesday, our first day of school; it seems surreal.
In my 46 years of opening schools or seeing them open, I have never started in an empty school. Our halls will be quiet Wednesday. I will miss the talk, laughter and excitement of students and teachers returning to school. I will miss the buzz of what is my schedule, who will I sit by, is Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So going to be mean this year or not.
I will miss the bells signaling the change of class, students lining up for lunch, getting the little kids into the routines that exist in an orderly school.
It won’t be the same not hearing the roar of the buses lumbering into the driveway, the screech of the brakes, the creak of the door opening, and the kids spilling onto the sidewalk.
I miss seeing the crying moms, letting their Pre-K’er, kindergartner or first grader get out of the car and amble into the doors of the school, eyes wide open and thinking this is such a big place.
It just won’t be the same not seeing the big brother or sister holding their siblings hand, the little one squeezing it as if this is my protector leading me to the right place.
There will not be the one-time uniqueness of the new teacher welcoming the new student into the new room; it can only happen 14 times in a child’s life.
For this generation, it may only happen 13 times, and under these circumstances, if it happens this year, there aren’t any open arms or hugging along with it.
Today, we had 95% of our students and parents show up for our Bash, many just glad to have a reason to leave the house,. Very many of those who came today looked back at the school as they left, wondering when will we be back? My kids go home with great technology to a house that may not even have cell service, much less Wi-Fi/broadband connection.
If 70% of Georgia does not have these services, this means three million people are without, three million. That is unacceptable in this day and time. A generation and a half, maybe two, into the technology age, we have this many people who are unconnected.
This is a travesty of the highest kind. How in the world (I wanted to use hell) can we, in Georgia, deliver beer, wine and liquor to a house, but can't deliver Wi-Fi service?
I like the local control for our little system, we would not have done it any other way. It was a great day for little Taliaferro County. Tomorrow will be an empty day. It will also be a historic day.
Our mission is to make Wednesday the first great day of a great school year, the most unique school year ever, maybe the year one will remember at the 50th reunion. I can promise it will be one that students, teachers, parents and the community will long remember.
I can only pray and hope this year will deliver the really good things we, as educators, work toward, where students get the education they truly deserve to succeed in life, parents who pin their hopes on this and every year that we give their child that motivation, that fire, that ambition to move forward, that the teaching and learning will help these kids become the adults of the community to keep it flourishing and not floundering.
For as little play as this has gotten on the state political stage, these next few days of beginning school will be the most important days maybe into the mid-century at minimum. We are dealing with a child’s life here, right now, physically with the virus, but, most of all, mentally and intellectually, even financially and emotionally.
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