Steve Cordle
ECB Publishing, Inc.
The first day of school always brings a sense of excitement. A new year, new friends, new teacher and (for some) a new school. For the 2020-2021 school year add one more “new”: the new normal. The 2020-2021 school year is the first school year in modern times to start in the middle of an international pandemic. COVID-19 has presented many challenges for schools across the country, causing schools to close their facilities to in person instruction in March and resort to online instruction or packets of school work sent home to students. Most schools begin the new school year during the middle to the end of August, but many districts across the country have pushed their start dates back by a week or more.
Jefferson and Leon counties are scheduled to begin classroom instruction on Monday, Aug. 31. One exception to the late start trend is Aucilla Christian Academy (ACA), which started its 50th year on time on Thursday, Aug. 6.
ACA began with 335 students, an approximately three percent increase over last year, despite the COVID outbreak. Dealing with COVID has created a host of “new normals” in the United States and school is no different. ACA has a procedure in place that was drawn up with help from the Jefferson County Health Department that includes daily temperature checks. Those checks will be a part of the new routine for staff and students at all schools across Florida and the nation for the foreseeable future. At ACA the day started with screening every student and staff member as they arrived on campus, bus riders were screened by their drivers prior to getting on the bus.
“The start of the day was really, very good.” Principal Richard Finlayson said, “We screened every student and staff member’s temperature, coming on the campus and did not have students late to class, it was very efficient.”
Students at ACA take their responsibility in the current situation very seriously, wearing their masks and maintaining proper social distancing. One thing staff tried to emphasize with students, was that opening school was not difficult.
“Opening school is the easy part, keeping school open is the big challenge,” Finlayson said.
What about wearing masks on a continuous basis? When students and staff get tired of the masks, what then? While acknowledging that nothing they do is foolproof, the students and staff at ACA much prefer to be in the classroom and so it is expected that they will do what is necessary to keep the school from closing.
The principal noted that relationship and rapport building are important at ACA, which encourages the school’s administration to keep the school open for in person instruction for two reasons:
• First, impacting students academically in person is so much more superior to anything else in ACA’s opinion.
• Second, the ability to impact the students for Christ suffers when in an online instructional model, because it is harder to develop those relationships when the contact between student and teacher is limited to seeing each other on a computer terminal.
The goal is to keep events and activities as close to normal as they can, but there will be changes in store for students, parents and everyone else who attends ACA. Changes this year include eating lunch in the classroom instead of the cafeteria to avoid the spread of COVID. Children will be allowed recess time like normal but masks will be required while on the playground. Extracurricular activities will see changes too. An annual open house night is still on the calendar, but no decision has been made how to proceed with it. They are also discussing mitigation strategies in their athletic programs that will help prevent the whole team from being sent into isolation if there is a positive COVID test, necessitating only the person testing positive to isolate.
As the year progresses, there will be challenges as ACA and other schools adjust to the new social requirements brought about by COVID-19, while maintaining their educational standards. Aucilla Christian Academy is confident that they are ready to meet challenges ahead of them and give their families the best experience possible.
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