Today was pack-up day. It was also my first time in John Champe since that Friday in mid-March when I briefly returned to rescue the class fish. He’s doing fine, FYI.  

The school was darkly lit, the hallways and bulletin boards still showing announcements and ads that were hanging there on March 12. My own letter board still had the announcement of which two classes won the PEER advisory lesson contest. 

My classroom calendar was a week behind. For the sake of optics I wish it had been showing the correct date. I’m not sure why I was behind a week.   

The soggy soccer ball abided in the northeastern corner. 

But there were a few signs that two months had passed. In the courtyard outside my classroom was a new concrete patio. I did a double take when I saw it, counting the squares, then pumped my fist. It’s no ordinary patio: it can double as a giant chess board. 

That was the high point of the day. 

This is the tenth time in my career I’ve packed up a classroom for the summer. It’s usually a pleasant experience. Today, though, every moment packing up the room — taking down student artwork, stacking chairs, saying hi to masked coworkers as they passed in the hallway, stuffing four hundred and seventy five origami cranes in a locker — was a reminder of the circumstances that brought us here and the uncertainty that follows. 

But that’s life. From my experience, it isn’t characterized by a great amount of certainty. The stability that school provides students, and the happiness and fulfillment students provide the staff members who work with them during the year, has become all the more apparent during our time working online. Being back at Champe just reinforced a simple truth I imagine is shared by many: I miss it, and I can’t wait to come back.