If my memory serves me correctly, it was Wednesday, March 11, 2020, sometime after 2 p.m. I was dropping my students off at home from school. I can remember one of my students concerns so vividly. It was heartbreaking.
It happened right before my student exited the bus, and it was at that moment my heart sank. One of my many students said to me, and I’ll paraphrase. “I hope my dad doesn’t lose his job, and school doesn’t shut down.”
COVID-19 had officially come to Minnesota, leaving a majority of us confused, frustrated, looking for answers, and wondering is this real?
It has been four months since my brief discussion with my former student, and school had indeed been shut down.
However, today plans are being made on what the new educational model will look like in the fall. Which may consist of hybrid classes. Online some days, in school other days. Dividing students into small groups in order to prevent the further spread of the Coronavirus, etc.
But the impact of COVID-19 will leave a permanent scare on the entire world. A wound that is going to take sometime to heal. The Coronavirus had not only left my student concerned and worried for his father’s stability in the work force, but it also disrupted my student’s educational plan for the future, and overall well-being in one single day.
In addition, COVID-19 has shed a bright light on the many disparities and other concerns facing the African American community, people of color in general, and people period for that matter. Such as poverty, the working poor, politics 2020, voting, education, affordable housing, health care, systemic racism, social injustice, classism, corporate greed, police brutality, community violence, etc.
On Friday, March 13, 2020, neither me nor my students were prepared for what the near future would bring. But by Monday, March 16, 2020 the answer was clear.
I can only imagine how many of my students felt that Monday, when school officials, school staff, bus drivers, and again, and most importantly the students, knew for certain that school would no longer be in session. I don’t recall at the time a plan in place, or decisions made to address the issue on whether or not school would resume for the remainder of the school year.
And I can’t even fathom how my student felt that Monday, March 16, 2020, when my student found out school would no longer be in session.
My hope for that student, and many others, is that their father didn’t lose his job.
Carlotta Arradondo
Author | Publisher and CEO
of Black Lines Publishing
