Harper Decker was excited and happy when Monday morning as she got ready for her first day of pre-kindergarten at Qulin Elementary.
As Carlee Decker pulled up to the drop-off line, she noticed Harper’s little face getting nervous. Her brother Luke jumped out of the car to start his first day of kindergarten, but Harper clung to her mom, crying, before eventually letting out a scream as Carlee handed her to a teacher.
“She started daycare this past summer and the first day was like that too,” Carlee Decker said. “Literally 10 minutes after I left (the staff said) ‘She’s fine, she’s perfect’ and she loved it ever since. But it’s heartbreaking. It’s hard to have to peel your kid off of you and throw them into school.
“The first day of daycare, I was crying more than she was, but I kind of held myself together today.”
Kindergarten teacher Lisa Bell said the students’ emotions are all over the place every year. Some are quick to jump out of the car and say goodbye to their parents, and some cry. For the latter, she gives them lots of love and gets them into a routine as soon as possible.
“The first week, we mostly cover practicing lining up, practicing going to the bathroom, lot and lots of rules. Usually, the second week we just into the learning,” Kindergarten teacher Lisa Bell said. “Even things like stacking their chair. You can’t get to the end of the day and say, ‘OK, stand up and stack your chair’ because they’ve never stacked a chair. So we practice stacking chairs, we practice hanging up our backpack.”
Qulin Principal Seth McBroom, who has children in first, third and fifth grade, is used to this, too, having dropped his son off for his first day of kindergarten last year.
“He was our third. We were professionals by then, so we just dropped him off and let him do his thing,” McBroom said. “You might have a few that are scared and don’t want to get away from their parents at first, but once the day gets started, they usually have a blast.”
The first friendly face many see is Roger McCaghren, who is entering his 46th year of teaching, the past 36 at Qulin, and had McBroom in his class.
“I figure we have to give them a positive attitude by being a positive attitude. That way, they come in, they’re ready to go. It’s good on both sides, for us and for them,” McCaghren said. “I’ve been doing it for so long; it just seems natural. I just like doing it.”
I Neelyville, Hillview Elementary Principal Patrick Morton broke the ice with students on the first day of school by wearing an inflatable tiger suit to greet children as parents and buses dropped them off.
As the new school year starts, school districts across the country are dealing with a shortage of bus drivers.
The Associated Press reports a Montana school district is offering $4,000 bonuses while a school district in Delaware offered parents $700 to take care of their own transportation. A Pittsburgh district delayed the start of classes and said hundreds more children would have to walk to school.
HopSkipDrive, a company that tracks school bus issues, conducted a survey in March that found nearly 80% of districts that responded were having trouble finding enough bus drivers.
Joanna McFarland, co-found and CEO of HopSkipDrive, said to the AP that the shortfall isn’t new, but a labor shortage across many sectors and the pandemic’s lingering effects have made it worse, since about half the workforce was over 65 and more vulnerable to the virus.
Poplar Bluff Superintendent Scott Dill said the district needs to hire 10 drivers to be fully staffed.
“Transportation on day one is always problematic. Being short on drivers makes it more so,” said Dill, adding that the goal is to have everything safe and predictable. “The main thing is, we ask everybody to be a little patient with us. We’ve got them; it just might take a little while longer this afternoon to get them home.
“We’re happy to have the kids back. Even in difficult circumstances, this is why we do what we do.”
Hillview combined routes and re-routed some students to make up the difference.
“Talking to people in other districts, it seems to be everyone is going through a shortage with bus drivers,” Morton said. “I’m not sure how much of it is the pandemic and the workforce in general.”
McBroom said Qulin is OK at the moment, but needs substitute bus drivers.