Photo by Jordan Blackwell
By Valerie Sliker, Courtesy Wagener Monthly
This photo of WSHS Senior Gaige Starnes taken by Jordan Blackwell with a subtitle by Jennifer Starnes “The Lost Season of 2020” is a compelling reminder that COVID-19 denied our graduates many rites of passage typical of one’s senior year.
The final season for a high school Senior athlete is usually exciting, challenging and quite memorable. Sadly, this year, only one of those three applies and it applies to the whole senior class, not just the athletes: it is a memorable year.
The COVID-19 quarantine shut the schools down suddenly in March. While students found it a difficult adjustment, so much more did their parents who suddenly took on the role of teacher or at least teacher’s assistant. The teachers had a difficult adjustment as they learned to teach via Zoom and other apps. They had to be creative and diligent with students who had no internet access or personal cell phone. Admirably, they remained in steady contact with their students, finding creative ways to reach them individually. Then the final link in the chain of difficulty in education during a pandemic lies with the administrators, the principals and the district offices.
According to WSHS Principal Chris Earl, communication was the biggest challenge. Getting information from the district to the schools to the teachers to the parents happened fast and changed even faster. Reacting to state mandates was like “reacting to a leaky faucet.”
“Our district. Mr. Laurence and his team, they’ve done a phenomenal job with planning, distance learning packets and having information available for our students online.” Earl said. “Our curriculum interventionists at the district level did a lot of prep work for our teachers in developing lesson plans.
“The district also gave us designated dates to do drop off and pick up. They did a phenomenal job of giving us guidelines to follow, making sure to keep us healthy as much as the students. At the same time, delivering lunches to our school. They made the transition as smooth as possible.
“I’d like the students to know that we miss them, we miss the structure, seeing them coming to school every day, the conversations and the relationships. I think that this situation has caused us to reflect on and appreciate what we do working with students and going the extra mile for our kids to help them be successful. We hate the circumstances, but it really has opened my eyes to the importance of the job that we do every day.
“It’s almost like this has refueled the fire in terms of our purpose and what we have to do for our students and the importance of being educated, getting involved in community and society, voting, making decisions. The school is like a central hub for preparing our young people for these things later in life. The healthcare field and all the other things we’re seeing right now, we always knew they were important, but sometimes we don’t realize how important until we need them. We see how important the health care is to society and how important school is to society. I think it’s important that we reflect on all that, making sure we keep doing our part as educators, trying to make the world a better place.”
Aiken County Public Schools have remained true to the calendar and graduation remains scheduled for 10:00 a.m. June 5, 2020. The ceremony has been moved to the school’s football field and tickets are limited to two per graduate. The ceremony will be live-streamed.
This is Earl’s final year at WSHS. Starting in September, he will be presiding over the school from which he graduated, Airport High, Lexington Two district. “It is a good opportunity for my family,” Earl said. “All of my family lives near Airport and that’s where I grew up. It’s good to be offered a position in the school where you walked the hallways and graduated.
“I learned so much personally and professionally being at Wagener, the close-knit school and community, and how important family and community is. The way the community cooperates has really opened my eyes to the importance of tradition, family and people you can relate to. Everybody is kind of tied to each other, cousins, friends, schoolmates, I think Airport will be like that for me. I look forward to that part of it.
“Everybody needs everybody.” Earl concludes. “This (pandemic) has really shed light on that. No one person or thing is more important than the other, we all need each other. Hopefully, when we all get back to normal, we’ll be appreciative of things and not forget.”