During the fall lull in the coronavirus, I found myself on the opposite side of a school pick-up car line from the one I remembered. A lot of things had changed.
My original position in the car line process came in our preschool/kindergarten sponsored by our church before Texas had public kindergarten – a long time ago. With about 100 to 150 children, morning drop-offs were pretty easy and handled by administrative staff as they greeted children who hurried to their assigned classes to be welcomed by their teachers. Pick-ups took some organization. Students were grouped in classrooms and monitored by some teachers with handheld walkie-talkies as parents in the drive through were identified. Other teachers walked back and forth to escort the children to cars. Teachers with the gift of gab were assigned to greet parents and help get the children into those cars. You may guess where I fit in this procession. I loved my assignment unless the weather was bad. We knew all the parents and recognized all the cars, so no window signs were necessary.
This fall, during the lull in Covid outbreaks, it fell our lot a few times for Al and me to be on the pick-up side of the car line for two grandsons. Some things had changed, beginning with a sign at the entrance drive about how early you could get in the car line. This school has 750 children with parents eager to be at the first of the line, requiring the sign regulating how early one could actually begin lining up. I envisioned parents dropping children off in the morning and immediately getting in the pick-up line just to be first.
We duly put our sign with the boys’ and their teachers’ names on the windshield and took our place in the line. There were no walkie-talkies, but iPads instead, where the teacher with that duty notified those inside for children to come out. Outside teachers monitored the children leaving the building and entering cars with no time for conversations.
Some things never change. Occasionally both then and now, parents or grandparents in a hurry, became impatient with the length of the wait. While I didn’t discuss it with anybody, I’m think I can speak for those teachers on duty. I am quite sure this is not their favorite part of the day. They are as ready to be finished with pick-up as the drivers. They want to get back to reset their classroom for a new day tomorrow and make it home for some family time. Patience, then and now, is in order.