School start going smoothly on first day

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DAPHNE – Baldwin County school administrators said the first day of school was going smoothly as students, teachers and parents returned to the academic schedule Wednesday five months after campuses were closed by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Superintendent of Education Eddie Tyler said Wednesday morning that the first day of school had gone well.

‘Teaching is going on in the classroom. Where there could be distancing in the classrooms, it’s been fantastic. Naturally some classrooms, such as English classrooms or some of those, they’re heavy, but no more than normal,” Tyler said.

Two schools had air conditioning problems that were fixed by the time classes began. A storm also knocked out a sewage grinder pump in Orange Beach, but problems were fixed by the time class began, according to school system officials.

“There’s hiccups. It’s the first day of school in a 31,000-student system, 7,000 people up and running for Virtual School,” Tyler said. “I don’t think there’s many systems in the state that could handle what we’re handling and we’re handling well. I’m proud of our employees and teachers.”

Baldwin County is the third largest school system in Alabama and the largest to open so far, Tyler said.

“My understanding is the first largest won’t open until the first of September,” Tyler said. “The second largest, I think is being delayed, so I guess we’re the big dogs. Right now, we’re opening up, city, county schools. We want people to look at what we’re doing. We’re going to mess up, but when we mess up, we’re going to fess up and we’re going to get it right.”

Tyler said teachers and students told him they are glad to be back.

“I’m seeing a lot of good stuff,” Tyler said. “Every teacher that I’ve talked to, and just because I’m the superintendent doesn’t mean they have to smile and say, ‘I’m glad to be back,’ they’re jubilant to be back. They’re jubilant to be in front of their students. I knelt down in the cafeteria at Fairhope East and a couple of students wanted to talk to me, little kids, said ‘thank you for bringing us back.’”

Tyler said that except for all students wearing masks, the start of school does not look much different from past years.

Procedures, including masks, are in place to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Anthony Sampson, director of prevention and support, said he had been checking on nursing stations and isolation rooms set up for students suspected of having COVID-19 on Wednesday.

“Everything is going well,” Sampson said. “My primary focal point in going into all the schools that I’ve gone into is to actually go in and check with all the nurses. We want to make sure that everything is going on within their healthcare room for normal routine daily procedures as well as within the isolation rooms. I’ve visited both isolation rooms and healthcare rooms at several schools this morning both in Daphne as well as Fairhope and the nurses, based on our meeting we had last week has such as sense of calm. They are so resilient. They’ve adjusted to everything and there have been no issues reported to me.”

Later in the day, Spanish Fort High School Principal Brian Williamson sent a notice to parents that nine students enrolled at the school had tested positive for COVD-19. The notice said there was no indication that the students had caught the disease at school or had been on campus since testing positive. The students will remain at home until cleared to return to school.

The students included one freshman, one sophomore, one junior and six seniors.

Baldwin County has about 31,000 students. This year, abut 7,000 enrolled in online classes through the system’s Virtual School programs.