First grader Skylah White said she was nervous in the car on the way to Turie T. Small Elementary School on the first day of school in Volusia County, but felt good while walking onto the campus.
It's her first year ever at school, after a year of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her mom Laticia White said she was "concerned, yes," about sending her two daughters back to in-person schooling, "but education's gotta get done."
More:All adults must wear masks in Volusia schools for 30 days, per superintendent's order
More:Volusia DOH recommends masks in schools; School Board still plans to make masks optional
This year the district projected almost 60,000 students will be returning to schools, with about 1,200 doing virtual school through Volusia Online Learning. Though remote learning is no longer an option,other things made necessary by the coronavirus remain. Masks areoptional this year for students and requiredfor adults until at least Sept. 11. Social distancing wherever possible is still in effect. People will still have to quarantine if exposed to the virus, unless they're vaccinated.
But going into the second full year of school during a pandemic, those adjustments felt normal to students like Mainland High School senior Maren Battistone.He felt comfortable being vaccinated and keeping his mask on,although he noted that about half of the students at his school chose not to wear a mask.
"Overall, there’sobviouslyminor changes such as masks arerecommended and social distancing," he said, "but aside from those minor things it still just feels like normal school at the core of it all."
Academic improvement?
The 2020-21 school year was characterized by the shifting landscape of pandemic learning. Educators, students and parents were all in the same boat as they tried to figure out what works best.
The district saw a downturn in academic performance, both anecdotally and in the test scores that were just recently released, and blamed it on students missing out on in-person instruction last year and in spring 2020.
More:Half of Volusia students failed reading or math assessments, state data shows
Battistone, who did remote learning for the first semester last year, said being in school makes the academics that much easier.
"At home there’s a lot of distractions. At school, it’s a very productive environment," he said. "Being actually at school gives more engagement for me."
The Ford family felt similarly about their daughter Phoenix returning to Turie T. Small Elementaryfor the first grade.
Last year:Volusia school district will not offer remote learning to students next year
Last year:Pandemic school year ends for Volusia, Flagler students as superintendents look ahead
"We're scared at the same time, but we know she'll achieve better — more — if she's in school," said mom Latoya Ford. "There are things that the teacher can do that we can't do that we tried to do over the laptop."
Volusia Superintendent Scott Fritz repeatedly said last year that instruction during the pandemic was a challenge, and remote learning was not an effective form of education for the majority of students. Buthe saidhe was proud of how the district performed under those circumstances and looked forward to moving ahead in this year.
COVID concerns
Despite concerns over learning, the pandemic has students like fifth grader Maci Otto sticking with self-paced virtual schoolfor a second year.
"I was nervous about starting school again and going on VOL but I was also kind of excited," she said. "Since I’m not vaccinated, I don’t really want to go back (in-person)."
Thanks to the more contagious Delta variant, the number of COVID cases has spiked.In Volusia County, there are almost 10times as many cases of COVID-19 as there were at this time last year, according to aUSA TODAY Networkanalysis of Johns Hopkins University data.Hospitals are filling up, and more children are catching the virus.
More:As kids return to school, most Florida counties report COVID-19 cases four times higher than last year
The Florida Department of Health has not released a schools case report since May. The Volusia County school district also stopped releasing case numbers over the summer, but will resume updating its COVID dashboard with that information on Wednesdays and Fridays. It still will not be releasing information about how many students or staff members have been exposed to COVID and are in quarantine.
The much-smaller Flagler County school district, which started classes last week, reported 53 cases of COVID-19 among students and staff between Aug. 10, the first day, and Aug. 13.
More:Masked or not, school starts in Flagler County amid COVID-19
Standing outside of Turie T. Small on the first Monday morning of the year, first-grader Jake Vondrick wasn't too worried about any of that.
"I'm just happy that it's my first day," he said.