Excitement and nervousness as the first Norfolk students return to school in person after a year learning at home

Norfolk — The woman walked her two children as far as she could, up the red carpet and right up to the school doors. Then the girl and the boy disappeared into the school, leaving mom alone.

She turned to walk away, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder at the door. A teacher, part of the welcoming brigade, saw the pause and offered a word of reassurance.

“Alright mom, take it easy,” said Russell Branch, a physical education teacher and the boy’s basketball coach at Southside STEM Academy in Norfolk.

The woman turned again to walk away, this time lifting her hands high in the air as if in prayer, or maybe jubilation.

Moments like this, excitement tempered with nervousness, defined Monday, the first time in almost exactly a year that students in Norfolk have set foot in public school buildings for classes.

Some things looked the same as any first day of school: a long line of cars waiting to drop off children, who walked wide-eyed into the building sporting new backpacks and lunch boxes.

Other parts of the day were a nod to our new normal. Students and staff wore masks. There were no hugs or high fives. Students headed into classrooms where they sat 6 feet apart from one another, at desks that were islands unto themselves.

It’s all going to be an adjustment, said Jason Koontz, a math specialist who works at the school.

“It’s hard not to run up and hug them,” he said.

Gov. Ralph Northam and other state officials visited Southside STEM on Monday, one of many visits he’s made across the state to schools that have reopened for in-person classes. He has been pushing districts to reopen for at least some in-person learning since January.

Norfolk was still fully virtual in February when Northam intensified those calls. After he set a March 15 “deadline” — a suggestion, really, because Northam doesn’t have any authority to order schools to reopen — Norfolk’s School Board reconsidered its plans and agreed to a phased, hybrid approach starting this week.

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“We all agree, don’t we, that our children need to be back in school?” Northam said Monday in remarks to other elected leaders and school administrators. “That’s why this is an exciting day.”

Monday’s reopening in Norfolk leaves just one Hampton Roads city without any students going to class in person. In Portsmouth, elementary schoolers can return in mid-April.

In Norfolk, in-person learning is an option right now for elementary-aged students, those with special needs in self-contained classrooms and those learning English as a second language. In April, middle school students and high school students can return in-person.

A little less than two-thirds of Norfolk students have decided to return in-person, according to data provided by the district Monday.

The district’s on a hybrid schedule, with in-person students attending class either Mondays and Tuesdays or Thursdays and Fridays. They’re learning virtually the other days of the week, and both groups of students, those in-person and those fully virtual, are being taught simultaneously by the same teachers.

Virtual learning remains an option for all students.

Sara Gregory, 757-469-7484, sara.gregory@pilotonline.com