By Jen Schiffer

When schools closed across New York state in March of 2020, I think it is safe to say that none of us were prepared for what was to come. How could we even have dreamed that our beloved schools and classrooms would remain shuttered through the end of the school year? Holiday celebrations like our school’s family Passover Seder, and our imaginary trip to Israel for Yom Ha’Atzmaut happened virtually. In June, our Pre-Kindergarten graduation ceremony took place in the school’s parking lot, with masked teachers cheering as cars drove under a balloon arch as the graduates’ names were announced one by one. Classrooms were packed up and we returned the children’s pre-pandemic artwork. As we passed by flyers tacked up in the hallways promoting school celebrations that never happened, it was as if the school had been frozen in time.

The summer months and warmer weather provided some respite from the pressures of Zoom teaching, and allowed us all to spend more time outdoors. For me, it felt surreal trying to navigate how to make the summer feel somewhat normal for my own children in the middle of a global pandemic, all the while looking ahead to September, wondering and hoping we would be able to return to “normal.”

As a nursery school director, work was busier than ever as I met regularly with a dedicated team of synagogue leaders and professional staff to plan for the re-opening of school. Our discussions remained hopeful through the spring and into the summer that we would be able to open school, albeit not without making some significant changes to our policies and procedures. The list of needs and ‘to dos’ grew. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and non-contact thermometers needed to be ordered, classrooms reconfigured, sensory materials and dress-up costumes removed, and hand sanitizer stock-piled in preparation for re-opening.

With all that needed to be done, what kept me awake at night was the children. Because so much time had passed since we had last been in school, I asked myself, what sort of social and emotional state would these little people be in when we finally returned? When I considered our littlest learners, the toddlers, I couldn’t even begin to fathom how they would respond to their first experience with separation. How would a toddler respond to seeing a masked teacher approaching their car, “armed” with a contact-less thermometer, and subsequently whisking him or her away from their parents into a strange place? I envisioned kicking, screaming, and of course, tears. I shared my fears with other directors who were all in the same boat. We brainstormed and planned for ways to keep our schools as “normal” as we could under these very challenging circumstances. Until August, so many of our conversations were hypothetical as the state guidelines kept changing. I continued to revise and update my COVID-19 policies to match those of New York State, all while waiting for the final verdict from the governor’s office.

Finally, in mid-August we received the green light to move forward – we would be able to open! We geared up for re-opening, while at the same time we planned for a potential closure at some point. We created “to-go” bags of materials for the children to use at home should we need to close school for an extended period of time. While we hoped we wouldn’t have to ever use these “to-go” bags, we wanted to be prepared, especially given the circumstances surrounding our closure in March.

Throughout this next phase of re-opening, I continued to ruminate on the children. How could we best support the children and their families as they transitioned to this “new normal” of school in masks, temperature checks and constant cleaning. Of all the worries that infiltrated my brain during this time, I kept coming back to the same big question: How would the toddlers endure their first experience with separation?

I met with the toddler teachers and we planned. We planned for meetings with families over FaceTime and Zoom to show the children what we looked like with and without masks. We took videos of the classrooms and school building, and we planned for an outdoor orientation for the children to come and play outside as a sort of dress rehearsal for opening day. We practiced our new drop-off procedures and demonstrated how we would take temperatures with our contact-less thermometers. I was asking parents, some who had never even been inside our school building, to trust me with their children, during a time when there were more questions than answers, and no guarantees that we would be able to stay open.

“He’s never been away from us and we’ve been working from home since last March.”

“What happens if she cries all day?”

“He just seems so little…”

“Will you let us know how he’s doing during the day?”

“She doesn’t talk much. How will you know what she wants?”

“He just started walking a few weeks ago.”

“What if she gets tired during the day?”

“Will you call me?”

Fast forward to September 14, 2020. The sun was shining bright as the first cars began to arrive on our first day of the academic school year. We had purchased letters for the front lawn that spelled out W-E-L-C-O-M-E B-A-C-K. We made it! First the Pre-Kindergarten children arrived, one car after the other, lining up for drop off. In non-COVID times, parents were accustomed to walking their child into school every morning, and therefore curbside drop-off was new to us all, and I was certainly not a crossing guard. Standing at the school entrance, armed with my thermometer and wearing my school t-shirt and matching mask, I was as ready as I would ever be. I smiled big even though nobody could see my face as my teachers and I went out to meet the first car.

I would be lying if I said it all went smoothly, however the line did move, albeit slowly as parents watched the first day of school proceedings happen without on the front lawn, just outside of the school building. We took the traditional “First Day of School” pictures through the car windows, finding our way at trying to keep things as “normal” as possible for the children and their families. Parents wanted to chat, to share their excitement, anxieties, and fears. I’ll never forget one parent said, “Do you realize you’re writing history?” That we were, and are still doing so every day.

As the director, I made a point of approaching every car to help with temperature checks, and to talk with the families. I felt my eyes welling up with tears of gratitude for all the families who placed their trust in me and our early childhood center during this unprecedented year. After the Pre-K kids, it was time for the three-year olds, followed by my toddlers, many of whom were barely 18 months old. I peered into car windows at the littlest learners in the school, nestled into their car seats, wide-eyed and probably a little confused, and I was reminded that they were babies, and they were about to be taken from their grownups and whisked into a strange building by masked adults. I wiped my own eyes as I prepared myself for anything – tears, screaming, kicking – as the toddler teachers, masked and thermometer ready, approached the cars. What happened next felt like a dream…

The first child was unbuckled and taken out of her car seat. I chatted briefly with the parent, in part so as to distract her, and so that the teachers could take care of the separation piece. Out of the corner of my I watched as the child, after a few whimpers and a “mama,” was brought to a class meeting spot on the front lawn. I stepped back from the car, gave the parent a reassuring smile behind my mask, took a deep breath and approached the next car.

With each car carrying a toddler that approached, we performed the same ritual. I quickly came to realize something truly remarkable was unfolding. These 18-24 month toddlers were separating with relative ease. I’m not saying there weren’t any tears whatsoever, however, what we saw was a very different type of separation than we had ever seen or experienced before.

In pre-COVID times, parents of distressed toddlers would be asked to remain in the classroom or just outside the door for a few minutes to help reassure a crying child. Because the state guidelines prohibited outside visitors in the building, we did not have this option. I expected pandemonium. What we experienced was an eerie calm. For the most part, despite some tears, there appeared to be more confusion than anything else – a new place, new people, and WOW – other children!

Somehow, we got through our first drop off in fits and starts, but we did it. As the last car drove away, I looked on in awe and pride at the toddlers and their teachers assembled on the front lawn. We had the whole day ahead of us, and there was a lot on our first day agenda! I took hold of a little hand and helped the toddler teachers walk their children inside the building to see their new classroom, to play, and to enjoy a snack together. A favorite author of mine, Glennon Doyle, writes in her book, Untamed, “This is hard. We can do hard things.” I could not stop thinking of this mantra on that first day of school during a global pandemic. We were doing hard things – all of us in the community – parents, children, teachers – and damn it was hard, and yet here we were, doing it!

As the day went on, I intermittently checked in on all of my teachers to see how it was going. Because schools closed so abruptly in the spring, the three and four year old children returned to a school that looked different from the one they had left. Due to COVID regulations, gone were the dress-up clothes and play dough. The tables in each classroom were spread farther apart, and fewer toys were made available at any given time, so the teachers could clean and disinfect them daily, on a rotating basis. Instead of focusing on what was missing, I chose to focus on that day, and in the days to come is this – we are open, we are resilient and we have each other.

On days two, three and four, we all bore witness to the same routine. Drop off started to go smoother and quicker. Some days were better than others, as parents too learned the new rules – mask on, car in PARK, wait for the teachers to approach. We adopted the “don’t come to us, we’ll come to you” mentality. The toddlers (and their parents) continued to surprise us with their bravery every morning, making relatively smooth transitions from car to school. We held our breath, waiting for the proverbial “other shoe to drop”; separation appeared to be going too easily.

Second and third time parents who had older children go through the school reminisced about separation for their older children, “Remember how Ezra wouldn’t let me leave the room for the first month?” or “I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor in the hallway that year.” There was something about dropping a child off in the school building, at the classroom door, that proved more upsetting for a toddler than being separated from a grownup outside the school building. I asked myself, could toddler separation at drop off be a silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic?

On days where there were a few tears, the time it took to get from the family car to the classroom was all a child needed to calm down and to be able to enter the classroom calmly. During this very different school year, separation was something we thought would continue to be one of the challenges we could expect, however, much to our pleasant surprise, the “other shoe” never did drop. The little faces I greeted every day were not overly preoccupied by the masks or the temperature checks. These toddlers taught us how to go with the flow, and to accept this new normal. “We should do it this way every year!” more than one parent declared.

We have been blessed that our program has grown since September, and new families have joined our school mid-year. Even with these new students joining our toddler program, we have had similar experiences with separation. It has not been a “thing” this year. At times it has actually been the parents who needed consoling, not the children. This year, more than ever, parents are struggling to know what is the “right” thing to do regarding sending a child to school. Toddlers do not have to go to school, and therefore a parent’s decision to send their child can feel especially momentous during a global pandemic.

The term “silver lining” can be defined aa a sign of hope or a positive aspect in an otherwise negative situation. Running a preschool in the middle of a pandemic is a challenge I face every day. There are no days off. I don’t know if I would call it a “negative situation,” per se, however the days are long and there are often many more questions than we have answers to on any given day. For me, one silver lining during this year is our redefined understanding of separation in toddlers. In each and every toddler I have been blessed to encounter this year, I have seen tremendous strength, resiliency. Herein lies the hope. Separation for young children can be easier, not just for a small portion of the population, but for most, if continue to do things in a similar manner to what we have been doing this year. This silver lining is one I didn’t expect, and therefore feels all the more significant. Separation is hard, and we also now know and understand that is doesn’t have to be. As we continue to navigate running a preschool during the COVID-19 pandemic, the toddlers remind us that there is hope. They are the hope.

Jen Schiffer has been an educator In Jewish Early Childhood Education for over ten years, teaching in Queens and Long Island. She is passionate about engaging young families in her community by providing meaningful Jewish curriculum in her early childhood education program.