CLAY COUNTY, Fla. — Teachers in Clay County are saying "good-bye" to the summer and are about to hit the ground running.
Many of them head back to their classrooms Tuesday for the first time in months. They have two weeks this year for pre-planning before 75% of the district's students come back Aug. 25.
It's one of the last days Govinda Poor's kindergarten classroom will have tables pushed together. The dozen-or-so kids in her class will only interact with each other, even during lunch.
"In the cafeteria for instance we have the tables facing one way," Poor said. "Students aren't sitting in every seat. We're staggering every other or even every third seat."
But Poor says she feels the district's nearly 40-page reopening plan is thorough and will keep teachers and students as safe as possible.
"It's something that will become what the students are used to," Poor said. "It'll take a week or two. It's the same the first week or two of school. We teach procedures, we teach routines. It's the same as, you walk in the door you need to take off your backpack, hang your backpack on your hook, take out your folder. It's gonna be the same thing. They're gonna walk into a building, they're gonna know sanitize front, back, side-to-side."
What may take a little more getting used to is the idea of an isolation room in each school as part of the procedure for what to do about a possible COVID-19 case.
"Even though I feel like we're going to be as safe as possible I am still a little apprehensive," said third grade teacher Jordan Ruckersfeldt. "I'm a little unsure, I'm still scared myself about the germs."
Masks are required for third grade and up, and teachers are in charge of cleaning classrooms while custodians will clean high-touch items in common areas. Ruckersfedlt feels the district's reopening plan will keep everyone as safe as can be, but she also feels she didn't have a choice but to return.
"Honestly I kind of felt like I had to go back," she said. "I didn't want to take that virtual position away from somebody who I felt would need it more than I would."
Ruckersfeldt says teaching is the only thing she's ever wanted to do.
"It would be really hard to not go back to that career that I love because of this situation and I know a lot of people who have had to make that difficult decision," Ruckersfedlt said. "I still feel like we are risking our health by being brick-and-mortar, but like I said before I feel like our county is doing everything they can."
She says the hardest thing will be something she can't prepare her classroom for over the next two weeks: not being able to hug her students when she sees them again.