PALM VALLEY, Fla. — COVID-19 safety will likely be unofficially part of every curriculum as brick-and-mortar schools return to class in the next several weeks. But one school in St. Johns County is trying to mix in some fun to get the message across. Several teachers and students at Palm Valley Academy teamed up to make a song and video, called “The Three W’s.”
“[The principal] wanted to be able to present the expectations that we had for students when returning to school, and so that everybody was sort of on the same page. But she wanted to do so in a fun way,” music teacher Jeremy Price told First Coast News Saturday evening, just a couple days after the video was completed and posted on YouTube.
Price said he sat on his patio with his fiancée and got right to work.
“I started scribbling some lines down, or whatever, and I came up with the Three W’s song!” he said.
Those three “W’s” are: Wash your hands, wear your mask, and watch your distance – all in a danceable reminder that third-grader Liam Cimino-Durden enjoyed helping to create.
“I like music and the beat of it was just great,” the 8-year-old said. “It was fun!”
Price collaborated with Julie Durden, who teaches American Sign Language at Palm Valley Academy and is a songwriter. First, he fashioned an all-ages-friendly lyric to a hip-hop rhythm.
“I don’t know if Julie knew that I was a rapper back in college!,” Price said with a laugh.
Durden then added musical elements that Price called “the whole seasoning on it, made it super-tasty.”
Then they made the video with the help of about 25 students and teachers, spicing it up with American Sign Language. Palm Valley Academy is the only K-8 school in St. Johns County that teaches it.
“So glad that we’re able to give, like, this creative way to help the kids come back into school,” Durden said.
Of course, the core goal is a serious one: encouraging hygienic habits to avoid infection, with the use of an infectious beat.
“That’s what we’re all about at PVA – sick beats, but not sick kids!,” Price said.
“I’ve not memorized it, but I know the beat,” Cimino-Durden said.
And they said they hope their project will inspire others to borrow or emulate their work.
“We’d be thrilled if other educators were able to grab ahold of it and use it,” Price said.
Durden said, “We would love for other schools to make their own video, to fit their own environment. We hope that everyone sort of just has fun with something that’s not so fun right now.”
But while Price was still trying to commit all three “W’s” to memory, Liam Cimino-Durden was already talking about a fourth “W” – world conquest.
“What’d be crazy is that we would get famous overnight,” he said.