Returning to school was supposed to be great. The reality was more complicated.
D. C. third-grade teacher Sadiya Abubakri talks with Zo’nique Green while Raegan Waddy plays with her hair at a last-day-of-school party in June. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
On a muggy June morning, Sadiya Abubakri pulled her Nissan into a quiet Southeast Washington street of squat rowhouses to pick up her student.
With just a few weeks left in the school year, the teacher was still trying to get some of her students back in the classroom. Attendance had been dismal. Parents were reluctant to send their children to school. But Abubakri knew many of them needed to be in the building if they were going to learn.
“Gooood morning, Zo,” she shouted to the third-grader wearing sparkly high-top mermaid shoes, a “Frozen” book bag snug on her back. Zo’nique Green buckled in, and they headed to a nearby apartment complex to scoop up another student.
Abubakri, known as Ms. A to her students, was offering pickups and drop-offs when parents could not do it so that some of her students would be at their desks after a year at home during the covid-19 pandemic. By the end of the school year, 16 of her 54 English and language arts students were signed up to return in person, though just about half regularly showed up.
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This was third grade at Ketcham Elementary, a school of 340 pre-kindergarteners through fifth-graders in the Anacostia neighborhood of Southeast, one of the poorest sections of the nation’s capital. By June, the rest of the city — much of the country even — had reopened, starting a return to pre-pandemic normalcy. Two miles away, Nationals Park baseball stadium was operating at full capacity. Right across the Anacostia River on Capitol Hill, maskless residents filled bars on a Saturday night. And D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) was proudly tweeting “#DCisopen.”
But nothing was back to normal at Ketcham Elementary, in a community among the hardest hit by covid-19. Many parents still did not trust the vaccines. The pandemic was still derailing students’ educations. At the end of the school year, more than 80 percent of Ketcham students were learning only virtually, and a quarter of those did not regularly log in. On the other, wealthier side of the city, some elementary schools were nearly full, with most students back at their desks.
Ketcham had long been a community hub for the families in Anacostia. The neighborhood school earned a local reputation for effectively reaching its low-income student population. Nearly 85 percent of the students live with families who qualify for public assistance, and 15 percent of the students are considered homeless. The school population is 97 percent Black and 3 percent Hispanic. Still, Ketcham students performed above city averages on standardized math exams and slightly below averages on reading. Some of the students who have the greatest need have made big improvements in recent years.
But once the pandemic shut down Ketcham in March 2020, the community that Principal Maisha Riddlesprigger and the staff worked so hard to build started to fray. Students were no longer eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at school. The fenced-in field and playground at Ketcham were closed. It was often difficult to learn at home. They were in transient families, or they had multiple siblings learning in a cramped apartment. Ms. A and other teachers struggled to keep the students logged on to the virtual classroom.
A reporter and photographer chronicled Ms. A’s class from early March — a few weeks after the city reopened school buildings — to the end of the school year in late June. Ms. A was teaching students in person and virtually at the same time, having to constantly stop the lesson to address technology glitches or track down absent students or those who logged in, turned off their cameras and did not respond when she called their names. She tried to address the social needs of 8- and 9-year-olds who had not been together as a class for more than a year, asking about their hobbies and weekends, leading virtual show-and-tells.
At the same time, students were learning at drastically different speeds, depending on how much they took part in virtual lessons. The reading gaps grew larger than ever. Each day, she needed to figure out how to create multiple variations and pacing of the same lesson, so all her students — even those who logged in just once a week — could follow.
“Okkkkayyy,” Ms. A would continually say in a cheery voice as she took deep breaths.
Riddlesprigger, the school system’s 2018 principal of the year, attracted talent like Abubakri, 32, a former charter school teacher who had a reputation for establishing relationships with families and doing everything she could to help students.
Families said they were not surprised when Ms. A offered to pick up their kids mid-pandemic. She always did those sorts of things. But Ms. A and other teachers had to put in more time and creativity this year to prevent the complete collapse of the school community that had been built before the pandemic.
When parents started allowing their children to play outside, she hosted weekly field events for third-graders, then added twice weekly outdoor book clubs for anyone who wanted to join.
She made and changed plans fast.
In May, when Zo’nique was still learning virtually, she started to cry during class. “It’s just too hard,” Zo’nique, stuck at a second-grade reading level, announced as she struggled to focus and open the right program on her computer from home.
Ms. A concluded there was not much she could do for her virtually. So she called her mother, right there in the middle of class.
Zo’nique’s mother, Monique Chambliss-Green, was a kindergarten aide at the school who still worked remotely. She had three other middle school children at home, and it would be hard to make sure they were all ready for virtual school, log on to her own class and drive Zo’nique to school. Besides, she was unsure whether she was ready for any of her children to go back. Like many Ketcham parents, she had not been vaccinated yet, deciding she would wait until sometime in the summer to make sure that everything was safe with it.
But Zo’nique was falling behind in reading, and the girl who once loved school was now frustrated. It was settled. Ms. A would pick Zo’nique up in the morning and take her to school.
A community school trying to keep its community
When people talk about community schools and all the services they provide, they are thinking of schools like Ketcham. A few years ago, Riddlesprigger, who has led the school for eight years, secured a grant to get a washer and dryer at school so staffers could ensure that all students have clean uniforms each day. Families could also use it when they needed. A nonprofit-operated day care in Ketcham classrooms accepts children from the age of 10 weeks. Regular food pantries send parents home with fresh produce.
Eugene Banks, the third-grade math teacher, teamed with Randall Ellington, Ms. A’s husband, to start Competitive by Nature, a nonprofit that regularly brings barbers to Ketcham.
One mother said that once the school closed, she realized she had forgotten what haircuts cost. Scraping together $20 per haircut for her three boys was not easy — particularly after she lost her restaurant job during the pandemic.
Ms. A has taught the third-graders since they were in first grade, moving up a grade with her students each year. She enrolled her own third-grader, Prince, in the school. He was the top reader in the class and, based on a recent citywide spelling competition, the 19th best speller in all of D.C.
“If the school is not good enough for my child, I don’t want to teach there,” she said.
All of this has made Ketcham a community hub for the families in Anacostia. The citywide school lottery placement system gives families living in Ketcham’s boundaries a shot at attending a charter school or higher-performing school in a wealthier neighborhood. The families of these students, however, chose Ketcham.
“I can supplement instruction for my kids all day, but what I cannot supplement is a social space for children where they feel like they can belong and find their voice,” said Alison Waddy, a former D.C. charter school principal whose daughter, Raegan, is a third-grader at Ketcham.
But after schools shuttered in March 2020, there was no such space for the children, and many families were disconnected from the resources they once got from the school. Riddelsprigger received a call from a community activist in September who had spotted two Ketcham students panhandling outside of a neighborhood pizza joint in the middle of the school day. She bought them pizza and called the principal, who connected them to the school social worker and informed the family about the next food pantry at Ketcham.
Other families rarely let their children go outside, fearful of covid and the worsening gun violence in the city.
Sandra Priester, whose five grandchildren are enrolled at Ketcham, experienced both. She lost seven relatives to the virus. Cousins. Aunts. Uncles. Some were health aides in assisted-living facilities. They all contracted the virus and died. Her godson, who was like a cousin to her grandchildren — 22-year-old college student Edward Wade — was fatally shot in January at a corner store a block away from Ketcham.
She does not let her grandchildren play outside in the neighborhood.
Riddlesprigger and Ms. A saw the structures and routines of their students disappear overnight. Students were going to bed later, and more third-graders than usual were falling asleep during class. A once star student bounced around relatives’ couches and homeless shelters, only sporadically logging in to virtual classes. Other students moved among relatives’ houses each day as their parents looked for child care solutions — and the children often forgot to bring their school computers along with them.
“The day-to-day structure of getting to school, going to bed on time, got flipped on its head during the pandemic,” Riddlesprigger said. “The reality is that some homes are not conducive to bedtime routines, waking up on time in the morning and quiet time at night.”
Sharon Taylor works overnight at a mental health facility and has three grandchildren who attend Ketcham. She helps sign them in to virtual classes before going to sleep. Her son heads to work at the Sprint store. She did not realize that her third-grader, Anthony, was playing video games in class until she heard from Ms. A.
“Once I got that call from Ms. A, oh I made sure he was logged on and paying attention,” said Taylor, whose grandchildren learned from her apartment through the end of the academic year.
Riddlesprigger and Ms. A said that during the winter, they did not get involved in the often ugly fight between the city, teachers union and community groups on how to reopen school buildings. Ketcham had always struggled with attendance. But it was worse now, and the principal wanted to get some of her students back in the building.
“I knew someone needed to come back with these kids, I just didn’t know it needed to be me.”
Sadiya Abubakri, third-grade teacher at Ketcham Elementary School
Ms. A had her own hesitations about vaccines and returning, and she was not confident that the city would deliver on its promise to deep clean her school building so it could safely reopen.
Still, she got vaccinated and said yes when she was asked to return.
“I knew someone needed to come back with these kids, I just didn’t know it needed to be me,” she said.
She called families and offered slots to children who needed to be in the classroom the most. She explained safety protocols and helped direct families to clinics so students could get the routine immunizations required to return.
When schools reopened in February, only six third-graders showed up.
‘Let’s turn it off, count to 10, and say a prayer’
But getting students into the classroom did not solve everything.
Ms. A and her aide spent time each day waking up students who fell asleep during class. With parents out of jobs and teenage siblings who had all-virtual school schedules, she knew her young students were going to bed too late.
Sometimes, she would just let them sleep, figuring they would not pay attention anyway and she was better off getting them to focus after they dozed for a few minutes.
“I’m going to let you sleep for 10 more minutes,” she told a boy in her classroom who would not wake up all morning. Ten minutes later, she directed him to drink some water, stretch, walk around the hallway and return to his reading lesson.
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The incessant technology issues slowed everything down. Students who came to school would eat breakfast in the classroom before turning on their computers. But often, at least one student would find the computer was not working, making participating in class impossible.
One April morning, the principal came in to help address a child’s faulty computer so Ms. A could start teaching.
“Let’s turn it off, count to 10, and say a prayer,” Riddlesprigger jokingly told the student. The two of them turned it off, clasped their hands together, closed their eyes and said a prayer.
It did not work, so Riddlesprigger walked the child down to the main office for more official tech support. The girl, who was reading on a kindergarten grade level, missed much of her reading lesson that day.
Then there were students who could not unmute their microphones or simply were not paying attention while Ms. A juggled addressing the virtual students and those in the room.
“Joseph? Joseph? You’re up next,” Ms. A said as she called on a virtual student during class. No answer. She moved on.
Another child could not unmute his microphone. She moved on again.
“Lionel, can you move to the next paragraph. This is your second warning about keeping up.”
But for all that was still going wrong, Ms. A and Riddlesprigger could look around Ketcham and this third-grade classroom and feel good that at least some students who had not regularly participated in virtual learning in months had returned to the building.
The students who returned loved it. They laughed, raced and played football on the playground. They ate breakfast and lunch at school, and they took dinner home with them.
On a particularly frustrating day, when everyone’s technology needed rebooting and her third-graders struggled to alphabetize a list of words, Ms. A could push and encourage her in-person students. She could crouch in front of their desks to see their work. She could call on them to pay attention without any fear of embarrassing a child about what was going on at home in the background of their computer.
“I love you Lauren,” Ms. A told a student in the middle row after she answered a question correctly. “Kiss your brain.” Lauren kissed two of her fingers and patted her brain for the whole class to see.
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Early reading scores suggested that in-person students seemed to be learning.
A few weeks after returning to the school building, Zo’nique took an end-of-the-year reading assessment. Her scores drastically improved. Her confidence skyrocketed.
Her mother suspects some of the improvements may have occurred because Zo’nique performed better when she took the test in person instead of virtually, but she also saw her daughter better understanding what she was reading.
Zo’nique would be ending third grade only six months behind in reading. And summer school would give her a chance to catch up. “I felt really proud,” Zo’nique said.
Hope for the fall
To try to re-create the physical community that was lost during the pandemic, Ms. A straddled the roles of mom and teacher. She scheduled outdoor playdates with Prince and his friends from Ketcham and even allowed one student whose family could not supervise him learn from her home with her son.
Beginning last summer, Ms. A and Banks, the third-grade math teacher, invited students and their siblings to play dates at school, where they could run outside together, eat snacks, get haircuts and talk to their teachers. By spring, dozens of families attended. All five Priester children came. So did the Taylor family.
Riley was going for the first time in March. He kept reminding his mom to make sure she did not forget.
And when Riley finally arrived, Ms. A ran up to him and gave him a bear hug.
“Riley, you’re so tall,” she said. “I’m vaccinated, I’m hugging everyone.”
Ms. A would enthusiastically brag about the students’ accomplishments.
“Did you hear about Dionna’s big improvements on the reading test,” Ms. A told a Ketcham staffer as she passed Dionna, who was always wearing tie-dye clothing and bright green crocs. They gave her a high five.
“I feel like it’s my birthday,” said Dionna, eating a Popsicle as she carried her new books.
Dionna could not stop talking about how tall her classmate Melanie looked. Melanie had apparently grown at least a head taller since the pandemic shut down schools. All of the girls were chatting about the surprising heights of their classmates.
“Everyone’s so tall,” said Raegan Waddy. “You can only see their heads on the screen.”
There is still uncertainty about the fall at Ketcham. For all the families that showed up each week, there were just as many who never did.
Then there was the Ketcham staff itself. Riddlesprigger accepted an education job at Overtime Elite — an Atlanta-based sports league for the country’s top high school athletes — and would be leaving the school. Parents are nervous that her successor will not create the same community at Ketcham and are talking about leaving. Ms. A is also leaving Ketcham to take a leadership position at another D.C. school.
Mayor Bowser has said that all students will be required to be back in the classroom five days a week in the fall, unless they have a medical excuse. But vaccination rates are lowest in Ward 8, where Ketcham is located. If parents and employees do not get vaccinated by the fall, school will be unable to return close to normal as it has in the wealthier neighborhoods.
Priester and her daughter decided not to let their children return to the classroom this academic year. They are unsure what they will do in the fall. “It’s crazy to risk their health,” Priester said.
“It will not derail them from achieving anything they want to achieve, but it will have a significant impact.”
Maisha Riddlesprigger, principal of Ketcham Elementary School
School districts across the country have reported drops in student achievements. Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee has said that D.C. is no different, with math scores taking the biggest hit. Doctors and mental health workers have said that children are missing out on social interactions critical to brain development by being out of school so long. Child obesity rates have risen around the country. Mental health crises are up. These impacts were felt most acutely in low-income neighborhoods of color.
“It will not derail them from achieving anything they want to achieve, but it will have a significant impact. The hill is getting steeper for them, and they are going to have to run faster to get up it,” Riddlesprigger said.
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But there was relief, too: The third-grade class made it through the academic year without a known covid case. Some classes at Ketcham did detect cases, but school officials said they have no evidence that the virus spread in the school.
The third-graders had a teacher in Ms. A that the school system considered highly effective — and their end-of-year reading scores reflected that. Based on internal assessments, Ms. A’s classroom had better reading scores than most third-grade classes in the school system. Eighteen of her students are reading at or above grade level, she said. Another 15 or so are close, and Ms. A suspects that they would have hit that threshold if the pandemic had not shut down schools. But there were also seven students Ms. A could not track down to give them their end-of-year assessments.
So on the last day of school, Riddlesprigger and the Ketcham staff hosted a field day — and they celebrated. The music teacher set up a DJ booth and played D.C.'s signature go-go music. Prince and his friends were running around trying to soak the principal with their water guns. Dionna was with her friends in the bounce house. Zo’nique spent much of the day whispering back and forth with a friend in the playground.
Ms. A was talking to parents and delivering end-of-the-year gift bags, which included awards that students had voted on for their classmates.
Prince got the best speller and future president award. Zo’nique got an amazing helper award. Anthony was soaked from the Slip ’N Slide and water balloons and was not sure where he put his award. But he did not seem to care.
The day gave him a glimpse of the life he had known in second grade. He was not in a cramped apartment with his siblings, supervised by his family. He was running on the Ketcham playground with his friends. They were talking to one another about going back to the building in fourth grade. Anthony would be taught in person in summer school with Ms. A.
“We’re all really psyched,” Anthony said.
Then he left the Ketcham field with his grandma and two siblings, walking back to their apartment a few blocks away. He had just finished third grade. Everyone was hoping he was ready for fourth grade.
About this story
Story editing by Kathryn Tolbert. Photos by Katherine Frey. Photo editing by Mark Miller. Copy editing by Dorine Bethea. Design by J.C. Reed.
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