ASHLAND — It was clear Reagan Elementary School’s first grade teachers were grinning ear to ear Thursday morning.
Though their smiles were shielded by cloth masks, excitement could be seen in their eyes and heard in their voices as they handed out bags of donuts out to their students.
The “Donut Drive-By Day” allowed the teachers to see their students face-to-face for the first time since classes transitioned an online setting under a statewide order and likely the last time during the current school year.
“I think all of us have said this is the best day ever. Just seeing their faces today has been an encouragement for us,” said one of five first grade teachers, Ashley Powell.
The teachers and others who had interacted with the young students regularly gathered early Thursday morning with donuts from Brew’d Coffee and Donuts. The donuts were covered by the school’s Parent-Teacher Organization with funds that otherwise might have covered field trips.
From 9:30 to 11 a.m., they’d hand out the donuts out to about 125 first grade students. All wore colorful masks, and some came in costume for the occasion.
“I thought it’d make it a little more fun for the kids,” longtime teacher, Jo Myers said.
While a few of her colleagues held up stuffed donuts as cars drove by, Myers had gone above and beyond. She dressed as a donut.
Nearby, intervention specialist Christa Kalisz wore a banana costume. It was borrowed from a friend who hadn’t worn it in a while.
“This started as something we wanted to do for the kids because we’ve been talking to them on videos and on the phone, and we talk their parents, and we hear how much they’re missing us,” Kalisz said. “But we miss them so much, too. We just really wanted to see their faces and remind them, we’re thinking of them all the time.”
Her own daughter, who attends Reagan Elementary School, has missed her teacher, Myers, considerably.
“She told me the other day, being at home doing school it’s not too bad,” Kalisz said. “And I asked, so you don’t mind having me as a teacher?
“She said no. She loves me as her mom, but she loves her teacher as her teacher.”
“Today, it’s made our hearts feel so much more full, just seeing the kids’ faces,” Myers said. “They miss us, and we miss them.”
