From the assistant editor

Something old, some things new

Wed, 09/09/2020 - 9:00am

A lot is different this school year, but one of the unchanged things is, it’s school bus stop time. Watch for children in and near the school zones and wherever you are out and about, as they wait for the bus and later get dropped off after a day’s learning.

They’ll be the younger people in masks and the cooler clothes than the rest of us.

And now back to the changes. We’re giving all A’s to Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Dr. Terry Wood for her delivery and content in a series of return to school videos at wiscassetschools.org. The first, released Friday, is a justifiable six minutes, because Wood shows and demonstrates wearing multiple masks and a shield, which she explains also needs a mask under it. And, using elementary-level language and a friendly, instructive tone throughout the video, she sanitizes her hands between masks.

That’s good teaching.

Five shorter videos went online Labor Day, the day before Wiscasset’s group A started school. From the bottle-filling station that has replaced the water fountain’s bubbler, to floor arrows directing where to walk in the hall and on stairs and another floor marker where students need to wait to enter the restroom, and a video introducing them to the hand sanitizer station in the parking lot, these snippets are easy to follow and can only help everyone enter the new reality in the generations-old schools.

Week’s positive parting thought: Safety might be the best lesson we all learn this year; 2020 may as well be good for something.