By Angela King-Pope
On March 29, 2020, I experienced mixed emotions of happiness and panic when my school district, Houston ISD, issued a stay-at-home order.
My job as a public-school special education speech therapist has become more stressful with paperwork and data demands, so sad to say I was a little bit happy about staying at home. I am a homebody. I felt like, “I can do this better from home” but had no idea what that would require or look like.
The concern was that the virus was not just a China issue now, it was spreading and becoming a global concern. People were getting sick and dying, and that was scary.
It didn’t help that I had zero faith in the White House administration and their decision making. Thank goodness for Dr. Anthony Fauci and folks who made it make sense as much as they could.
While at home, I found joy in reconnecting with family and friends through video calls, phone calls, and Facebook. I found comfort in taking care of myself, my home, and my family. Let’s just say a lot of purging of things and feelings took place.
One of my favorite things was looking through my photo streams, reading old letters, and cooking. I baked so much banana bread and made all my favorite dishes that I gained a few happy pounds.
It was fun posting about what I made and seeing what others posted about dishes and ways to cope with the stay at home order and the COVID scare. I think we all gained a little weight and insight from each other.
Once Houston ISD adjusted to not returning to school after spring break came the massive shift and rush to reach out to students’ families and to arm them with devices and hot spots to learn virtually. That was not an easy task and it was quite stressful.
It required many phone calls, emails, scanning and uploading documents to gain parental permission to provide services to students virtually. With that process came a new kind of stress of sitting for far too long.
A new learning curve was required when the new platform was introduced, and the training required to learn a whole new way of providing services. The learning curve for implementing the on-line program was sometimes annoying and defeating, due to the WiFi instability (everyone was on the Internet) and the program’s glitches.
Eventually, parental permissions were obtained, and speech therapy schedules and services were underway again.
Once the dust settled, I was back to being preoccupied with thoughts about my family and my mom’s health and safety. She was 84 at the time, a fragile age group. I was thanking God that my family was being shielded from the virus.
Then came the mask order, which provided a little relief and the feeling that we had a way to protect ourselves along with getting the vaccination.
Upon returning to school on October 12, 2020 I was a little reluctant, but I felt somewhat rested and ready to get back to in-person learning again. It helped that wearing masks was going to be mandatory. There was so much controversy surrounding whether to wear a mask or not to wear a mask in public. The school district provided PPE and did everything to make us feel safe.
With all of the ups and downs, I found peace and solace in praying, counting my blessings of being healthy, and having the opportunity to help my students and their families through this difficult time.
And most of all, being lifted by the love of my friends, family, and super supportive sorority sisters who I communicated with via Zoom meetings which were highlights during a very dark and challenging time.
What I learned most from the stay-at-home COVID experience is that I have great faith, am blessed and resilient, have a lot to be grateful for, and am a lot stronger than I thought.
Angela King-Pope has been employed by the Houston Independent School District as a Speech Therapist for 27 years. She is a 44- year member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. As an educator, she believes that faith, resiliency and the ability to improvise is imperative. Those were skills tapped into during the stay-at-home order and navigating through the process of providing services on-line.
