One year ago this month, when the pandemic arrived in Vermont, Gov. Scott ordered schools to end in-person instruction. Thus began the odyssey of the Class of Covid-19. In the Harwood Union Unified School District (HUUSD), which covers Waterbury, Duxbury, Moretown, Warren, Waitsfield and Fayston, its five elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school emptied out and all instruction moved online. The classrooms remained empty through August. Graduation at Harwood Union High School (HUHS) was a drive-through affair. Last fall, HUUSD students returned to their schools to begin a year of hybrid learning, with younger students spending up to four days in the classroom, and high school students attending two days in person, and three days online.

I know these schools well: I have two children who are graduates of the Harwood schools, and I served on the school board of Harwood Union High School. These are schools that I’m used to seeing teeming with children. The sight of them empty last spring, as if suspended in an endless summer, was strange and unsettling.

Wednesday marks a milestone: The teachers of HUUSD are getting vaccinated at a clinic set up at the Crossett Brook Middle School, part of a new statewide effort to vaccinate educators. By this fall, the hope is that students will return full-time to the classrooms of the Harwood district.

I invited several members of the Harwood community to reflect on this pandemic school year. Jonah Ibson is an English teacher at HUHS, and Katie Sullivan is a fourth grade teacher at Warren Elementary School. Gavin Thomsen is a senior at HUHS.