By: Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
School is back in session in Carter County, and while some parents wish it was back to normal with in person classes, there are others who would rather not risk their children getting sick and are glad to see classes being conducted through lessons downloaded over the internet.
There was disagreement over the return to school in August of 1918 too, but it didn’t have anything to do with a pandemic. Instead it had to do with the late summer heat and the toll it would exact on children.
Of course, 1918 did have its own pandemic, and that illness – the Spanish flu – led to a lot of missed time. Students then ended up making up that lost time by going to school on the weekends.
So, if you your child complains about their online course work, remind them that it could always be worse. They could have had to go to schools without air conditioning during the dog days of summer and take classes on Saturdays to make up for missed time. When that’s the alternative option, doing your work on a Chromebook from the comfort of your kitchen table doesn’t seem so bad.
Editor’s Note: This is the eighth in a series of articles drawn from the historical newspaper clippings in the scrapbooks of Jack Fultz. We thank Sally James of Sally’s Flowers in Olive Hill for sharing her uncle’s collected clippings with us and the community. – Jeremy D. Wells, editor, Carter County Times
