NEW ORLEANS — Mya Curtis’ jaw was nearly on the ground.
"Come see! Look!” her mother told her. “Look at all these people out here!"
There, on the lawn of Curtis family’s Gentilly home, stood Sophie B. Wright Principal Sharon Clark, surrounded by a handful of teachers and news cameras while a big yellow bus idled on the curb.
Moments before, Curtis was in her bedroom playing on her cellphone. This was the last thing she expected to see
“We want to say congratulations to you,” Clark told the graduating senior who stood behind a yard sign planted firmly in the lawn, customized with her name on it, with blue and gold balloons floating above it.
“Be bold, be courageous and be your best,” the sign read.
Gov. John Bel Edwards has said all schools will remain closed the rest of the academic year, and large gatherings are forbidden as the state tries to get the outbreak of COVID-19 under control.
That means the class of 2020 won’t get to celebrate milestones such as senior prom or graduation ceremonies — at least for now.
What happened outside of the Curtis home was a scene that would play out across the city on Wednesday as Clark and her colleagues zig-zagged their way to 112 homes of every Wright senior in the class of 2020.
And each visit was a surprise as the bus barnstormed its way around New Orleans.
"It is very quiet in our school right now. An element is missing. And that's our students," Clark said, adding that when your students can't come to you, you go to them.
The surprise visits paid off.
Students were left speechless, and one even tried to hug Clark — a natural reaction to seeing a familiar face — before remembering the new rules by which we all live: stay six feet away from others.
In addition to the yard signs, Clark also carried with her refund checks to give parents who paid for graduation supplies that they can’t get right now.
The goal, though, is a traditional graduation ceremony in the school’s auditorium in July or August, Clark said. If that doesn’t work, she’s eyeing a December date when most of her future former students are home for the holidays.
“We do have our graduation robes and caps and gowns and all the items we need for them to have a graduation,” she said. “It is waiting and we are waiting.”
Tennessee Williams wrote that time is the longest distance between two places. That’s a thought that Curtis is too familiar with now, weeks after she and thousands of other students were removed from their daily routines. And she had a simple message for her classmates until she can see them once again.
“Keep pushing, because we're still going to be celebrating,” she said through tears.
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