Today was Ava’s first full day on campus with all of her classmates. On Monday, February 22nd, Doulos received notice from the Ministry of Education that our school would be allowed to open our doors to students once we were ready to implement all of the necessary protocols. It was a mad scramble, but we opened our doors to all 1st-5th grade students this morning!
The Dominican Republic has been one of the few countries that has not returned to in-person school since last March due to COVID. As of this week, however, Doulos Discovery School is now one of the handful of schools on the island that is part of a pilot re-opening program. All public schools in the D.R. continue to receive their instruction over television and radio.
Ava was so excited to be in live class with her teacher, see her classmates, and walk to school with Dad. (It doesn’t help that there is ice cream across the street and she knows that I am a sucker for both her and sweets.) Her highlights were English class, where she is making a lap book about floods, P.E. and math. She stated that wearing a mask all day was not as bad as she thought it would be and that she can’t wait to go back again.
Brennan will head to campus on the 12th of March, as Doulos did not want to start all students from prek-12 on the same day. While he continues to do well with his online studies, he is looking forward to being on campus as well.
We have eagerly been anticipating this day since we arrived in July and are so thankful to God for helping us to persevere to this point!