School year comes to an end with teachers emotionally packing up students’ belongings

The end of the school year is full of emotions for a lot of teachers as they are having to return to their empty classrooms to pack up students' belongings. One of those teachers is Frisco ISD second grade teacher Jessica Rex. She talks to Good Day about the tough feeling.

FRISCO, Texas - Teachers across North Texas are packing up their classrooms and marking the end to a very unusual school. It’s an ending they never would have imagined.

Jessica Rex said she was overwhelmed with grief when she returned to Frisco’s Curtsinger Elementary School to clean out her second-grade classroom.

She said she sobbed when she smelled the room and saw the calendar still showing March.

“It was like a gut-punch. A teacher’s classroom is her second home. So the familiarity of that smell and just knowing all the good times that we had, it was like reality hit you,” she said.

Rex won’t get the chance to meet with her students again before the summer. Like many other teachers in North Texas, she’s now clearing out their desks and packing up their belongings.

“When I saw the March calendar, thinking about March 6 the last time I saw them in that classroom. If I would have known that was the last time I would give them a high five or a hug I would have done it a lot tighter,” she said.

Rex did visit some of her students at their homes while observing social distancing guidelines. Her class also surprised her for Teacher Appreciation Week with a drive-by parade in front of her home.

She said the one thing this experience has taught her is that students and teachers can adapt to anything.