We’re back! With so much anticipation about what opening day would be like, Poly’s first day of school was a joyous reunion and an exciting adventure in learning. What we all have been working for this summer finally came about when Poly students and faculty returned to our two campuses on Tuesday morning, September 8.

At the Lower School, Dr. Francis Yasharian set up a bubble machine to greet Lower School students returning to campus. Each and every student on the sidewalk in front of 50 Prospect Park West caught a bubble, a wonderful way to start the day.

At the Dyker Heights campus, students went through the temperature screening, found their chairs, their tents, and, most important, their friends and went about the business of school as if they had been attending it outside their entire lives. Online, students discussed big ideas, debated points of view, and constructively dissented from their teachers.

In the classrooms on the Park Slope campus, young children went about their play wearing their flowered or super hero-themed masks and had plenty of room to enjoy a story in Nursery. The Dance Studio, the library, and even the Big Room have been repurposed into classroom space to ensure social distance.

On the Dyker Heights campus, art teacher Dan Herwitt could be seen teaching a drawing class under one of the tents. English teacher Sean Mullin used a portable white board to make a point about a lesson.

“It’s so nice being back at Poly, seeing colleagues, friends, and, of course, the students. Sure it’s a bit different with the campus blanketed in tents, but the fact we can all be together doing what we do best is a blessing.”

Math teacher Stephen Bates

Across both campuses and online, students exuded happiness, enthusiasm, optimism, and pride in their school. They were excited to see their teachers and friends. They were ready for school to begin; their smiles beamed beyond their masks.

Poly feels like a real school coming back together. We are phasing in attendance to be safe, but after the six-month isolation imposed on us by COVID-19, we’ve caught a great bubble of happiness called “community.”