By a tradition the school year begins in Bulgaria on 15 September. The day on which schools open doors after the summer vacation has always been celebrated in this country. But the corona crisis has had its effect on the first school day, as on so many other aspects of life.

In the conditions of an emergency epidemic situation the Ministry of Education proposed a totally different approach in setting down when there will be in-person attendance and when – distance learning. By decree, the ministry is allowing these decisions to be made at different levels – national, school, regional. The decree also provides guidelines, describes clearly defined procedures and scenarios in the event of a coronavirus outbreak at the school. Mandatory and recommended measures are set down:

“All efforts are being made to find a balance between a maximum amount of in-person attendance and a minimum risk to children and teachers,” Deputy Education and Science Minister Maria Gaidarova says in an interview for the BNR’s Hristo Botev channel. “If 10% of the pupils are absent with Covid-19 symptoms or there are sick teachers so that in-person attendance will be made impossible, headmasters can make a substantiated proposal to the minister to education and science for their schools to switch to a rotation model of learning or full-time online learning. This should be done first for the form with the highest number of students who are infected or have been in contact with an infected person. The youngest – 1st to 4th grade pupils – will only switch to distance learning in the last resort.”

Organizing the first school day is a difficult thing, especially at schools with 1st to 12th graders. For example, the ceremony will be attended by the 1st, the 5th, the 7th and the 12th grade. Still, there will be around 700 people in school yards in Sofia. This is a celebration, emotions run high, school headmasters say.

The measures for 1st graders are laxer. The children will not have to wear a mask in the classroom, only in the corridors.

“It is difficult to be in a celebratory mood because we do not know how long in-person attendance is going to last,” a mother of two students at a school in the centre of Sofia says in a BNR vox pop. “We are all expecting to switch from face-to-face to distance learning at any time,” she adds. The woman says she is worried because if children have to stay home once more then at least one of the parents has to stop going to work so as to control the process of distance learning.

But not everything is doom and gloom for Anna-Maria Yankova, a school teacher from the St. Patriarch Euthymius school No. 41 in Sofia. She has been a primary school teacher for many years, and she says that children are so natural that it makes her smile, and that is such a great help in difficult times like the present:

“As always we are ready for any situation but most of us, teachers want in-person school attendance. We are optimistic about this school year. Since last year classes have become smaller so as to have fewer children in the same classroom. At my school there are very few colleagues who take additional precautions. But people are not too afraid, the younger children are very disciplined, and the parents are very helpful and tell their children to wear masks. Last year restrictive measures were unheard of and seemed shocking but now we regard them as something normal. We are mobilized and we have done whatever has to be done for a smooth start of the school year.”

Editing by Gergana Mancheva