This Texas principal donned a mask and visited all 612 of his graduating seniors
Virdie Montgomery says seeing his students before they graduate was ‘the most rewarding thing’
Texas high school principal Virdie Montgomery couldn't imagine going the rest of the school year without seeing his graduating students.
So he drove more than 1,280 kilometres in 12 days to personally visit and congratulate all 612 of them — from a safe distance, and with a mask on, of course.
"You get to see people that you really care about even for just a second," Montgomery, the principal of Wylie High School, told As It Happens host Carol Off.
"Each moment was just really good and really special."
When the COVID-19 pandemic first shut down schools in Texas, the goal was to come back to classes on May 4.
That didn't pan out. There were 34,325 confirmed cases of the disease in Texas as of Wednesday, and 957 deaths, according data from the New York Times.
Montgomery says it broke his heart to think of his students missing all their senior milestones.
"I looked at that calendar and I saw every one of our senior traditions," he said. "We have a whole month of May that really has got something every other day for our seniors, and they're going to miss all of it."
So the school started organizing ways to celebrate the soon-to-be graduates while physically distancing. One of those events was a curbside pick-up of caps and gowns.
"I saw their faces the day they picked up their caps and gowns. Oh, gosh. We had signs all over the building saying, 'We miss you' and stuff like that. And they got really emotional. I got emotional," Montgomery said.
"And when that was done, I felt like I hadn't done enough. You know, there's something else we could do."
That's when he had the idea to visit each student individually — no easy feat in the Wylie school district, which is spread across several sprawling suburbs.
"I told my wife that this is what I'm going to do. And she just looked at me like, 'Do you know there's over 600?' I said, 'I know. I think I could do it in a couple of days," he said.
"After day 1, I said this will take a while. But we persevered and we got it done."
With his wife at the wheel and 17 printed pages of Google Maps in his lap, he made it happen — although he had to leave notes for some of the students who weren't home.
Those who answered the door were greeted by their principal, masked and armed with a Snickers bar and a "lame joke."
"My comment was … 'This is all hard, but one day we're going to look back on this and we're going to snicker. And then I'd give him this little Snickers bar and then we'd laugh, have our moment, take our selfie," he said.
"It's what some people call a dad joke or whatever else. I own it."
Montgomery says he got different reactions from different students, some of whom he knows better than others.
Some kids happily donned their cap and gown for the photos. Others, he said, "couldn't give a flying flip, but they still took the picture with me."
"I told them up front, 'This is more for me than it is for you. Because y'all are handling this stuff fine. I just need to see you guys before this thing ends," he said.
"It was the most rewarding thing."
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview produced by Tayo Bero.
