Santa Claus made a surprise stop at Sorgho Elementary School to visit teachers Wednesday, sharing words of appreciation, support and encouragement as he recognized their hard work and dedication this year.
“I wanted to celebrate Christmas with them because they’re doing a great job and Santa really appreciates them,” Santa said.
Santa also delivered a surprise gift: a T-shirt with a design based on the book “After the Fall” by Dan Santat. Last school year, before COVID-19 hit, Sorgho’s Academic Action team planned to use “After the Fall” as a schoolwide resource with lessons on resilience and recovering from hard falls of life in daily family time lessons.
Although the Academic Action team was not able to implement their plan in March, the story fit perfectly into what teachers and schools and families with students have experienced this year with the pandemic.
“After the Fall” is about famous nursery rhyme character Humpty Dumpty, describing how he got back up again, discovered the courage within himself, and climbed the wall to hatch as a bird who soars.
“A lot of people are broken right now because of COVID-19,” Santa said. “Their way of life has been disrupted and scattered and things are not normal. Humpty Dumpty fell, but he got back up and soared to new heights.”
He added, “A wall can be a barrier, but it can be a foundation. That’s what the teachers are doing — building a foundation for these kids so they’ll have a quality of life going forward.”
The visit from Santa was spearheaded by SES principal Laura Cecil.
“I really wanted to thank our teachers and staff for everything they’re doing to keep learning moving forward despite this pandemic,” she said. “They’re working so hard, they’re doing things they never thought they’d be doing and learning new things. I just wanted to show them how much I appreciate everything they’re doing to make sure we still have school this year.”
Cecil asked SES art teacher Brian Murphy to design the T-shirt. The front of the shirt features Humpty Dumpty with Sorgho Elementary School; the back design illustrates a wall with a ladder representing all the things teachers and staff are doing this year to help education soar for Sorgho students, despite the pandemic.
“The COVID-19 pandemic created a hard fall for schools as a whole,” Cecil said. “We are spending this year learning how to ‘get back up again.’ We know this pandemic will cause challenges in education for years to come, but we are determined to climb the wall and soar.”
