There were moments of “thanks,” like when schools hosted events to thank local veterans for their service, and reasons to celebrate throughout Newtown schools in 2021.

As Superintendent of Schools Dr Lorrie Rodrigue reflected recently with The Newtown Bee, many things offered reasons to smile in 2021. And there were moments that stand out as examples of reasons to be proud.

After dealing with a pandemic while educating students, Dr Rodrigue shared that she is proud of the school community for its diligence, effort, and collaboration, especially when finding solutions to problems.

While the pandemic was already well underway when 2021 began, Rodrigue remembers November of 2020 being a month with the most staff out. But when faced with issues, Rodrigue said “the community rallies.” Community members stepped up to work with the district and support students just as 2020 was coming to a close.

With 2020 and 2021 sometimes hard to differentiate, Rodrigue reflected on some of the things that stand out from last year, especially when compared to the previous year.

“When we think of where we were earlier and where we ended up, I smile,” Rodrigue said. “That was not easy to get to, but we persevered. And we were able to offer our students and families what we couldn’t necessarily offer in the same way the year before.”

When 2020 came to a close, Newtown Public Schools were remote learning, but the first week of school in 2021 had kindergarten to sixth grade students return in-full to in-person learning, with the upper grade levels returning in a hybrid model until later that month. By January 19, all of Newtown’s public schools had students learning in-school for the first time since March of 2020.

There were many lessons learned during 2020 that continued to be applied in 2021, and Rodrigue reflected that while anxiety levels for staff, administrators, and parents remained high, the noted resiliency continued.

2021, she said, was, “A year of uncertainty, change, trying to educate students in a very different year, in a very different way, and keep them engaged digitally when it was necessary.”

One lesson from 2020 that helped in 2021 was that the district could use technology in different ways.

“It really propelled us forward at lighting speed,” the superintendent said of how technology is now used in the school district. Students will be using technology not only in college, but also in their careers, and the superintendent said how it is used in schools will support future technology use.

The past year was also very different from 2020 in many ways, Rodrigue reflected. She said the world knew much more about the COVID-19 pandemic than it had the previous year, and this allowed better and more informed decisions to maintain safety for staff and students.

As 2021 comes to a close, Rodrigue said she wants parents, staff, students, and the community to know that while it was another challenging year, “Their faith, trust, support, and understanding has helped us move forward in positive ways, helped us resolve situations in more timely ways, helped us find resolutions when things weren’t working, and helped us stay in school in the end.”

Some of the biggest highlights from 2021, however, came from near the start of the year, when students returned in person and en masse to Newtown Public Schools.

“We were back and we hadn’t been back,” Dr Rodrigue said. “It was really touching to see people together again, even though we had to continue with masking, social distancing, and mitigation strategies.”

The fact that doors could be opened again made it feel like everything was moving in a better direction.

Later in 2021, when NHS hosted graduation outside at Blue & Gold Stadium, it was another great moment.

And when staff returned to teach ahead of the 2021-22 school year, the district decided to hold its normally annual convocation event.

“It was emotional for a lot of teachers when I spoke with them, because that is one of the greatest days of the year, when everyone comes back and gets to see their colleagues.”

There were many more great memories made in 2021. A round-up of photos from those events, as captured by The Newtown Bee show just some of those, now, memories.

It was the year school doors reopened; the year a principal offered every student a hug; and the year resiliency thrived.

Education Reporter Eliza Hallabeck can be reached at eliza@thebee.com.