McALLEN — Juan Seguin Elementary started off the 2022-2023 school year Monday with an emphasis on safety, a continued shift toward post-pandemic normalcy and the beginnings of a treasure hunt.
Principal Juan Nevarez said the morning was notably calm.
The neighborhood around the school was just beginning to buzz to life when students started arriving, car engines turning over and parents chatting with bleary-eyed looking students in doorways and driveways.
One girl trudged down the sidewalk by Vine Avenue, grasping the straps of an exceptionally heavy-looking backpack, ambling past a prominently parked McAllen ISD police cruiser.
A gaggle of kids leaned up against the wall in front of the school early Monday, standing under a slightly faded poster displaying 2022 State Elementary Teacher of the Year Jennifer Han. Traffic moved well that morning, and, on the administrative side of things, enrollment numbers look encouraging.
“Overall it’s been a pretty smooth day,” Nevarez said.
It was a smooth day, but it’s been a rocky two years. The pandemic disrupted just about every part of public education for most of that time, and when schools had started feeling pretty well normal again last semester, the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde sent a chill through campuses.
It’s an especially hard time to be an educator, Nevarez said.
“There was no teacher here, staff member here, who did not shed tears that day,” he said. “Because we feel it. We empathize. That is for certain. It just knocks you into the reality that we don’t know who could be out there. And it reaffirms everything that we’ve been doing, the trainings, the drills — it’s there for a reason.”
McAllen ISD has repeatedly touted the effectiveness of its security apparatus. Nevarez said he thinks measures have reassured parents and staff.
There’s perhaps a more effective medicine, Nevarez said, for low spirits caused by repeated turmoil and tragedy: watching students walk in the front door Monday morning.
“The easiest way to keep morale up is to look up at kids and see their faces,” he said. “Cause that’s why we come to work. We come to work for kids, and when you see those kids happy to be back — you know, it gives me chills.”
Nevarez glowed talking about his students. He said they were eager to show off new backpacks, and new haircuts.
“It never gets old seeing their faces again, every time we come back. And now, we can actually see their faces,” Nevarez said, noting about half his student body voluntarily wear face masks.
The staff at Seguin will have another thing to look forward to this year: the school is celebrating a 50th anniversary.
Nevarez says part of that celebration will entail a small treasure hunt prompted by an alumni association that contacted him recently.
“They told me that someone buried a time capsule 25 years ago, on their 25th anniversary,” he said. “But we have no idea where it is.”
None of the alumni seem sure either, Nevarez said, and no one seems to remember what’s in the time capsule.
“We have a couple of possibilities,” he said.
So far, the process has included comparing old maps with people’s generally fuzzy memories.
“Even if they were here, it’s kind of tough to remember what happened 25 years ago,” Nevarez said. “But we’re trying to figure it out. If we do figure it out, we’ll have to start going around with a metal detector, that would probably be the next step.”
One hypothesis is that the time capsule’s buried on the south-east side of the building, where a park used to be. Another is that it’s beneath the floor in the school’s administration offices, which were added on relatively recently.
Nevarez says if that’s the case, the capsule’s probably out of reach, but adds with a chuckle, that he’s not necessarily opposed to doing a little jackhammering. He suspects McAllen ISD administration may feel differently.
“I would like to see what’s in there,” he said.
To see more, view Monitor photojournalist Joel Martinez’s full photo gallery here:
Photo Gallery: McAllen students return for first day of school
