Covid-19 doesn’t stop picture day at Burrell School District

Covid-19 just can’t stop some traditions: The annual “picture day” at Burrell School District is set for Sept. 28 and 29.

The students will be smiling without masks for their class photos, with additional arrangements in the works for class pictures from home, said Gregory Egnor, director of student services at Burrell.

“We wanted to keep as much normalcy as possible, in a world that is anything but normal right now,” he said.

The district and working with Barksdale School Portraits to “maintain all the safety measure in place for covid purposes,” Egnor said.

There will be some changes to make the photo sessions pandemic safe, such as nixing the groups photos. Instead, there will be composite class photos.

But at the end of the day, the photography company based outside Philadelphia will deliver another annual installment of the changing youthfulness of students.

Although the photography industry has been hit hard by pandemic restrictions and concerns with cancellation of events of all kinds, the school picture still endures, said Susan Sheridan, national sales manager for Barksdale School Portraits, a firm with operations throughout the country including California.

The picture day is enduring.

“It is considered essential as schools want photos of students for record keeping,” she said.

They have been taking photos since 1922, referring to the fourth-generation family business as the oldest school picture business in the country.

“Nothing is how it used to be, and we are working with schools on solutions,” Sheridan said of working in the pandemic era.

“Whatever we can do to get in the building to take photos, we’ll do,” she said.

In some California school districts where buildings have been closed, Barksdale has set up tents for students to drive up for their portraits. “Parents are used to car lines to pick up or drop off educational materials or students, so why not do that with pictures?”

Changes for the Burrell student portraits include more space between photographers and students, and students will stand instead of sitting on a chair, Sheridan said.

What’s a little challenging is the photographers cannot pose or touch the students, especially the youngest ones.

“Especially in elementary school, you can get them cleaned-up for the morning but by the time they are in front of a camera, they never looked like they did when they left the house,” Sheridan said.

“Parents take it personally if we take a bad photo of their child,” she said, “and we do take great pride in our work.”