[President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden greet students as they walk through the hall and down the stairway at Eliot-Hine Middle School]
[President Joe Biden stands at the front of a math class with a student who gives a thumbs up]
[Kids applauding]
Joe Biden (speech): “The hardest thing is to come back after three months of not doing any work, not doing any homework and all of a sudden you’ve got a lot to make up, everybody has a lot to catch up with, the end of the last year. And you all look so excited to be in math class on your first day. What’s your hardest subject in school?”
“Well I tell you what, you know, I married a woman who’s a teacher, full time. And guess what, she teaches English.”
Jill Biden (speech): “Yeah, I want to wish you a great school year. And as the president said, I teach English. I teach at Nova. Have you heard of Northern Virginia Community College?”
“Ok, it’s not far from here, so I, my first day is next Tuesday. So, like your teachers, wherever they went, there they are, I’ve been working on my lesson plans and what I’m going to do the first day. So I’m excited. And you know, what you probably don’t know about teachers is that no matter how long you’ve been teaching, the night before you can barely sleep because you’re so excited. Isn’t that true?”
“Yeah, because we love our students. We love our students. And so, so if you’re going through tough times or, you know, maybe you’re struggling a little bit at math, in math, maybe you’re struggling a little bit at home, you know, you can go to your teachers, you can trust your teachers. We are always here for you guys. So I want to thank the teachers for what you do, thank you.”
[President Biden walks over to shake hands with the students]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.