Lessons Learned

Educators are in the business of, well, educating. They typically spend years in undergraduate and graduate school developing their skills to teach and lead students. You will often hear some of the more veteran educators talk about how they did things back in the day, how they had it so much harder back in the day, or what they did to overcome significant obstacles, again, back in the day.

However, that debate may have been settled with the onset of Covid 19. This pandemic has changed everything inside the school building and the classroom. Right now, at this time, for all educators- the teacher, administrator, counselor, lunchroom personnel, custodial staff, school nurse, school resource officer, para-professional, superintendent- this is the era of most significant change. This is the most challenging time in education- ever. No debate!

The disruption in K-12 education is more than anyone could have ever imagined. A system that has relied on face-to-face interactions for generations had to adjust to a virtual environment. The community hub where children received not just lessons, but food and comfort, counseling and therapy, was shuttered. This tremendous and rapid shift affected the morale and well-being of teachers, students, parents, staff, and administrators. If you listened to the conversations of educators early on in this pandemic, you'd hear a thread of fear and hope. Yes, fear of the virus, but mostly fear for their students. Fear that students would lose their ground, miss the understanding from the teacher in the classroom, at the chalkboard (or whiteboard), and miss critical concepts and engaging hands-on lessons. They feared for their colleagues and their families because of the inherent closeness that comes with teaching.

As the pandemic unfolded, teachers and administrators had to learn to use new technologies, which opened the door for a wave of data privacy and security problems through video conferencing platforms. Research into the effects of the pandemic on schools by Ed Week showed that schools and classrooms were forced to evolve and address communication, equity, attendance, and academic performance challenges, not to mention how to close and re-open schools. The decisions were monumental and transformative for the schools and community.

There was profound surprise and shock when the pandemic first hit, and they wrestled with the notion that they were “closing up shop” and going home to teach. With no understanding of when they might return, they began to consider what this meant for their communities, their children, and the parents affected.

Questions about how the COVID-19 pandemic would affect our schools and the lingering impact on students' health, safety, and achievement caused the most concerns for the administration and staff. How would student learning and achievement be affected? How effectively could educational leaders grapple with the almost impossible choices of balancing the health risks associated with in-person learning with the need for human interaction?

What are the long-term effects on the families who rely on their schools? Can trust in the school be regained after this long nightmare? Is education forever changed?

Educators hold the answers to these questions. "School people" have the empathy and knowledge that can only be learned by those who have stood in front of a classroom of students and mustered the courage to teach and reach their charges. For hundreds of years, coaches, custodians, counselors, aides, administrators, drivers, and media specialists have somehow managed to create a unit, a school family. These are the grown-ups who offer students a path to navigate the future, a way out of a dull present into a brighter day. They are, many times, the reason a student comes to school and keeps coming back. This school family was on full display this last year as it grappled with the messy, changeable, super-charged world of teaching and leading through a pandemic. Those who make this world turn find it most often thankless, undervalued, and challenging, yet full of hope and optimism.

Principals and teachers alike said when they first heard of the coronavirus and the need to close the schools in March of 2020, they honestly thought that they would go home for the week. They figured they would come right back when it blew over. But weeks lead to more weeks, and then to months, and then they "called" the year. There would be no graduations, no end-of-year parties, no state testing! The full-on effort to develop instruction that would translate to and could be delivered online was the issue. But as necessary as that was, there was equally as urgent a need to provide meals to students. When the school's community counts on breakfast and lunch at school, that creates health risks for many living in poverty.

Many educators spoke about the unknown as they began this journey in March 2020. They couldn't imagine that it would be August before they returned to school. They couldn’t wait on others to act; the schools called on departments, leadership teams, and professional learning teams to think fast and consider what was best for their families. As a general rule, they wanted to keep the students together, as close to a classroom setting as possible. Some schools developed a Google school website. With this, all teachers could link to that website and provide their class with the appropriate lessons, announcements, and activities. This also allowed them to keep their parents involved and worked to help with at-home needs far beyond the classroom. Many parents could not help their children because of their limited resources and lack of technology experience, so teachers had to go over and above to offer support, virtually, of course. They called the students and parents directly to help with assignments and let the parents know that they were at school and able to talk with them to address issues, whenever needed.

With the school's doors shut, meals had to be distributed and, at times, delivered to remote homes. The challenge of getting food to parents who could not get their children to school was matched by the obstacles of offering curriculum in the form of learning packets and creating virtual instruction. Plans were hampered in delivering education by those families without technology, the internet, or tech expertise. The schools worried about parents who worked two jobs and couldn’t stay home with their children to oversee the virtual classroom. Communication and support were more important than ever.

Keeping in touch and sharing information about health, safety and learning were crucial. Parents and the larger community were frightened and unsure who to trust. Schools and staff reached out in all of the ways they knew how- phone calls, texts, emails, bulletins. They let parents know they were at school even if the students couldn't be. At the beginning of the pandemic, they recognized that teachers were afraid, and the community was fearful and mistrusting of the advice coming at them through multiple sources. As time went by, with daily communication from the schools and the Central Office, parents and the community responded positively to the open communication. They came to understand that the schools were doing all they could. The superintendent offered current, real-time information and held weekly Zoom meetings with all principals and central office staff to keep everyone “up to speed” about the virus as well as school-related notifications.

Educators recognized the challenges were fundamental. Because the quarantine came without warning, teachers and staff had to grapple with the notion of how to teach when students were not in class. Schools, as well as the district office, were working on this problem. The school board knew that a viable virtual platform was not ready for mass usage, so they had to scramble. The district created a task force to choose a new virtual platform but had to make do with what they had from March 2020 till the end of the year. During Summer 2020, the school board and superintendent made many decisions concerning safety and instruction. They created a task force to deal with a fall reopening of schools and agreed to the difficult decision of enforcing mandatory mask-wearing once staff and students returned. Every staff member was tasked with keeping all spaces sanitary, not just the classrooms, but the buses and everything else that children might touch when they returned to school.

Those teachers who became virtual teachers found the experience to be an eye-opening one. With students in front of a computer screen, there were times that parents were too helpful, even crouching by the computer and offering up the answers. On the flip side, some parents were hands-off and had to be nudged into action. Despite those issues, remote learning had its positives. If parents were serious about the virtual experience and paid attention to what the student was learning, communication could be enhanced. Offering information and insights through the lessons was aimed not just at students but at parents as well. This dialogue encouraged the parent to be more "on board" with their child's studies than in a traditional format.

The impact on all our schools, teachers, administration, and staff was tremendous and not necessarily negative. The lessons learned during this pandemic were wide-ranging but generally settled on the importance of relationships. Teachers, administrators, staff, and the school board learned one excellent lesson- "We need each other; we can't do this alone. We recognize that we had a call to lead and teach and that we can do this! We can adapt, we can overcome fear, and we can focus on a future."

Although connections built with students will always be a priority, they learned that connections with students' parents were equally important. If the school had the trust and collaboration of the parents, the new normal was not nearly so chaotic. Realizing they had no time to wring their hands and fret, they had to keep moving, center on their families, and do what they had been trained to do. They learned that the relationships they forged with the community were the most crucial part of any change process.

When schools reopened in August, they were able to see the gratitude expressed for the school and staff. It was as if students and parents, once stripped of school, came to recognize how vitally important it was to their well-being. They all had a greater appreciation of what school had to offer.

Now, as this year draws to a close, educators say they are confident in their resiliency. Things that they thought they couldn't manage; they have. They know they can make positive steps and that changes are not inherently negative. Even though it appears that the desire on the part of most people is to be face-to-face, that may not be true of everyone, and as a district, they need to face those differences. They recognize that some children may need to be virtual for some time to come; there may be the need for options as we advance on, with both traditional and virtual. They accept that they will forever be changed, and school will forever be altered.

The most enduring lesson learned is that the bond between school and student can happen in a classroom, face-to-face, but it can also occur online. Adjustment, adaptation, and willingness to embrace, not simply endure, change will forever strengthen our schools and our community.