As parents and educators, we all know the difficulties that this school year has presented academically. As spring turns into summer, I know many of us are planning for the next school year. There are still many questions – will students be eligible to be vaccinated? Will students still need to be divided into cohorts? What will protocols for quarantines be, should a student test positive for COVID? And, although we don’t have the answers yet, we’re all working hard to ensure that students continue their academic progress in the safest manner possible, while hoping to return to some sense of normalcy.
Through all the challenges for schools, students, and parents, we have found that there have been some “silver linings” this year. There have been things that we had to rethink due to COVID protocols but found that they work better in a new way, and things that we had never thought about doing before (or never had to do before) that may become a normal part of our school year.
• A Focus on Social-Emotional Learning: With the unique difficulties of this year, we wanted to make sure that the social-emotional needs of each of our students were addressed. To that end, our Psychological Services Team created social-emotional learning groups – providing a safe and supportive environment for students to feel empowered to discuss the impact of the new way of life in a COVID world. These groups meet bi-weekly and allow for every student on campus to have access to a member of the Psychological Services Team.
• Virtual Events: There are some events that simply have to be in-person (Eagle Hill hosts an annual “Family Fun Day” filled with games and prizes, for example), but we all know now that there are some things that can be successfully accomplished virtually. Having Parent/Teacher Conferences on Zoom provides parents with more scheduling options and allows teachers to spread their conferencing loads over multiple days. Even our Book Fair moved online this year – allowing parents to shop from home and have books delivered to their door!
• Technology & Flexibility: There’s no doubt that technology was at the forefront of this school year. Even at Eagle Hill, where students returned to campus in September, we had to prepare for cohorts to learn remotely or, the worst case scenario, for the whole school to have to switch back to remote learning. Having the technology and resources prepared for learning at home will serve us well and will help our students continue to incorporate educational technology into their school day.
• Admissions: Even for prospective families there is a silver lining! Although we can’t have large open houses on campus, hosting these events on Zoom has allowed our team to offer open houses more frequently and at different times during the day. We’ve been able to have families come on campus one at a time to speak in more detail with our Admissions Team and see the students and campus in action.
Every school, as an institution, and every teacher wants to do what is right and what is best for their students. Sometimes, that means “business as usual” and sometimes it means having to adapt and change on the fly. Adaptability and resilience, particularly on the part of our students, have been an instrumental part in making this school year a success, despite the challenges we faced.
The past year and a half has been a testament to the ability of school communities to consistently make the most out of difficult situations. As a Head of School, I want to ensure that we continue doing what works for our students – whether it’s new this year or something we’ve done for years in the past.
