Never in the history of educating our community’s children has the whole-child approach been more necessary, nor more evident, than it is during this world-wide health crisis. And, never-before have school systems been called upon to show so publicly what they do every day.
Administrators, teachers, counselors, service specialists, bus drivers, custodians, and cafeteria workers have risen to the call to serve our children. Why have their efforts been so productive so quickly? Because they are masters at doing it every single day and were doing it long before Covid-19 hit.
They have mastered the art of responding fluidly to need. Teachers have had classroom lesson plans, back-up plans, and alternate strategies for teaching their students because that is simply how they function every day. In the classroom they shift in response to learning, increasing or decreasing the pace of content delivery, or providing small group support for those struggling to those ready for increased rigor. Finding ways to facilitate remote learning is just one more way they have responded. They are professionals, dedicated to doing what it takes to meet the needs of their students.
Parents, valuing education, have worked to prioritize learning while struggling to reorganize their lives, manage their own fears, deal with job changes/layoffs, shortages of supplies, and stressors they have never known before. Thank you, parents. Thank you to child caretakers helping when parents are still going to work. You’ve carved out space and pockets of time to help your students hang on to this one constant.
With Spring Break underway, know that as parents are taking a grateful sigh of relief from wearing a teachers’ hat, local educators are continuing to prepare and plan so that when classes resume next week, students will continue to have a level of security with a “new normal” in a time when, for most, the concept is elusive. Again, school and learning provide security, comfort, and focus when the rest of the world feels foreign.
Coming together to ensure that learning continues brings security and comfort in uncertain times.