Wednesday night, after our first day of online instruction, a parent expressed gratitude on Facebook for how GRACE "snapped into action." I smiled because I know it looked like a snap from the outside, but it was a long, slow snap of either two weeks or ten years, depending on how you look at it.
Two weeks before we all started social distancing, a meeting was called. "We need to start thinking about what we would do IF schools have to close." At that point, almost no one thought it would happen or that, if it did, it would be several weeks away. That meeting was a Thursday. On Monday, we had department meetings to brainstorm contingency plans, filling out a spreadsheet with questions like, "What do we need the kids to take home? What do we need to take home? What is and is not possible to do at home?" Behind the scenes, our administration and IT departments were having meetings about the best tool for the delivery of online instruction. By Friday, we were being trained on Google Hangouts Meet and outlining policies for the virtual learning environment in the event we MAY need to use it.
At that point, we thought we would have at least one more day at school to give the kids a little training, but Saturday morning, the email went out that we would transition to online learning immediately. Two days, the faculty would be at school for planning, and we would start delivering instruction on Wednesday. Our teachers spent that weekend adjusting our hearts to the news and preparing our homes for the change. I live alone and only had to prepare for a teaching spot. Those teachers who are also parents had to figure out multiple places and determine whether their internet access was strong enough for multiple people to do video streaming at the same time. Our IT Team and administrators started making events in the Google calendar for each of our classes for every teacher and student. (I printed the fifth and sixth-grade rosters for our Media Specialist and was stunned to find it was 82 pages long! I don't know how they input every student in every class K-12.)
Monday and Tuesday, there were meetings and work time and tears and training. We made goofy videos for our students to watch on social media, letting them know how much we love and miss them. We were encouraged to model adaptability and growth mindset to our students and communicate frequently with our parents. We researched best practices in online schooling, shared tools, got help from our blessed Millenials, and prayed for our students and each other.
Through those days, we thanked God for putting us in a position where we could respond this way. It all started back in 2010, when we went one to one. All 5th through 12th-grade students at GRACE are issued a MacBook Air to use for the school year. 4th-grade students use classroom Chromebooks at school, and 3rd-grade teachers sometimes check out a cart to use them as well. Without this equipment, there would be no way to provide equity to our students in online learning. In the second year of the program, we realized the need for a Learning Management System (LMS). The learning curve was pretty steep that first year, but we eventually became comfortable using it. Now, we just say, "It's on Talon," and students know what to do. In the years since, we have been coached by some amazing people (Laura, Daniel, Tomeka, and others) on how to implement technology usage in the classroom. Like European cathedrals that took generations to build, each successive technology teaching coach has laid bricks on top of the foundation originally laid by Sean and Diane when they first cheered us through the one to one model.
Wednesday morning, we began online delivery of content, each teacher in different places. Students jumped in quickly, and with few exceptions, they behaved well in our classes. We've laughed and stayed connected. We've met each others' pets, and students have used things at their home to show examples of our content (from a fish tank to an accordion). Each teacher has office hours online for students to ask questions, and some do. Others just drop in to say hello. Teachers have checked in on each other with hangouts as well. We miss each other dearly, but we are grateful for these tools and for our ability to use them. We have a daily faculty meeting to debrief what is and is not working and to pray. Without these face to digital face interactions, I would lose my mind from isolation. It's been great to see people, even if it is across a screen.
As I scrolled through Facebook on Wednesday night, I was grateful for the support of our parents because, while parents from other schools were complaining about trying to teach their kids at home (and students after the new AP test guidelines were released), our parents and students were expressing their prayers for us and thanking us for our efforts. As I watched videos and read statements from other heads of school and superintendents (who are still trying to figure out what to do) and read the arguments about equity from some very ungracious educators on Twitter, I realized just how perfectly everything led up to us being prepared for this. Not everyone has a one to one program, pedagogy training from a technology coach, a forward-thinking administration, supportive parents, a special ed department to meet the needs of struggling learners, a counselor who checks in on the more anxiety-prone, colleagues who provide encouragement and support, and kids who adapt. We are truly blessed.No one can predict what will happen in the coming days. It does seem this is going to go on longer than the 2-3 weeks we originally planned for. I am hoping and praying that we will have May with our students (not because of the academics but for the end of the year closure), but there is no way to know. When I left the building for the foreseeable future, I said goodbye to a principal who was making back-up plans for a virtual graduation while still praying that we won't need those plans. At GRACE, we have hope for the best, but we also plan for the worst. Because of those forward-thinking planners, we were able to "snap" into action.
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