We Can Never Go Back: Reflections on COVID-19
“As hard as this decision is, the harder one will be reopening the school.”
Talking about edgework! One year ago, I made one of the most profound decisions of my educational career. After weeks of research, discussion, and debate, I closed the school campus and moved all operations – the entire educational program and all business functions – to remote status, spread across 80+ employees’ homes. I said to anyone who would listen, “As hard as this decision is, the harder one will be reopening the school.”
That has turned out to be so true. The reopening of schools has been compounded by a constant flow of new (and often conflicting) information, emerging data, contrary opinions at the state and federal levels, and each community’s needs and perspectives. To say the reopening process has been complex would be a gross understatement.
From the beginning, this was not just about schedules, staffing, and protocols. This was about caring for an entire community at the deepest levels. I remember leaning on a friend one evening and saying, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to protect everyone.” I felt immense support from the community, board, faculty, and staff. And I felt utterly alone.
Schools in Seattle, at the epicenter of COVID in the U.S., were the first to close and plunge headfirst into the pandemic crisis. We were building the proverbial airplane while flying it. As I often do, I turned to writing as a way to process the intense layers of emotion and immense complexities I was facing. I wrote an article, Lessons from Around the World, which offered early insights, ideas, and advice gleaned from international colleagues as well as from my own experiences.
Later, Peter Baron, from The Enrollment Management Association, and I would chat about how to adopt a startup mentality. I felt that school leaders would need to get comfortable with being “good enough.” I believed there wouldn’t be time to research, collaborate, and explore planning options in the traditional way. We needed to plan, implement, assess, and pivot – very quickly and efficiently. Schools would have to intentionally gather feedback from all constituencies, not during some predetermined evaluation period, but rather at each stage of the design and implementation process, knowing that these insights would likely impact and influence decisions and directions in real time.
“Ultimately, heads of schools and boards need to be brave enough to consider a plan ‘good enough’ and get on with it.”
Not long after, Julie Lennox and I shared how our two schools, one in Montana and one in Washington State and each with unique challenges, were coping a few months into the pandemic. We shared insights, information, and perceptions on reopening. That article was never published. There simply wasn’t enough time. But I have chosen to reference it here because I believe it stands the test of time and remains a helpful framework for managing a school crisis of significant magnitude.
Perhaps even more importantly, that article stands as a historical marker of sorts, marking a moment in time when two heads stood on the edge, grappling with the enormity of a life-changing and school-altering pandemic, desperate to bring order from the chaos and provide our communities with hope and a path forward.
We were also both discovering that while it took weeks to research, develop, and communicate pandemic response and reopening plans, the shelf life was only a few days. So, we kept moving our schools forward, step by step, day by day. Over time, some core takeaways surfaced.
Ross Wehner and I began to explore some silver linings that had started to emerge as well. Schools began to refine teaching and assessment methodologies. Schedules became more flexible. Conversations about equity moved to the forefront. Professional development increasingly reflected the immediate and short-term needs of teachers and students. We learned what mattered most, honed communications, and made new discoveries.
One year later, it is clear that we won’t “go back to normal.” And I am not sure we could go back to normal, even if we wanted to. And even if we wanted to, should we? We can’t unlearn what we have discovered. We can’t un-see what we have seen.
This is some of the hardest edgework I have ever done, personally and professionally. I didn’t choose this challenge – none of us did. But here we are. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take what we have learned and move boldly into the future.
Moving forward, here’s what I believe:
We need our schools! Simply put, they are the backbone of our society. They provide stability, predictability, and a sense of belonging. The presence of caring adults in the lives of children and their families is profound.
Schools, and school leaders, must stand for something. Our mission, shared values, northern stars – whatever you call them – can’t just be marketing tactics or placeholders on websites. When everything else is uncertain and unpredictable, our schools and their leaders need to stand for something. As school leaders we aren’t perfect, and we won’t make all the “right” decisions all the time. What matters most is that we align those decisions with our core values, that we have integrity, and that we stand solidly on our school’s foundation. We’ll figure out all the rest.
We can’t control everything. The future was always uncertain, but we pretended that it was somehow in our control. It never was. Our crisis response plans must become more about frameworks for response rather than overly specific policies and procedures. What matters most is the process of decision-making, the rapid gathering of resources, and the people involved. Having a network of diverse resources and trusted colleagues is crucial.
We are resilient, creative problem-solvers. We learned to ask better questions, and we figured out a lot of good solutions. We adapted. We discovered new ways of living and working. That’s pretty awesome.
Mental and spiritual well-being are essential elements of a well-rounded education and of any healthy work environment. Maybe now we can stop questioning the value of social-emotional learning in our schools.
We need a “good enough and go!” mindset. The pandemic has forced us to pilot and pivot like never before, and I hope we can be a little braver in our willingness to do our research, set a course, and then go for it, both in how we address complex challenges and how we approach strategic planning.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need each other. We need each other to solve complex problems. We need each other to laugh and cry, and to be one another’s inspiration. We must cultivate trust in one another.
“We thrive, as individuals and as organizations, when we come together. No one can do it alone.”