FILOMENA

By Ben Weinberg Headmaster

NO one had ever seen the campus like this before!

When the first snowflakes fell on the afternoon of January 8, I figured it was prudent to send staff home before the roads got messy. No one thought we would not be back for more than a week. None of us knew this was just the first flurry in what would be Madrid’s biggest storm in 40 years. I began my teaching career in Vermont and Maine. In New England, snow days are common. We listened to the local news early on snowy mornings to find out if our District would be delayed or have the day canceled. On stormy afternoons the teachers in our little rural school left together to drive home in a convoy for safety. Snow days were built into

the school calendar and snowplows woke us up in the night many times each winter. I never thought I would call a snow day here in Madrid. The snow here in Madrid only lasted long enough to make a snow angel or a mini snowman. I figured snow days were out of the question for ASM. Filomena changed my attitude in a hurry. Not only did we have a snow day, but school was also closed for a week as we dealt with clearing access to buildings, cleaned up shattered trees, and waited for the municipality to clear the roads. But while the buildings were closed, school went on. A major development from the COVID pandemic has been the operationalization of the school’s virtual capacity. Virtual school used to be a plan on paper. Now it is a developed set of skills, schedules, capabilities. ASM carried on with learning during the mandated school closures in Madrid and ASM was one of the first schools in Madrid to reopen.