COMBATING CORONAVIRUS with
COMPASSION AND GRIT
M
arch of 2020 began like any other March—families gearing up for spring break; schools preparing for evaluations, the STAAR test, and end-of-year celebrations; and Texans enjoying the first bluebonnets even as allergy season reared its ugly head. But by mid-March, normalcy had vanished as Texas, the country, and the world at large grappled with the new coronavirus, or COVID-19—the cause of a pandemic with sweeping consequences. The highly contagious illness ground business, socializing, church, and school to a crawl. On March 13, Gov. Greg Abbott declared a statewide public health disaster. On April 17, he issued an executive order mandating that school campuses remain closed to students for the remainder of the 2019-20 academic year. But that didn’t mean educators stopped serving students. Texas public educators hurriedly took their operations online in a feat akin to battlefield medicine: reinventing how they provided instruction and putting together homework packets, distributing technology, and operating curbside food pickup sites for their students. Among all the uncertainty, stress, and change, the Texas education community once again showed its compassion, courage, and determination to serve students and communities. What follows are just some of the stories to emerge from this extraordinary time.
18 ATPE NEWS
