Covid

March 2020 was the beginning of the COVID-19 onslaught. Before lockdown, the Senate acquitted President Donald Trump of impeachment charges.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris defeated Donald Trump and Mike Pence convincingly in the U.S. Presidential election.

George Floyd’s death provoked bitter outrage. Protesters around the world took their anger to the streets in support of Black Lives Matter. A grand jury acquitted the police officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor in her own Kentucky home. Pivotal events like Juneteenth 1865 and the Tulsa Race Massacre could no longer be downplayed as a divided nation reckoned with its history.

School closure

On March 16 2020, in response to the Covid pandemic and to the orders of the San Francisco Mayor and the Department of Public Health, French American + International moved to remote learning.

On the first day, a strategic in-service meeting for all faculty and staff was called before unleashing remote teaching via Zoom the very next day. The Leadership Team met daily during those first weeks of lockdown to monitor and develop a measured and effective response to the changing Covid landscape. Clear, candid, and reassuring communication to all community stakeholders would be essential.

Messaging from the Office of the Head praised the adaptability and dedication of the faculty. The transition to remote learning illustrated that “no matter how good the technology, nothing can replace the care, compassion, and connection teachers provide.” They were “accomplishing amazing feats” while teaching, planning, and working from home.

Enrollment was initially adversely affected by Covid. The admission season was closed a week after school closure with a record projected enrollment. As shelter in place unfolded 49 students withdrew, mostly in the younger grades. Many families relocated entirely; others established temporary learning pods. Further melt due to covid-related hardship for families already enrolled was mitigated with the school providing $350K extra financial aid and with the extraordinary measure of the Temporary Childcare Support Program, which helped families with the cost of childcare during remote learning.

High School Diplomas delivered to homes

Everone was affected in 2020, one of the strangest of years. Our youngest students found extended remote learning difficult. Our graduating seniors experienced an anticlimactic endgame. IB and French Bac exams were canceled and results were based on continuous assessments.

Seniors had no prom or in-person graduation ceremony. Nevertheless, IB and Bac results came in strong; and families appreciated the Head and Principal delivering their hard-earned graduation diplomas directly to their homes. Melinda and High School Principal Joel Cohen were masked, but hopped out of their cars in full graduation gown and hood regalia.

Leadership, faculty, and staff worked through much of the summer break. Travel was limited, and international colleagues, in particular, could not return home to family and friends far away.

Board Commitment to Equity

Melinda’s communications were grounded in the reality that we were now confronted with two pandemics–the coronavirus and racism. Over the course of the previous year, the Board of Trustees had developed a Commitment to Equity.

The Commitment to Equity was timely. Launched shortly before the school shifted into shelter in place mode, it accompanied and rounded out the Mission and Values and set the frame for the school’s response to the murder of George Floyd and the work that followed.

Commitment To Equity

“We commit to advancing equity and social justice in our diverse, urban community. We fulfill this promise through our programs and practices, and we inspire and equip our students to live this commitment locally and internationally. “

History is watching

History was in the making. In the wake of recent anti-Black violence in the U.S., and fueled by powerful conversations about race and racism within our own community, including legacy parents and alumni of color, there was a renewed urgency and momentum for DEI work. Melinda pledged an overt commitment to “making antiracism, social justice, and equity the bedrock of policies, practices, and programming.”

We welcomed a new Director of DEI at the beginning of 2021. He was soon leading the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. He was soon leading the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. His team included counselors, deans, assistant principals, and six (stipended) faculty members. The mission of the new committee extended to all four sections of the school.

DEI initiatives continued with a critical examination of systems for recruiting faculty, staff, Board members, and enrolling students, to bring more Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) into the community. It is a social fact that students flourish when they see themselves represented by the adults on campus. Representation was also deemed critical in the taught curriculum and in library collections. These were reviewed to integrate the authentic stories of BIPOC, and other missing voices, in ways that avoid deficit narratives.

Affinity groups were expanded beyond the High School to include a wider age range and to serve as a safe space for students who identify similarly. Students and parents articulated how microaggressions can undermine a sense of belonging. Addressing these microaggressions and creating a caring school culture where everyone is made accountable for their actions has been central in our ongoing DEI work.

Student voice has been critical in DEI initiatives. In 2020, Student Council Vice President Kennedy Academia felt compelled to “represent the 38,000 anti-Asian hate crimes that have taken place all over America over the course of the pandemic.” She made a watercolor painting of a Chinatown street layered with 38 red crumpled lanterns to evoke the victims, many of them elderly.

Cami Smith-Dahl of the class of 2020 was forthright in her 2021 La Lettre article. She wrote “I had been subjected to compounding microaggressions at International; small and nagging at first, but quickly piling up into something suffocating in its brazenness, something profoundly wounding.”

She continued in a measured, defiant tone, perhaps best described as “loving accountability.” She declared, “I don’t write these words to instigate or blame. I love my high school. At International, I served as the President of the Black Student Union (BSU), participated in TEDx and spoke about my experiences, and co-moderated a Community Salon about Criminal Justice Reform as an alum this fall.”

She is bold in her conclusion, “I see progress at French American and International, but I know that it could be better. I am asking every single member of the French American and International community to be revolutionary in your actions… Act with a swiftness, with an undeniable sense of urgency and justice… History is watching!”

Return to in-person learning

We cannot escape the contingency of history. We cannot jump out of its one-off, here-we-are-and-this-is-howit-is, roulette wheel, specificity. The epidemiology of the COVID-19 global pandemic is a case in point. It could have been quite different. Unlike in the case of previous plagues like polio or swine flu, little children and young people mostly fared well. Covid was so much worse for adults. Just imagine if it had been otherwise.

In California, good science and good thinking about societal consequences converged. Child care facilities were urged to stay open and, where possible, give priority to the children of essential workers. Cohort sizes were reduced. Social distancing, hand-washing, and masking routines were imposed for all but the very youngest, wobbliest toddlers. From the beginning, Melinda and school leadership were clear about our intent to return to campus as soon as this was safe and permitted. This intention was clearly communicated in the Head’s messages, and the Leadership Team held a number of webinars and meetings with families, faculty, and staff throughout the spring. The French American and International K-12 faculty had dispersed in June expecting to meet their new students in person in the fall. This was not to be. On July 17, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California

K-12 schools would be delayed in reopening for in-person learning. San Francisco County remained on the state watch list based on its virus transmission thresholds and hospitalization exigencies. The incremental return to school would be based on a strictly-regulated, school-byschool waiver basis. Melinda’s subsequent message to the Leadership Team, and then to the school community, acknowledged the new challenges but reaffirmed our commitment to returning to campus.

The Leadership Team had prepared in advance for this scenario over the summer break. As San Francisco’s international school, we were uniquely positioned to learn from the experiences of our global network of peer institutions around the world. Many schools in Europe and Asia were weeks or months ahead of us in their return to in-person learning.

Over the summer, NCIS had been busy at work on campus modifying the physical plant in accordance with SFDPH directives. We delineated 100% physical separation with the Chinese American International School. We outfitted new instructional spaces to facilitate smaller class sizes and physical distancing. We purchased extra classroom technology to support students at home, installed new sinks and handwashing stations, updated air circulation systems, and installed myriad arrow signage, directional floor dots, and plexiglass barriers. We developed a comprehensive, user-friendly SFDPH regulation-driven health and safety plan called Better Together.

Assistant Head of School for Teaching and Learning

Julie Strong was formally designated to lead the safe return to in-person learning as Pandemic Response Coordinator. Julie’s Ph.D. in Immunology from UCSF proved a most favorable contingency. Better Together began with the declaration of a set of unassailable principles that had guided our response to the pandemic from the start. The school would hold tightly to its Values, and the advance- ment of equity and justice, as it prioritized the health and well-being of all members of the community. It would be unswerving in its commitment–whilst strictly observing SFDPH regulations–to moving as swiftly as possible to in-person, on-campus learning, especially for the youngest students.

Better Together contained a carefully-crafted Community Commitment. All school stakeholders were expected to buy-in to this written covenant and do their part. The point was not only to act in a responsible manner at school, but also away from school, including when traveling. The understanding was each individual making their own health and safety a top priority protected everyone.

While faculty were engineering Zoom breakout rooms and imagining asynchronous activities–honing their repertoire of new skills with Padlet, Flipgrid, RazKids, Google Docs, Whiteboard, Quizlet, and more–Melinda had written to Mayor Breed, indicating her intention to apply for a waiver to open Grades K-6 in person. With unswerving determination and diligence along the way, the school team ensured that the waiver process eventually played out in the school’s favor.

The school seized every opportunity to return safely to in-person instruction. We held a short summer camp for Grade 1 students and allowed faculty and staff children back to campus. However, when school actually started in the fall, only Maternelle Principal Sirika Yong’s preschool team were teaching in person.

Darkened orange skies

Wednesday, September 9, 2020 was a day of environmental and meteorological infamy. Plumes of acrid smoke from huge wildfires combined with late summer fog to darken the skies for the entire day. An eerie, apocalyptic, dirty orange glow smothered the city. At noon on Market Street it was as if day was night and night was day!

All was not lost. A few days later, a SFDPH team inspected the Oak campus for in-person learning for Grades K-8, and our faculty and staff turned on a dime again to welcome K-2 students back to campus on October 1, joining our PK3 and PK4 students. Julie exclaimed, “by then we knew that, yes, students could wear masks all day—our three-year-olds had been doing it for weeks!”

We were one of the first schools in San Francisco to welcome students back to campus in-person, and continued to be one of the first to do so each time new sections were approved for in-person learning, returning Grades 3-8 to campus throughout October. We welcomed the first high school students on November 9, becoming one of just ten in-person high schools in the city at the time.

Oracle Park

After a most challenging year, the High School Graduation took place–masked, distanced, and outdoors–at Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. This was a considerable upgrade from the home delivery of Diplomas the previous year. The spectacular venue more than compensated for the masking and social distancing. In- ternational was the only high school using the stadium that year that obtained permission to perform live music!

Appreciation

Throughout the return to school, the Head’s office and section Principals received daily communications from parents. Initially many were anxious, but as the year unfolded, there was an outpouring of feedback expressing genuine gratitude. One parent wrote, “We are truly so grateful to you and to our teachers and to school staff for shepherding us through this trial of a year… What a marathon this has been - ugh. I hope you too can see some glimmers signaling the end of our dark Covid tunnel."

Here is another, “To say that FAIS absolutely knocked this pandemic year out of the park under the most difficult of circumstances would be an understatement. You kept our daughter happy, educated and safe. We are so grateful for the school, its teachers and administrators.”

Spontaneous notes of appreciation also began to surface from the faculty. One colleague wrote, “I want to very sincerely thank you for keeping the ship afloat this year and making it possible for us to go back to teach in person as early as October. I cannot imagine the amount of work, persuasion, and courage it must have taken to get everybody on board.”

The value of in-person learning was a recurring theme. A high school teacher wrote “having a full class of students in front of me on Monday with no need for my computer for the first time in 13 months and 10 days (yes I am counting) felt so great that I teared up a little and I felt how much each one of us, teachers, students, staff, administration, and leadership has gone through to get to this very moment.”

At the end of 2020-2021, all faculty and staff received a formal commendation, signed by Board Chair Amy Baghdadi and Melinda. This was followed by a timely and cathartic end-of-year celebration in the Arts Pavilion.