FWCD’s Community Hero

The values, character and ethos of those engaged in any aspect of the medical profession became crystal clear during this pandemic year. School Nurse Lori McCormack, RN, was Fort Worth Country Day’s hero … and superhero, for anyone who didn’t already know it. Her strong medical ethics, advanced problem-solving skills, and patient and family advocacy skills were put to the test as she spent the entire 2020-21 academic year as the School’s frontline COVID-19 advocate and nurse.

Shifting her home base from an office outside of the Sid W. Richardson Round Gym (Katie Jordan ’09 took over caring for student boo-boos and dispensing medications) to a converted Greenroom (formerly known as the Black Box Theater), this space was FWCD’s COVID-19 hub. It was here that Nurse McCormack, by herself and in layers of personal protective equipment, tended to students, faculty or staff who presented symptoms or became ill and completed contact tracing to ensure that anyone in contact with the virus could properly quarantine, each and every day. This virus was isolating to all … those in the FWCD school community, in Tarrant County, in Texas, and worldwide. At FWCD, Nurse McCormack was the most isolated of all, taking the Florence Nightingale Pledge that she took when she earned her nursing pin at the University of Texas at Arlington in 1992 seriously and to heart.

Serving as a member of FWCD’s Medical Advisory Team; liaison with Tarrant County Public Health; FWCD COVID-19 Decision Tree writer and editor and redrafter; and the School’s lead contact-tracer on a team of six comprising Ed Chisholm, Stacy Bourne ’02, Jordan, Cindy Allen and Laura Terry, McCormack managed her job tasks with a critical eye toward mitigating risk while exuding care, compassion and empathy. On top of all these tasks, McCormack also took and made phone calls and wrote emails and texts daily, including weekends, to and from parents, faculty and staff related to quarantine, virus symptoms, the after-effects of the illness, and mental health issues related to fear of the virus or lingering symptoms after recovery.

Lori McCormack, RN

“We should have more absences this year than ever before as parents keep mildly symptomatic children home,” wrote Head of School Eric Lombardi in his December 2020 Notes from the Head eNewsletter. Lombardi anticipated that Nurse McCormack would have more phone calls related to helping parents navigate symptoms, quarantining and testing. In early March, her estimate of contact-tracing calls was at an astounding 5,000.

Later in March, McCormack was honored as FWCD’s Community Hero by the second-graders. The Community Heroes project, which integrates visual arts, language arts and social studies, allows second-grade students to celebrate everyday heroes in the community. Students select their community members and conduct interviews to better understand and connect with their heroes’ work. The art comes in when students photograph and then paint their heroes’ portraits. The final project showcases the community heroes’ stories through the students’ eyes.

With risk-mitigating protocols in place to keep people distanced and safe from the virus, students did not have the same access to community members. So the Department of Fine Arts team came up with a different take on the project: They focused on McCormack only. Instead of conducting a formal interview with her, the students wrote notes about her. All the messages started with “I am grateful for Nurse McCormack because ….”

Each class brainstormed different ways that Nurse McCormack helped FWCD, and they picked what they wanted to write about. Some also wrote about personal experiences. Finally, they used a photograph of McCormack to inspire their artwork.

“This project has always been a celebration of the heroes that enrich the community. This year, focusing on a hero at FWCD, Lori McCormack, was the obvious choice,” said Lower School Art Teacher Rebecca James. “There are not enough words to describe how indispensable she is. The secondgrade students loved creating her portrait and had great anecdotes to share regarding their experiences of care with Nurse McCormack.”

The notes and drawings were hung in the Sid W. Richardson Visual Arts Center in March. McCormack walked through the gallery and was overwhelmed.

Also special about this showing was that parents were invited to come to campus for the first time all year to view the exhibition. They were invited by classroom and had to RSVP for staggered time slots to walk the gallery with their students.

Created in 2010 by now Upper School Art Teacher Holly Clifford, Community Heroes is an interdisciplinary project that celebrates those who make a community work — teachers, coaches, caregivers, cafeteria workers, doctors, pastors, nurses, restaurant servers, firefighters, police officers, garbage and recycling collectors, engineers, building inspectors and more. In addition to the art display, McCormack was surprised by random acts of kindness throughout the year, cards, small gifts, treats, notes of appreciation, and more from colleagues, friends and families. At the end of the year, the Lower School faculty and staff shared a special video with her: Former Dallas Cowboys Quarterback Troy Aikman thanked Nurse McCormack for her dedicated service. McCormack, an Aikman fan, nearly passed out from excitement. In addition to this surprise, Catherine Collins-Vecino, Jennifer Giroir, Nicole Masole, Sara Teegarden and Lisa Wallace reached out to FWCD faculty and staff to donate toward a monetary gift for McCormack. They presented it to her, along with flowers in a ceramic vase made by Jerry Mahle.

“It is safe to say that this year has been a year of everyone wearing many hats and doing far more than we ever have before. We all deserve praise and recognition and, frankly, a nice long summer break,” the group shared in their email. “But one of us, in particular, has had to manage far more than we ever imagined. We took up the collection so that Nurse McCormack truly understands how much the faculty and staff appreciate what she has done for us this year. We wanted her to know that we SEE her hard work and sacrifice and FEEL her hard work and sacrifice.”

Humbled by the attention, McCormack shared, “The Community Hero exhibit, as well as the outpouring of love and support I’ve received sustained me through the challenge we have all faced this year. Despite being isolated from the rest of campus, I never felt alone thanks to the compassion of the FWCD family.”

About Lori McCormack, RN

Nurse McCormack came to FWCD in 2010. At the time, she had more than 17 years of experience working in the Emergency Department at Cook Children’s Medical Center and Texas Health Cleburne Hospital, where she was the Emergency Department Charge RN. She holds a BS in Nursing from the University of Texas at Arlington and a BS in Health Education with a concentration in Community Health Education from Texas A&M University.