Forging an Electonic Community in an Instant

Forging an Electronic Community in an Instant

BY RYAN STOWELL

Iwill never forget the afternoon of March 12. We had a possible case of COVID-19 in our county and I was watching Governor DeWine’s press conference with the administrative team. We had to stop watching and go outside for student dismissal, when we came back in we learned that he was in fact going to close schools for three weeks. Later that afternoon the suspected case was confirmed, and schools in our county were closed immediately. We had no idea when we walked out for dismissal that afternoon that we would not see our students again this school year.

We met with our staff the next day and made plans to deliver instruction electronically while our building was closed. The collaboration of our teachers, technology staff, and administrators was remarkable as many of our teachers created Google Classrooms for the first time. There were definitely challenges early on, but we adapted and learned a lot along the way.

Communication with Families

One of my responsibilities was to share with our parents how to utilize our online resources during distance learning. Videos and screencasts became my primary tool for this purpose, which I shared on our school social media platform and YouTube. At first the videos were just the screen and my narration; they were awfully boring. As time went on, I began adding title screens, transitions, and text on the screen to make them more engaging. We also began a weekly birthday video to celebrate student birthdays.

YouTube provides tremendous viewership data. Early on we had a high level of engagement and most viewers watched the entire video, but as time went on fewer people viewed them and many stopped watching after two minutes. This was important because it showed that our message was not always getting to our audience, and I began to strive to keep every video under two minutes in duration.

Connecting Every Student

We recognized that internet connectivity and device availability for every student was a critical component of our plan. Chromebooks were delivered to students that did not have a device and we were fortunate that internet service companies provided free access this spring. While we could have provided packets, students with access to technology would receive a more robust educational experience than those without it and we sought to close that gap.

Supporting Our Teachers

Our initial Zoom staff meetings were not highly productive. We had much greater success meeting with staff in grade level and department teams. Our meetings focused on two topics: improving instruction in a digital environment and engaging students who were not participating. Guidance counselors or administrators were assigned to contact families that were not engaged. In many cases, these families needed connectivity, a device, or guidance and support accessing the online content.

The transition was difficult for our teachers. Our technology department and several tech savvy teachers put together virtual workshops to assist with technology, but it was still overwhelming for many. Meetings were sometimes cancelled when we sensed very high stress levels, and we planned virtual staff lunches where schoolrelated topics were prohibited. During teacher appreciation week, we set up a drive-thru for teachers to pick-up dinner for their families and gift cards from our PTO. This was well received and appreciated.

Procedures, Consistency, and Routines

One of our first challenges was the lack of consistency and procedures in our online environment. Overall our families were appreciative and understanding of the situation, but we did receive

feedback from them that having assignments posted constantly with varying due dates made it difficult for them to plan. We also had significant variations from one classroom to the next within grade levels.

We held a virtual staff meeting and our technology teacher shared a presentation showing teachers how to organize their content by week. We made it a school policy that all work for the week would be posted by 9:00 AM every Monday and would be due the following Monday. The teachers began holding weekly virtual common planning meetings which improved the consistency among the classrooms.

Finding the Right Balance

We were also conscious of the fact that many parents were still working during distance learning and could not be expected to duplicate a school day at home. Teachers were asked to keep expectations to 90 minutes per day in grades K-2 and 120 minutes per day in grades 3-4. These expectations were shared with families. We asked our teachers to focus on English/Language Arts and Math, and within those subjects to determine the most essential standards that provide critical prerequisite knowledge and skills for the next grade level.

Corporate America was extraordinarily generous at the onset of the pandemic. Teachers suddenly had access to more online resources than we could ever dream of providing within the confines of our school budgets. Focusing on a limited number of online resources was necessary so that parents weren’t asked to familiarize themselves with an unreasonable number of programs and websites.

Finding a way to emulate the social aspects of school in our online community became our next priority. Our specialist teachers put together a series of fun virtual activities and the principals began hosting virtual grade level lunches where students could socialize. Teachers began hosting evening virtual storytimes, pajama parties, and other activities with their classes. These were valuable experiences to keep students connected to one another while our building was closed.

Working from Home

Working from home means that you are simultaneously always at home and always at work. I have struggled with work-life balance my entire career, but the elimination of the physical distance between school and work made this more pronounced than ever. Many of our teachers also shared that they were working constantly.

My wife is also an educator, so balancing our responsibilities, educating our second grader at home, and getting our preschool daughter to her Zoom meetings was an incredible challenge. Initially, we were working all hours of the day seven days a week. We knew this was unsustainable and that we needed a better plan. Our goal was to complete everything during the work week and keep the weekends free to focus on family activities, even if that meant long days during the week. Most weeks we were able to plan out the week on Monday morning after our daughter’s assignments were posted and have everything finished by Friday evening.

An Enduring Imprint

As we look toward this fall and plan for a previously unimaginable school year, there are lessons from this experience that I will carry into the future. Zoom led me to literally see the wide disparity in home environments between our wealthiest and poorest families. Technology and internet connectivity, once seen as luxuries, are now indispensable elements to providing a high quality education to every student. The pandemic showed us that we can implement flipped classrooms and integrate technology in our instruction if we commit ourselves to connecting every student.

I have never had more collaboration with principals than I did during statewide virtual meetings that were born during the pandemic. The pandemic keeping us apart resulted in closer relationships with far away colleagues than I would have previously considered to be possible. I hope that those opportunities endure moving forward.

Personally, the opportunity to spend more time as a family has made me ponder whether we should reduce the number of activities our children are involved in when they restart. Prior to the pandemic our children were involved in sports, dance, music lessons, and church activities. While we want them to pursue their interests, we may reduce the number of weekly commitments and prioritize spending more time together as a family.

The pandemic has brought the value of time into focus for me. It is limited, it is valuable, and we should be very conscientious about how we choose to allocate it in our student schedules, and with our families at home. The pandemic will pass eventually, but I hope that my heightened awareness that time is precious and irreplaceable persists well into the future.

Ryan Stowell is the assistant principal at the Lakeview K-8 School in the Lakeview Local School District, located in Cortland, OH. He previously served as principal of Bristol Elementary School and as an assistant principal for Campbell City Schools. He resides in Cortland, OH with his wife and two daughters. You can contact him via email at ryan.stowell@lakeviewlocal.orgor via Twitter at @LLSBulldogsAP.