Running Through the Gauntlet

Let's be real. This year has taken such a toll on all of us. Teachers, students, parents, you name them, it's been a rough deal all around. And we are all healing. Trying to understand and reflecting on whateverthislast15monthshasbeen is so critical to our healing. 

Principals. School Leaders. Let's be real. We have been through some stuff. Like - not telling others what we're going through and wearing that smile and telling everyone it's all going to be OK - kind of stuff. 

This post isn't meant to have anyone feel sorry for principals. Nor is it meant to be a complain session. This is about what was going on behind the (my) scenes this year. When I was smiling and telling everyone it was going to be OK, these were the real deal things going on in my head (and heart). 

SLAs

Side Letters of Agreement between my district and its bargaining partners. The first one came in July. And it was 15 pages and focused on distance learning. Ok. Manageable. Until we get to the part about instructional minutes. State guidance told us how many minutes of instruction our kids should get based on grade level. Was this Zoom minutes? Asynchronous minutes? What about my teachers with combo classes? Did they have to double their work day? 

And then they kept coming. FAQ documents about the SLAs. 

And then there were SLAs for our SpEd teachers. Then for our certificated staff. Secretaries serving as tech support, Rec Aides doing home visits, Teamsters cleaning school sites...whoa. 

But wait...there's MORE! SLAs about compensation and planning time. SLAs to plan for opening for Hybrid instruction. And don't forget about all the FAQs that followed! SLAs about welcoming back our English Language Learners. Then an SLA about the last day of school! All the SLAs!

SLAs on top of SLAs on top of SLAs. Maybe even an SLA with its own SLA. Who even knows? 

Literally, EVERY SLA from this year.

I haven't annotated so much text since my master's program. And it's been a minute since then. On top of all the annotating and interpreting, there were so many questions that came up in principal meetings, with my staff and with my families. And truly, I don't think anyone really knew the answer since we were all trying to build the plane as we were flying it. 

But as principals, we smiled. We said we read the SLAs and were ready to implement and support all the changes outlined in each one.

Tracking COVID numbers
Last summer, a friend of mine introduced me to a tool that I equally love and hate. This fab tool tracks all things Sacramento County COVID: cases, deaths, percentage of positive cases, maps of the area and levels of infection, hospitalization rates, ICU rates...you name it, the data was there. And updated daily. And I checked it. Daily. In the morning and for some reason again in the afternoon and at night, as if the data would mysteriously erase the horror of life in COVID.

And for awhile, we looked good. Numbers were trending down and it looked like we might be able to welcome kids back on campus at the end of November. SLAs were annotated, schedules were planned, communication to parents was being planned, furniture was moved around in our classrooms, PPE was distributed and ready to go. Until. No. Nope. 

Numbers took a steep incline and we weren't able to open as planned. My teachers love kids. And I mean LOOOOOOOOVVVVVE kids. Bringing kids back in November was going to be a thing that brought the soul of teaching back to my teachers. They would be happy. They could have a sense of normalcy. 

These numbers did not allow my teachers that relief and sense of joy and normalcy. Not being able to welcome kids back dealt a pretty big blow to my staff and our morale. We weren't able to welcome kids back until March, so for 4 months, we were in a holding pattern of holding out hope for human kids in person and getting through the day to day chore of Zoom and grading assignments in Google Classroom.

Watching COVID numbers didn't do much for me in the way of staying positive. It created anxiety and a pit in my stomach every time I clicked on the link. But I still did it in the hopes of positive trends, which were so very slow to appear.

Knowing the trends looked dismal, I still told my teachers it would all be OK. I said this with a pit in my stomach every time. 

Attendance and the Legend of Black Zoom Screens
Serving at a Title 1 school comes with its own challenges. During even a normal year. Adding distance learning to an already impacted community proved to be so very challenging. Getting Chromebooks into kids' hands, getting hot spots to their house AND then helping them log in with their credentials. Seriously, their log ins are insanely long (name1234@student.sanjuan.edu, password: Ab123456) Don't forget to spell it all correctly AND use a capital letter! 

Great. We had them logged in. Now to walk them through logging into Zoom. And then the process changed about a month in when we had to authenticate Zoom meetings. And then helping them navigate to their Google Classroom and find their assignments. It was absolutely insane.

Walking our English Language Learners through this proved so very challenging. Between the work schedules of our families combined with the confusion of logging in and spotty internet (on a good day), our English Learners and Homeless students were up against so much. 

This whole process took such a strain on our system. I will forever be grateful to my Secretary, Clerk and Campus Monitor for all their patience and commitment to helping our families. Troubleshooting these things over the phone with so many barriers (language, spotty internet, crying babies in the background, rushing to work) was just as challenging as you can imagine. Hearing them walk families through the log in process over and over, hearing the powerlessness and frustration in their voices still brings me to tears. They were in it 100%. Our families were, too. 

When kids were able to log in successfully, our fingers would be crossed that their internet wouldn't drop. And on the best of days, our kids would have their cameras on, their microphones muted and had their materials ready to go. In all of my conversations with all my teachers, there was not ONE day when all kids were on, cameras on, mics off, with all their materials ready. And that is soul crushing over time. 

We had monthly materials pick up days and so many teachers poured so much time into creating great materials for their kids - cute notes and little gifts for kids from teachers to send some love home and packets to use during Zoom science experiments. Some teachers even spend the day in the MP Room to greet their students for some personal interaction on these days. There were times kids and families wouldn't even show up to get their materials. These materials would sit in the office for weeks on end. At times, kids would have 3 different months of materials sitting out together. 

This piece was, hands down, the hardest part of this year. Seeing the disappointment on my teacher and staff's faces was soul-crushing. Hearing their frustrations around lack of engagement from their kids, while feeling absolutely powerless to help, still gives me a sinking feeling when I think about these conversations.

The words I wanted to say never came out. They couldn't. I wanted to cry for my staff. I wanted to cry with them. Instead, I told them everything was going to be OK and had a sinking feeling in my gut every time I said it.

Staff Morale
And so here's the real deal. I'm scared. Totally scared, you guys. Safe to say that as humans, we have all changed at our core in the past 15 months. How could we not? 

Prior to the pandemic, my teachers were amazing! Their passion for kids, teaching and learning poured out of them. They were vibrant, positive and dynamic. My biggest fear is that these things have been diminished at some level. This next year will certainly be a year of healing. Of reflection. Of coming out of shock. 

And my fear is that I didn't support them in the way they needed. I've never led a group through a pandemic. Dealing with my own anxiety and fears, while being the brave leader I felt I needed to be proved impossible. I wasn't there in the way my staff needed. Or maybe I was. Or maybe no one really knew what they needed. 

My biggest hope is that we can come back together, look back on this last year with a huge WTF and then look forward and rebuild. Because, OMG. This year was...

Unprecedented (NEVER want to hear this AGAIN)
Impossible
Nerve-Wracking
Demoralizing
Gut-Wrenching