The Journal presents my weekly reflections on being a private, Catholic school principal during what promises to be a year filled with energy, excitement, challenges and possibilities…
Being a high school administrator is a wonderful challenge in a typical year and, yes, we do have typical years where the work of the job can be – primarily – anticipated. Being a high school administrator in this pandemic is a wonderful challenge of unprecedented scope.
In the shifting landscape of the pandemic (which has changed an awful lot in Colorado and all over the country over the course of the past weeks), it can be all too easy to forget that the challenges of every school year remain present in this one, too. Faced on an almost daily basis with questions of reimagining just how to do school, it sometimes sneaks up on me that the work is to simply do school. I have been surprised by my surprise when the normal, typical hurdles of a school year continue to face us.
Take bad weather for example.
We get a bit of snow and cold in Colorado, which is no surprise. In fact, in anticipation of snow and cold and bad weather this trimester, we had determined weeks ago that (hey, 2020!) with the advent of distance learning as a thing, there was no longer a need to miss a school day for snow, at least not in this trimester where a number of school days have been impacted by the work of reimagining school. We would have Distance Learning on days that it is not safe to drive. Great.
What I didn’t anticipate in this situation was record breaking cold weather – in October – that dropped temperatures into single digits and wind chills far below that. This unprecedented weather accelerated all our processes of turning on our heat (not just flipping a switch, but a days long activation) and challenged our air exchange strategies (which involve doors and windows being open at least a bit). Because of these challenges, we had to call not one but 3 Distance Learning Days in a row.
With many of our constituents, this did not go over well.
As the Leadership Team (the assistant principals and I) made this decision after hours of reflection and deliberation, I said “we are going to get killed.”
Note to me: avoid this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in the future.
In the hours after we made this announcement, my email chime dinged incessantly and each reply was more vehement and more aggressive than the former. My inbox was flooded with negative reactions. There was no support for this decision. From faculty to parents, everyone was unified in their condemnation of what seemed to me a most logical and important choice.
Or so it seemed.
In the end, the faculty questions were addressed relatively easily. The faculty may not have agreed with the rationale and the approach, but I was able to address their concerns.And when the dust settled, there were fewer than 10 complaints from parents. Some were pointed, most were heated, some were downright nasty. But it was fewer than 10.
It had felt like a tsunami.
But I needed to do the math.
Being a high school administrator is a wonderful challenge in a typical year and, yes, we do have typical years where the work of the job can be – primarily – anticipated. Being a high school administrator in this pandemic is a wonderful challenge of unprecedented scope. What we must continue to hold on to is perspective. When I allow myself to forget that I cannot keep everyone happy in a typical year and don’t apply that knowledge exponentially to this year, I can only make my situation worse. And when I make my situation worse, I don’t lead as well, I don’t serve as well, I don’t function as well.
In this strange week, I believe I have stumbled upon one of the most critical learnings of the 2020-2021 school year: keeping things in the proper perspective may be the most important balance I can achieve and, in doing so, I can better serve my community.
But damn the cold weather, anyway.
Had I written this post a daily earlier, I could have said “no cases this week!” Well, no. We do have a new case this week and are working through new Targeted Contact Tracing guidelines with the local health department…