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…
This year, flipping The Switch does not feel like doubling the work, if feels like a renewal. I didn’t see that coming…
One of my colleagues speaks of this time of year as a period in which we are “living in two school years – this year and the next.” In typical years, he is absolutely right. Yet, there has been a part of me that has wondered if in this year, which has been anything but typical, if this feeling of maintaining the current school year while planning for the next would pertain, if the ongoing challenges of being a school leader during the pandemic would allow for the kind of planning and visioning a school needs to renew itself.
Allow me to answer that musing with a statement: it’s time to flip The Switch.
For the past 11 months, I have felt that I have operated almost entirely in a reactive mode, responding to each new and unforeseen situation the pandemic has thrown at us as best I could. Given that much of what we’ve faced as a people and as school leaders and teachers has been all but unprecedented, there has, frankly, been little else I could do. But, as the calendar has turned to 2021 and the rhythms of school have been partially reestablished and partially normalized, The Switch has needed to be flipped.
I don’t think I realized until this week what a good feeling that would be.
It is not that we are out of the pandemic. We are not. We have cases continuing to pop up in school and quarantines and challenges abound. We listen to accounts of new strains of the virus and challenges with the vaccine and impacts that seem to not let up. If asked today how school will function in August, I would have to truly respond that I can only guess what our opening days this fall will look like.
But we will have a fall, and an opening to next year. We will have orientation days and staff meetings and schedules and fall photos and the like. We will have a 2021-2022 school year. I never doubted we would, but I didn’t realize what comfort would be found in living in two school years.
This year, flipping The Switch does not feel like doubling the work, if feels like a renewal. I didn’t see that coming…
Perhaps we will get a new case weekly… 10 days after our first of the new year, we have our second. Again, new quaratine rules are so helpful to keeping the school running as close to normal as possible in this hybrid mode. Prayers continue for all of the families effected…