A Principal's Pandemic, Week 1 (apparently with lots of crying):
- Saturday, March 14: Our government announces that schools will remain open FOR NOW, and they give us some guidelines to follow. Guidelines that involve requiring children to wash their hands before and after using any shared materials. I cry as I read them, having no clue how I am going to enforce these procedures without harming student wellbeing and staff mental health.
- Sunday, March 15, 4:30 pm: Our government announces that classes at all schools are cancelled, but that teachers are to report to work the next day. I cry in relief, but also with anxiety and overwhelm: this makes it all so real.
- Monday, March 16 - Thursday, March 19: We get to work. In some of the longest, hardest, darkest, most magical days of my career, we create a model for remote learning in early childhood. We are not using worksheets. We are not relying on websites or apps. Our students will get experiences that align with what we do in our classrooms every day: developmentally appropriate, student-centred, play-based, grounded in relationships. We learn to use Zoom, we create private YouTube channels. Our music teachers record themselves playing and singing. Our PE teachers make workout videos. We laugh, we smile, we struggle not to hug each other. We realize how often we use physical touch in our interactions even among grownups: a hand on an arm, a back a shoulder. We learn to sit far apart at lunch, and to plan 3 person meetings in a big empty boardroom. We struggle. We worry. Some days, we cry (let's be honest: if you are reading this carefully, you've already figured out that I cry A LOT). But we are at school, a place we know and love, and we are together, and we are figuring this out. I work 10 hour days at school, and long evenings at home.
- In the same week, we start hearing from families. Photos and videos of their kids, smiling and laughing, doing their school work and learning together. I cry as I watch video of a grade 2 student helping her kindergarten sister learn to count past 10. In my e-mail to parents, I ask them to hug their children for me, every day. Some of them take photos of the daily hugs and send them. I struggle to resist the urge to end every parent e-mail with "Love; Mme Amy" I hope they can hear it even if I don't say it. Our board approves an additional week of spring break, and my gratitude for this defies words, so I cry instead.
- Thursday, March 19: I pack up my office, trying to think of everything I might need or want; work materials, but also the treasures that make my office MINE: student artwork, precious photos, notes from parents and colleagues. I tear up as I lock the door at 6pm. I don't know when I will be back here again.
- Friday, March 20: From home, I do individual Zoom calls with each of my teachers. Over video, I get to meet their children, spouses, pets. My own dog sits on my lap for some of the meetings. Mostly, we laugh (but yes, a few times we cry). I am so proud of them, and the work we have done. I tell them the story of an administrator at another school who claimed you "just can't" do quality remote learning for 3 and 4-year-olds. We are doing the impossible, and doing it well. I wish them happy spring break, and instruct them in my bossiest voice to take at least one entire week and unplug completely from school: take care of themselves, their families, start figuring out this new reality.
- Saturday, March 21: I spend the first day of spring working one last day, completing some reports and organizing documents. About 3pm, I walk my dog in the sunshine, pick my head up and look around. I focus on right here, right now: a fuzzy black dog, a field of bright snow, a red ball. For the first time in a week, I feel myself breathe.
