Ten days ago we made the decision to send all of our students home. For two weeks we had been thinking it might, at some point in the future, be necessary. For one week we had begun to believe it might be necessary sooner rather than later, maybe three weeks out. On the morning of the 12th, we thought we might need to close the school in a week. I had a special teachers’ meeting planned for that day, to get the team started on preparing for that more likely need. We went into the meeting at 10:30 am and came out at noon. In that ninety minute period of time, sports organizations had begun cancelling sporting events, including ski races, both nationally and internationally. In the time between noon and 2:30pm, we made the decision to begin vacating campus immediately. We met with the school, staff and then students, between 5 and 6pm. At 7pm I hit send on an email to our whole school community announcing our plans for a transition to remote learning that would begin the following week.
Once the dominoes began to fall, they fell far more quickly than we’d imagined.
The same was true in public schools. On Friday the 13th, our governor held a press conference saying he would keep public schools open for the foreseeable future. On Saturday morning I spoke with Kim, teaching this year in a public elementary school. Her principal hadn’t yet talked about the possibility. None of her colleagues were planning. On Sunday evening, an automated message went out from the school districts around the state: all schools would be closed by Wednesday of that week. Quickly following was a message from our district: all local schools would be closed effective immediately—with no classes Monday or Tuesday, no last good bye, no chance to gather what was left behind in classroom cubbies. Quinn too was now out of school.
On Monday the 16th I had teachers come in for one last planning session. We spent three hours together in discussion about our plans for delivery of remote learning. They had questions about structure, and schedules, and how to keep students engaged, how to protect the integrity of assessments, how to keep track of those who might fall behind. We formalized our plan, helped each other learn new tools, had one last lunch together in person, and then all dispersed to start doing the work we would need to do to be ready for our students who would be nervously, curiously, waiting to see what was ahead.
In a meeting of the administrative team right after, five days of adrenaline began to wear off. Four of us sat spread out in a classroom; one of us called in from home. Social distancing had begun. I was suddenly exhausted. I couldn’t stop yawning. Our conversation was all business. Should we close the gym? Should we conduct admissions meetings online? Should we allow people to use their offices? Should we go ahead with planned capital improvements, even though we were watching the stock market fall apart, already, day after day? So much of the weight felt suddenly on my shoulders—if the only substantive contact our families have is through students’ teachers and their remote classes, and it is my job to manage that team…?
In times of crisis, which I’ve experienced with some regularity in the past five years at school, I am quick to energize. I am outward looking. Who needs help? What messages need to be communicated, and to whom? Where can I create order that I can then offer to people, to calm their nerves? I smile often, I ask how people are, I try to offer a picture of confidence and composure, so others will feel those qualities in themselves. But, then, after doing that for a while, inevitably, I crash.
“We’ve got this!” I told people, but for how long would we have it? Seventeen teachers were looking to me for guidance. One hundred and thirty-seven students, and twice as many parents. Like a heavy object awkwardly held, how long would I be able to maintain my grip? In that Monday afternoon meeting, I asked the question that I am still, a week later, asking: How long will we have to function in this way? It is a question without an answer.
One week in to a world shut down, friends are not allowed to gather and grandchildren can’t visit their grandparents. The grocery stores open early in the morning just for elderly customers, to protect them from exposure. And in those same grocery stores the shelves are empty of supplies and many foods. Most human interaction has already moved into the camera lenses of our phones and computers, and economies are crashing, retirement savings are disappearing, and exponentially more people are getting sick and dying each day.
At the same time, winter is beginning to make its exit. The sun is warm on the skin. Birds have returned to the woods. The whole earth and the blue sky above beckons us to come out of hibernation, just as the headlines scream at us to go back in. Global pandemic: everyone, everywhere.
Here on our hill I take some comfort in being at home—a place I love and long for in the normal busy months of winter. Now here is where I’m supposed to be. Some mornings this week, Sam and I have paused to do yoga together, before our slow coffee. Quinn, bored by yoga, has been engrossed by some rediscovered Legos. I’ve been eating breakfast, and lunch—two meals I usually don’t slow down long enough to eat. We’ve started a new puzzle. We have stacks of new books. We have been taking walks, as a family, with the dog.
These are pleasures a normal March would not allow. This is not a normal March. For those of us who are planners, “indefinitely” is a disorienting concept of time.
