ADAPTATION
HOW PRIVATE SCHOOLS CREATIVELY ADJUST DURING COVID-19
t’s winter, that time of year when private school applications are due and parents are about to make important educational decisions for their children for next fall.
The process this year will undoubtedly factor in how educators at these institutions have addressed the onset of the lockdown last spring and the innovations that continue to develop in facing down the challenges of COVID-19.
“The last nine months have been nothing if not unpredictable,” says Adam
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Rohdie, head of school for Greenwich Country Day School (GCDS). “In unpredictable times, we are called to our core, the stuff that defines us, and we are challenged to use that core in new and, perhaps, surprising ways. At Greenwich Country Day School (GCDS), relationships are that core.”
He continues, “By prioritizing relationships and the safety of the GCDS community, we have been able to maintain traditions, establish and hold high academic expectations, learn from the moment and learn from each other, while maintaining the ability to be institutionally nimble in the face of unpredictable challenges.”
Rohdie lauds the school’s “skilled and creative faculty” for bringing “high quality” online lessons and making the necessary adaptations when learning to resume in person in the fall.
“Throughout every circumstance, our technology team has created ingenious ways to keep us connected, whether we’re together or apart,” he says.
The campus and faculty at GCDS provides space to be outdoors (often and weather-permitting) and room indoors to physically distance; the facilities staff has established a frequent cleaning regimen; the dining staff prepares and delivers lunches to individual classrooms; and Upper School students eat in three waves to allow for decreased density in the dining hall.
“We will enter the spring semester cautiously, but full of hope,’ Rohdie states. “The safety of our community will remain our top priority. Our faculty and staff have prepared plans for the possibility of returning to a remote learning model or moving to a hybrid model, should the need arise. Creative responses to the challenges we all face will continue to result in remarkable solutions: our Upper School musical, Into the Woods, will be staged entirely outdoors.”
Administrators at Hopkins School in New Haven consulted with local, state, and national experts on public health and education to come up with three learning models: hybrid, fully remote, and fully in-person, according to John Galayda, director of communications.
The 2020-2021 school year began in September operating through the hybrid model; however, the school has pivoted to a fully remote model a few times when needed. Recently the school began its weekly community testing for students, who will be on campus in a given week and all faculty and staff, Galayda states: “This additional safety measure is to help us identify and effectively isolate asymptomatic cases in the community.”
The school will operate this spring by constantly reassessing which learning model is appropriate at any given time. “We are hoping for a return to a full in-person model as soon as is safely possible, however,” says Galayda.
"Our faculty and staff continue to gracefully demonstrate incredible care for, and commitment to, our students,” says Dr. Kai Bynum, Hopkins head of school. “Although circumstances have dramatically altered plans for teaching, they have shared collective wisdom and
resources, working swiftly and tirelessly to reimagine this place called school. Their efforts have been incredibly meaningful to our students. The resiliency and courage of our community members to live and think as distinct individuals who embrace their responsibilities in the larger world is nothing short of humbling.”
Cheshire Academy initially began preparing for the impact COVID-19 would have around the world and, more specifically, the town of Cheshire in early 2020, according to Head of School Julie Anderson.
The school developed and adopted a comprehensive plan for remote schooling and, after spring recess, implemented the plan. The semester was completed remotely and modified graduation was held in July for the Class of 2020, with a limited number of students and family members on campus.
“The fall semester was unique in that approximately 25% of our student body, which comes from 19 states and 31 countries, participated in classes remotely from their homes or locations in the U.S.: Anderson says. “This hybrid approach maintained a weekly class and activities schedule that ensured participation. We are fortunate to have gone the entire semester without having to close or drastically reduce our program.”
Students who have been on campus—more than 200—returned to their respective homes ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday and finished the semester remotely. Boarding students, who make up approximately 55 percent of the student body, were scheduled to return to campus on Jan. 9 for a two-week quarantine period of remote schooling prior to returning to the hybrid schedule.
Safety measures at Cheshire Academy include practicing social distancing and handwashing, wearing face masks, and implementing a grab-and-go dining experience versus sit-down meals in the dining hall.
Students, faculty, and staff were still welcome to eat in the dining hall, which featured Plexiglass partitions at
each table, and the staff cleaned and sanitized the areas after diners left.
“We also offered a modified athletics program, and are proud to say that teams for six sports—football, basketball, cross country, field hockey, volleyball, and soccer—were able to compete in over 40 games versus rival schools, and we hope to have our winter sports athletes compete if deemed safe,” Anderson says.
She continues, “Based on our initial plan and all that has been learned and enhanced during the past nine months, we are confident in our preparations for the spring 2021 semester. When boarding students return to campus on Jan. 9, they will quarantine on campus for a period of two weeks. The semester will also start completely remote on Jan. 11, and in-person classes will resume on Jan. 25 once the quarantine period has ended.”
The school will be continuing to follow its hybrid schooling program as able, allowing all students to access all their classes and resources. If possible, a spring athletics season will also be offered.
Rye Country Day School (RCDS), based in Rye, N.Y., which was fully remote last spring, has pre-K to grade 5 students at school every day but divided among classes into smaller sections in repurposed rooms, says Rye Country Day School Head of School Scott Nelson.
When the school went “100 percent remote” last spring, it was difficult for younger students and their parents, so it was a priority in the fall, Nelson explains.
Older students in grades 6 to 12 were on a hybrid flex model, so on a “blue group week’’ all students whose last names began with A to L attended in person and M to Z were learning remotely the same week. Also, there are some students learning 100 percent remotely; and others who go to school during their remote week but stay in a separate study hall.
The school invested $1 million for technology in its hybrid flex model last summer, including 80-inch monitors in each classroom with soundbar cameras, Nelson says.
In safety protocols, RCDS provided COVID-19 “pool testing,” whereby saliva samples were collected on Wednesday afternoons for the remote groups; then on Thursday morning everybody whose (samples) were collected were then assorted into assigned pools.
Pooling—sometimes referred to as pool testing or pooled testing—means combining respiratory samples from several people and conducting one laboratory test on the combined pool of samples to detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to the CDC.
If a pooled test result is negative, then all the samples can be presumed negative with the single test. In other words, all of the people who provided samples can be assumed to test negative for SARS-CoV-2 infection. If the pooled test result is positive, each of the samples in the pool will need to be tested individually to determine which samples are positive.
News of the vaccine in December was “very encouraging and the question remains how long does it take to distribute enough so there’s community immunity?” Nelson concludes.