The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Staying focused on success
Perry Schools superintendent proud of how district has performed throughout COVID-19 crisis
As the 2019-20 academic year drew to a close, Perry Schools Superintendent Jack Thompson recommended that district leaders prepare for a hectic month of July.
“I told my administrators, let’s try to rest a little bit in June, because July is not going to be typically what July is for educators and administrative leaders,” Thompson said, in an interview late last month. “July is not going to be a slow-down time where we work on purchase orders and all those things. It’s going to be a stressful planning time and that’s exactly what July was.”
The major project undertaken by Perry Schools administrators was coming up with a system for safely educating students during the 2020-21 academic year in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Thompson praised the contributions of everyone who worked diligently in July to develop the district’s 2020-21 Responsible ReStart Plan.
“It was an amazing commitment of time, and effort, where I am so proud of what we were able to do to really transform our high school, middle school and elementary school into what was going to be 202021 of teaching and learning in the time of COVID-19,” he said.
Thompson shared some of Perry Schools’ other major achievements in 2020 and offered a preview of what lies ahead for the district in 2021.
Last year’s highlights
• Traditional graduation. Thompson said he was pleased that Perry High School was able to conduct an in-person commencement ceremony for graduating seniors on the Alumni Stadium football field.
“Those seniors, they stepped up big time and made the best of what was a tough situation, and so we were able to graduate them in a live ceremony,” Thompson said. “We waited until July, but we were able to get it done, and that was a proud moment.”
• Renovating schools for the COVID-19 era.
Thompson said many upgrades and revisions were made to Perry school buildings to protect students from the spread of COVID-19.
“It was all hands on deck,” he said. “Our maintenance workers and supervisors and everybody came together. We tore down walls. We reconstructed our buildings. We brought in all kinds of safety measures to meet CDC requirements.”
Perry Schools also made sure that technology was in place so teachers could simultaneously instruct students who chose on-campus and remote learning.
• Helping teachers to get better at standards-based grading.
“(Standards-based grading) is about, instead of waiting for that report card, end-of-term assessment A, B or C (letter grades), that we’re able to more accurately talk about a student’s learning and the progress that they make and are making, and where they are at any point in time, based on our standards of expectations,” Thompson said. “And so, we continue to try to get better at that.”
These grades are given to evaluate standards-based learning, which is instruction focused on helping students demonstrate the course standards.
• Emphasizing greater awareness about the social and emotional needs of students.
This requires teachers and other district staff to increase awareness about their own biases, and become more empathetic about what students are going through in their lives, Thompson said.
“And so last year, in 2020, we had a really solid focus on having a better selfawareness and then having a better understanding of what some of our kids’ lives might actually be like,” he said. “And to build empathy, not necessarily sympathy, but empathy, toward what they’re going through and the challenges they may face.”
Goals for 2021
• Continue to foster a heightened awareness of social and emotional needs of students, and increase the focus on standards-based learning and grading.
“These aren’t one-year kind of efforts,” Thompson said. “These are main themes of our ongoing work to pursue greatness and become better every day.”
• Returning to on-campus learning and keeping it going.
Following the district’s winter break, Perry Schools resumed remote learning for all students from Jan. 4 through 8. Starting Jan. 11, on-campus learners will return to their school buildings, while remote students continue with virtual instruction.
“Hopefully, we’ll make a strong run of both online and remote learning until the end of the year,” Thompson said. “That’s our goal. We’ll see, based on what happens, how well we can execute that, but that’s the plan.”
• Keep using new and effective instructional methods that arose during the COVID-19 crisis.
“While this has been so challenging and the work has been so tough on our teachers, they’re going to come out of here transformed, with a skill level that some of them didn’t realize they were able to do,” Thompson said. “That’s going to be one of our goals for 2021, to hold on to the level of instruction that we’ve been able to create and then continue to improve upon it.”