Principals during Pandemic Situations

Joshua P. Mangune

In a time of crisis, leaders are the ones we depend on to calm our nerves and forge the path ahead, even if that path requires great toil and sacrifice. Despite the overwhelming pressures they face in their own roles, principals have demonstrated, selflessly and solidly, that their communities can depend on them. As school leaders continue to pull out all the stops to lead, and safeguard, their schools during the most significant upheaval to education in living memory, evidence across the globe is emerging of the critical role that leadership plays in steering communities through the COVID-19 pandemic. It looks at how they priorities open communication, how they proactively triage and manage threats to their community, and how they leverage expertise and experience from multiple sources to facilitate transition from a crisis; and importantly, how they support the wellbeing of their school community while maintaining their own health and wellbeing”. The ‘triage, transition and transform’ process provide a useful framework for helping principals understand and respond to the challenges they face. The 3T’s approach – triage, transition and transform – is a useful approach to reflect on during and after a crisis event. This framework is not linear but provides a way of thinking through a crisis and providing structure for how to respond, All leaders, whether in business, government or in this case schools, have had to think fast and effectively as we adapt and bring our various teams through this incredibly challenging time. Clear, simple and frequent communication is imperative to sharing up-to-date information and maintaining open communication channels, A simple but greatly appreciated example has been the use of video conferencing for parent/teacher meeting purposes, saving time while still enabling that critical communication to occur. Principals and schools that had already developed and practiced a crisis plan would have been in a better place to respond than those that had to make the time to put one in place. The year 2020 has been a reminder that having a crisis plan in place, being clear in your communications, and taking your team and your community with you pays dividends when the unthinkable happens. No doubt that many people, in all kinds on industries, will review what happened in 2020 to make sure they can continue to adapt to whatever comes their way.