HOW TO LEAD DURING PANDEMIC

Joshua P. Mangune

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing educational leaders around the globe to make tough choices. How can they best look after the welfare of their staff and students? Now more than ever, it’s important for principals and superintendents to demonstrate leadership capabilities. They need to be flexible and adaptive to this new learning environment. There is a need to be able to address unplanned circumstances, as well as be planning for change. For many teachers, this is their first foray into teaching online. In addition to these new challenges, many of them are balancing more familial responsibilities, including taking care of children or other relatives. Administrators need to be cognizant of this, and make certain allowances to support their staff. “The school leader needs to be aware of [teachers’ responsibilities], and make sure that he or she does not burn out their teachers and staff by asking them to do too much, Leadership also means looking out for the physical and mental well-being of students. This may mean turning to networks they’ve built within the community. Mental health centers, faith-based organizations, nursing and health centers, social services – administrators can utilize these connections to create a network that parents and students can turn to for help. Many aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented, but dealing with situations of this magnitude isn’t uncommon for educators. The important thing is to offer frequent communication. You need to let people know what is going on.. You need to be honest and transparent – don’t make up things. If you’re not sure what is going on, you have to let people know. If you’re a principal, you should be communicating with your superintendent during this period. It’s also important to be consistently checking in with teachers to see how they’re doing and let them know about any updates. Look at current policies to see if any need to be updated to address the current situation, while still keeping the safety of students at the forefront. This might mean using a platform that allows the school district to monitor the interactions between teachers and students, or discouraging oneon-one online communication between teachers and students to protect students from potential improper behavior. Any time a school leader goes through an unexpected occurrence, besides dealing with the immediate impact and providing for the students and the staff, you have to step back and reflect. You need to say, ‘What have we learned from this, and how can we put things in place to help us, should we come across something like this again. Even after the pandemic subsides, we’ll see a growing prevalence of online learning at the K-12 level. Principals and superintendents are going to reexamine how instruction is delivered. I think you’re going to see more online courses being offered, not only at the high school and middle school level, but at the elementary school level. Teachers are going to have to become more comfortable bringing technology into the classroom. This also brings to light the importance of technology in teaching and learning today. It’s not a question of, ‘Do you want to learn how to use this,’ but, ‘This is a necessary part of your job, to know how to use technology.’ The students are comfortable using this technology, and we need to bring that into the school, not stop it at the door. It doesn’t replace a good teacher, but it is certainly a necessary component.”