Greenwich schools super reflects on a year of ‘COVID management’
GREENWICH — Certain tragedies Toni Jones, superintendent of Greenwich Public Schools, has observed have influenced her thinking as an educator.
In 1995, she was working as a school principal in Oklahoma City when domestic terrorists bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing at least 168 people. She was a school administrator when the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were carried out in New York City and Washington, D.C., when nearly 3,000 people died.
And more recently, in 2017 and 2018, after a spate of school shootings around the country, including at a high school in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17, Jones was superintendent of schools in Fairfield.
Each event proved extremely stressful for Jones and other educators around the nation. And all highlighted the critically important, and
sometimes difficult, job of keeping children and adults safe in one’s district.
She’s not happy to have experienced them. But they did, in a way, prepare Jones for the extreme pressure and prolonged stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said in a recent interview with the Greenwich Time in which she reflected on a year of leading the school district during the public health crisis.
“I’ve thought a lot about this, because I’ve read a lot of articles, and a lot of superintendents will say they’ve never lived through anything like this before,” Jones said. “For me personally ... I think there have been numerous situations throughout my career where the stress was equally as high. But perhaps not for as long, like it has been this school year.”
Jones is a native Oklahoman and, before coming to Greenwich, had also worked in Australia and northern Virginia. She announced her move to Greenwich from Fairfield in January 2019 and took office that summer. But she had less than a year to get settled when the first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Connecticut in mid-March 2020. Schools were closed, students moved to remote learning and education was profoundly disrupted.
Jones, like her counterparts throughout the country, had to scramble. As information began flooding in about the coronavirus, much of the job became sifting the good information from the bad.
Early on, she turned her attention abroad, where the effects of the pandemic were felt first, and other districts across the country that she felt had quickly developed successful approaches to safely educate students. She said she tried to replicate those strategies in Greenwich.
“I always say there are very few ideas that somebody else hasn’t done,” Jones said. “If you learn from other districts and utilize that knowledge, it can only be helpful. And that’s what we did . ... But I had to have the courage to trust those who know way more than I do about pandemics and the best steps forward.”
Following expert advice
She said she also used an analytical researchbased approach, relying heavily on local health officials and epidemiologists to track the trends of the virus and help inform her decisions.
Using the advice she had received, as well as safe educational models from other parts of the country and world, Jones was able to open the district fully for in-person instruction for students in September.
According to the information she was receiving, cases were expected to — and did — increase beginning in November, and reopening would likely have become more difficult as the fall progressed. It was a now or never situation, she said. Decisive action early on, she feels may have given Greenwich an advantage over other districts that were more hesitant in their approach to reopening school buildings.
“I think it helped us, because we were open, so then you start solving the problems on a daily basis, you don’t have to be so focused on trying to get open,” Jones said.
Jones has, from the beginning, been a proponent of in-school learning during the pandemic. She believes it is the best option for most students when it comes to their social, emotional and academic well-being. But more than a philosophical belief for Jones, it was the desire of about 80 percent of Greenwich parents who, when surveyed, said they wanted their kids in school. As superintendent, it was her job to carry out that will.
Greenwich’s back-toschool model, which featured fully in-school elementary and middleschools and a hybrid high school, was among the most aggressive in the state, and in keeping with goals set by former Connecticut Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona, who was tapped by President Joe Biden as his nominee for U.S. secretary of education.
But Jones was not singleminded in her approach. And the consequences of her decisions were abundantly clear to her.
“I think the intensity of just thinking about, ‘Am I making the right decision?’ That weighed very heavily on me in the fall,” Jones said.
For that reason, choice for families, students and teachers was also important to her. She created an innovative kindergarten through fifth-grade remote school that allowed all distance learners to have dedicated teachers and classes, rather than streaming from in-person classrooms.
“Yes, I feel like kids should be in school, but I also felt like we needed both options,” Jones said. “I felt like this is something we’ve never lived through and from a parent standpoint they needed the option to be full remote or to be face-to-face.”
Concerns from teachers
Complicating the matter were the concerns of staff and teachers, some of whom questioned the district’s safety protocols and expressed an unease when it came to teaching in person. Some teachers, through Jones’ remote school, had the ability to work from home. But others were forced to go in daily and lead classes filled with students. Especially during the height of the pandemic, fears mounted and tensions were high.
Jones, like superintendents around the country, had the unenviable job of balancing the desires of students, families and staff.
“I’m not going to say it was easy,” she said. “It was challenging because what each group needed was a little bit different.”
“COVID management,” as Jones called it, became a challenging new facet of an already difficult, demanding job.
And undoubtedly, there were periods of turbulence. Teachers questioned the districts communication regarding the quarantine protocols for those exposed to or testing positive for COVID, and they bemoaned Jones’ denial of requests for a period of remote learning after winter recess.
Middle school parents and students cried foul in September when they learned band, orchestra and choral programs would no longer be offered during the school day. And in hindsight, Jones said she could have better handled the scheduling of middle school electives.
Special education parents, too, lamented that the pandemic and the necessary safety protocols had exacerbated existing issues with the district’s services.
And a recent ceiling collapse and flood at North Mianus School further disrupted learning while it laid bare the district’s infrastructure issues and reignited a debate about school maintenance and capital spending.
But nearly a year after the first cases were reported, Jones is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Seeing improvements
Vaccines will begin to be administered to school staff in the coming weeks and Greenwich High will return to in-person learning on Wednesdays, which had previously been designated a remote learning day.
From Jones’ vantage point, there are a series of silver linings to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She has seen the district make major strides in its use of technology to educate students. And teachers and staff are going above and beyond the call of duty. Despite concerns about COVID-slide, Greenwich students have continued to perform well on standardized tests and, despite the travails of the pandemic, have shown an encouraging new emphasis on spending quality time with family and loved ones.
“I think something like this just gives everybody the perspective that life is what you make it and you have to wake up every day and try to be positive,” said Jones. “Because you don’t ever know what is around the corner.”
Jones, who considers herself an optimist, had to apply that mentality to her own life, as well. While much education reporting during the pandemic has focused on the well-being of teachers and students, relatively little has been written about the individual effects the health crisis has had on those leading districts.
It wasn’t easy, Jones acknowledged, but she spoke about her own experience somewhat reluctantly. When talking about her successes in the past year, she was quick to point to those who advised her. She also didn’t dwell long on the areas in which she feels she erred.
But the personal toll was real.
For Jones, during the pandemic the stakes are higher. The hours are longer. The late nights — during which she would often turn to reality TV as a kind of release — become a little later. And the need for self-care is all the more evident.
“I’m not helpful to other people if I’m not helping myself,” Jones said.