Running a school by zoom

Almost two weeks ago, on March 17^th, we launched zoom for our Leadership Team (LT) and introduced new protocols for meetings. We begin with a personal check-in, then move through our agenda, which always begins with students and ends with identification and updates on our list of biggest risks.   We end with something light-hearted, and it feels good to smile or even laugh as a team.  We have been meeting four times per week since we closed the school, and I don’t see that changing in the near future.  The challenges in this time of crisis are time-consuming and demand a whole new level of creativity and collaboration.  Thank goodness we have zoom to manage this reality.

On March 25^th, we ran our first operational staff meeting by zoom with 57 colleagues.  Our LT talked a lot about our objectives, and we made a plan to spend time doing a check-in with everyone present.  The meeting turned out to be one of my week’s highlights.  People were efficient with their quick updates, and yet they packed in humour (like the cat’s tooth that fell out), generosity (baking for neighbours), love of nature (seeing deer from their new home office or a beaver and fox on a drive) and humility (turns out I am not a great teacher!).  What surprised me was the number of staff members who wore Lakefield gear, and I agree with one comment that our swag never looked better.

This week, our Heads of House began meeting their students by zoom call as well.  By the end of March, every Lakefield student will have participated on a zoom house-meeting call.  In one case, the Head of House and parents collaborated to plan a surprise birthday party as part of their zoom meeting.  In another house meeting, they included the very popular woman who cleans their house, so they could celebrate her birthday.  I am so inspired by the creativity of our community!

On March 27^th, we ran our first round of parent meetings by zoom.  We scheduled three times for parents to call in, and by the end of Friday, we had connected with families from over 20 countries.  In total, over 125 families participated, with multiple family members in each household.  Every parent was invited to give a brief update, and I swear I could feel the relief when each person reported: “And we are all fine.”  One parent from Saudi Arabia reminded us that we are all brothers and sisters in this crisis, and he is praying for our Lakefield and global communities.  More than one parent asked if our teachers and staff were also fine.  We used the chat function for questions, greetings and gratitude, and each one-hour call was both informative and heart-warming.  I hadn’t thought about the fact that some of our students would join their parents, and it was amazingly fun to see their waves and smiles.  We will definitely repeat these meetings, in part so everyone can hear the updates and in part, so we can see each other and send our Lakefield love out around the world.

I had an absolute favourite moment.  At the end of our 5:00pm call, when we were saying our goodbyes, someone yelled out, “Bye Ms Kee… we love you”.  And then it started – in addition to the smiles and waves, people started blowing kisses before hanging up.  Some people yelled out messages of love to everyone as they blew kisses.  Naturally, I got teary as I, too, blew kisses to our families.  If you had told me when I became Head of School, that I would be blowing kisses to 75+ families on a zoom call, I would have never believed it to be true.  If you had told me that we would have a special experience that is unique to our community, something we call a “So Lakefield” moment, when using technology (and not in-person or outdoors), I would have never believed it to be true.

As we plan this week to shift to remote learning, as schools all over the world are doing, I am more confident than ever that we will make it work.  We have a plan to continue our academic program to the end of June so that students can continue their learning.  We are working on a plan to offer clubs and activities, so students can continue to be exposed to a variety of opportunities and enjoy a well-rounded education.  And after the past two weeks on zoom, I know for a fact that our plan for students and teachers to continue to connect will be a reality.  Thanks to zoom, our Grove roots will run deeper and wider than ever.  These relationships will help sustain us through this global crisis, and my hope is that our Lakefield community will be equally generous in extending their connections beyond school.  We are Lakefield, and the world needs our values more than ever.

What matters (or not) in a time of crisis

I bought a green dress to take on my holiday to Mexico for the March Break.  I was pretty excited about it because it is not a work-dress, and I typically focus my spending on work clothes.  I had visions of wearing my green dress to the pool; I even spent time wondering – would I reserve it for day-to-day pool use or might I wear it out for dinner?  I actually smiled when I caught myself thinking about this “important” question, and I counted the days to my holiday.  I remember thinking that I really needed this rest – we all run on empty leading up to March break! – and I longed for days thinking of other important questions, like sun-screen application and early morning beach-chair acquisition.

Oh how times have changed.  With the global pandemic crisis and potential economic recession, and with a world-wide educational shift to distance learning, I cannot believe how quickly we have entered into a totally new environment, where former concerns over green dresses seem pathetic.

Two weeks before break, I had to tell students who were excited to be going on one of our international trips that we had decided to cancel.  The only trip allowed to proceed was a group of international students who chose not to go home because of the virus, who were having a stay-cation in Ontario.  We were all disappointed, and while I suspect that some may have wondered if we were over-reacting, everyone was supportive.

On the last morning of school, we held a mandatory staff meeting, and we shared our plans for remote learning.  Judging by a show of hands, most of our teachers had already taken a Global Online Academy course on how to teach online or were planning to take one to prepare for this new reality.  I was so proud of the attitude in the theatre that morning.  Had I known that would be the last time we would gather in person for weeks (and perhaps months), I would have spent more time thanking them for being an incredible group of colleagues.

On the first day of break, Monday, March 16, we made the decision to close the school, one day before Premier Ford forced private schools in Ontario to close.  We had already called back our 20 international students from their stay-cation to Blue Mountain, and we acted on the advice of our Prime Minister.  We spent the afternoon calling our 44 international students whom we knew had not traveled home.  Our message was simple:  we encourage you to go home.  This call was yet another heart-breaking decision by our Leadership Team, but we evaluated whether or not we could keep our students safe indefinitely. We knew the right thing was to encourage everyone to go home to their families.  That day, I also hired security for 24-hour-seven-day-a-week monitoring of our campus and all pedestrian and vehicular traffic.  We continued to reiterate that our single biggest priority was the health and safety of our community.

As of today, Monday, March 23, all of our students are safely off-campus.  Every day last week, we said goodbye to our students in a way that was not so Lakefield at all.  There were no hugs and no happy promises to ‘See you soon’.  There were eye-locking moments, where no words were necessarily exchanged, but we understood each other’s good intentions.

Now what?  With our students gone, we can turn our attention to the enormous shift that is required to provide remote learning in a manner that is quintessentially Lakefield.  We have a goal to be excellent in three areas:

1. Academic learning that is authentic, challenging, and relational
2. Co-curricular programs that enable us to continue to inspire well-rounded leaders who can be artists and athletes for life
3. Community engagement that connects and supports students in personal ways.

Learning at Lakefield will be different – how do we do Outdoor Education when students are in 45 different countries?  And we will all have to process our extraordinary range of emotions as we will miss the fun that goes with living at Lakefield, especially if remote learning continues into the spring.

As for me and my green dress?  I put the dress in a closet where I don’t have to look at it; the last thing I need right now is to focus on how much has changed, or what is lost.  What I am focusing on is to stay informed with all that is happening in our world without losing focus on what I can control, which is the experience of our students, staff and families in the coming weeks.  My hope is to stay focused on the present, to search for the positive in each day, and to connect with friends and family.  More than ever, we need to ask good questions, try our best, and be kind.

My other hope is that the day will come when I get to pull out my green dress.  I imagine wearing it, not to a pool, but rather to a reunion with family and friends.   That image of our reconnection is my reminder that this too shall pass.