I came across an article in an education journal last week about the perceptions principals have of their workload during this pandemic compared to pre-pandemic. I know that any educator who works in any school read that and said, ‘yep’. It also stands to reason that the majority of the people out there don’t know about the day to day challenges that educators are facing and the social and emotional impact this has on our lives. The article I read came out in a publication intended for educators, so people outside the field may not be exposed to the raw details of challenges we face day to day.
I recently called a principal friend of mine who I would typically see at least monthly for an afternoon of appetizers and discussion. In the last year it is fair to say we have had to cancel more times than we could meet because the demands on our time and the social and emotional strain have made coordinating schedules nearly impossible. I called her and we both said the same thing: we woke up and laid in our beds dreading the day ahead. We both had to muster all of our emotional and intellectual strength to get up and face the day. We both feel the strain of covid related tasks and traumas that invariably keep us from doing the work we are passionate about doing: instructional leadership and crafting an educational environment that is rich in programming and opportunities where students and staff alike want to be. Covid has forced educators, from principals to teachers to support staff, into survival mode.
Behind the scenes in the school office, any school office, on any morning is the game of ‘staff coverage musical chairs’. You know the old children’s party game where every round you play there are fewer and fewer people and always one chair short….well this is public education staffing in a nutshell. Every morning we get to check our teacher attendance and substitute staffing program to see how many people we are short that day. Then we have to scramble to find substitutes, of which there are never enough, to fill positions. Then when there are not enough external substitutes, we have to look with in and utilize our support staff to cover classrooms. Luckily for me, I have THE BEST group of ladies who are always willing to step up and fill in…but this then leaves us with other gaps to fill in during the day: our reading groups are disrupted or cancelled and cafeteria and playground supervision must be covered, sometimes early childhood classrooms end up with out a second set of hands to help with those littles. This might not seem like such a big deal….but snow pants times 25…. Ultimately, the office staff ends up in the cafeteria and on the playground, which I don’t mind doing…at all….but then the office is unattended and doors don’t get answered, and the phones don’t get answered…and then the parents get irritated. Sigh.
Everyday, we are robbing Peter to pay Paul from a staffing perspective: sometimes teachers go with out planning periods, sometimes specials teachers combine classes- not optimal when trying to social distance in a school- and sometimes the administrative assistant mops floors and takes out trash and the principal cleans up vomit and scrubs toilets when the custodial staff is out. And while we are doing these things, the tasks and responsibilities that are actually part of our actual job description are on the back burner.
Behind the scenes in the principals office, any school office, on any morning is data collection. Don’t get me wrong here, data collection and analysis is a critical element of instructional leadership, and I LOVE my spreadsheets documenting student academic progress. However, every morning, by 10 AM we must provide data on current covid infections in the building to our central office administration. This seems pretty basic, but….it involves numerous voicemails and emails from parents keeping their kids home and many times follow up calls to determine if the illness is covid related or other illnesses since pink eye, strep throat, and the flu are still a thing.
Then comes the difficult part. Among covid related illnesses, we have to ascertain if they are in a quarantine situation or not, for example if the student is covid negative but there was a positive in the family. There are so many variables and each case if different…and requires explanation because the policies surrounding covid quarantines are clear as mud and change from agency to agency. The real fun starts when we have a positive case and we have to start contact tracing, sending letters to close contacts, and monitoring classes for related covid infections. This sometimes requires detective work when you consider the classroom, reading groups, recess, cafeteria, busses….
Behind the scenes in the principals office, any school office, on any morning, we have our hands full with extra duties and tasks associated with running a school during a pandemic. But socially and emotionally we also have our hands pretty full as well since we see kids that after a year of basically quarantining and virtual learning have forgotten how to interact with others. Conflict resolution skills need to be retaught and reinforced on a good day, but in addition to this we have our students who come from homes that were already operating in survival mode before than pandemic, and sometimes their life traumas impact their emotional well being at school which ripples out in a major way.
Unfortunately students are not the only ones who have had difficulty with managing their emotions. Sometimes my office feels more like the complaint department. Parents want to argue over everything. ‘What!?! I can’t believe my child has a consequence for (throwing food in the cafeteria, biting a classmate, lying…..)…’ Yes, most parents are supportive and understand the rules are rules and actions have consequences. But then I have the ones who think that their children’s actions should be overlooked. Sorry. That’s a NO. See my last post on sweating the small stuff. I actually had a parent who was upset this week because their child didn’t do their assignment to expectation, and therefore missed out on an opportunity, emailed me several times after hours to tell me how it is unfair and not equitable (same standard for ALL the students*), that the student did the work but didn’t turn it in….on and on…and continued the next morning with wanting proof that the work wasn’t submitted. So, in the midst of trying to assemble my data for covid reporting, I am also dealing with a parent who is upset with me and doesn’t want to accept that their child’s work didn’t meet the standard, on top of disrupting my evening, my downtime, my time with my family and my kids. This is frustrating because the message the parent sends to the student is that the principal is unreasonable, not that if you want the opportunity it must be earned.
Behind the scenes in the principals office, any school office, on any morning are any number of situations that are new to education and a byproduct of the pandemic that prevent us from doing the things we love to do: observing teachers making the magic happen, providing instructional feedback, developing PD opportunities, looking at student data and planning and implementing programs to support teaching and learning, planning PBIS incentives and parent involvement opportunities… Behind the scenes in the principals office, any school office, on any morning is a principal who is losing sleep at night worrying about school, who is so wiped out at the end of each day and at emotional capacity, who has to work to find the energy and enthusiasm that used to come naturally, but that still finds a way to get up and greet all the kids by name at the front door in the morning, complete all the duties and tasks that have fallen on their plates, and make the most of each and every day.
* My school and district has been awesome in ensuring that all students have a district issued and functioning device as well as a hotspot for those lacking internet service. The principals office has reached out to all families to ensure that anyone in need of a hotspot has one.
