Permit me to go back in time 2 years ago today. The 2020 calendar year started out like any other year with its normal ups and downs. However, as the 2020 calendar began turning from January to February to March we began to hear in the news about a virus, the Coronavirus, that was infecting and killing people at an alarming rate, more than we had seen in our lifetime. Our school district started first communicating about the virus on February 29th in a communication to staff and families. From that point forward, we had frequent ongoing communication about the virus and its impact throughout the pandemic. On Wednesday, March 11th of that fateful week, we began hearing national stories of how the virus was impacting national events. One such event was in NBA basketball when basketball games were being cancelled because Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert tested positive for Corona Virus. It began a chain reaction. Did playing basketball with someone who tested positive increase the chances that everyone on the basketball court would get COVID? Out of an abundance of caution and the early health data, professional and collegiate sports started cancelling their games. Major League Baseball cancelled spring training. March Madness was cancelled. Other countries started quarantining. We started taking notice. As educators we were getting more and more concerned in Massachusetts schools about how this would impact our students, our staff, and education. I know that professionally this week began the most challenging 18 months of my career.

Our first major cancellation in Reading Public Schools began on Wednesday, March 11th, when the Parker Middle School Musical was cancelled. It was heartbreaking that I had to cancel all four performances for the 120 students who had rehearsed for months for this opportunity, but I had to keep the safety of the students and the audience at the forefront of my decision. All of that hard work and they never were able to perform the show, just a dress rehearsal which was videotaped. It was just the beginning of months of cancellations of the performances, games, competitions, and other extra-curricular activities. Understandably, students and staff were getting concerned. In fact, our high school students staged a walkout on Friday, March 13th because we had not cancelled school.

Given what we were seeing in the data and hearing across our country, on March 13, 2020, I released our fifth COVID update that stated the following:

“Although the Department of Public Health and Governor Baker are not recommending regional wide school closures at this time, except in specific situations, the Reading Public Schools and many other area school districts will be closed from March 16^th to March 27th.  This includes all athletics, extra-curricular, after/before school activities and extended day programs.

I am doing this out of an abundance of caution, particularly out of sensitivity to families and staff who have underlying conditions that make them more vulnerable to complications should they become infected.  I do not take this decision to close our schools lightly because of the educational impact on our students and most likely, a financial impact on families who do not have childcare options.  As of this morning our community has been fortunate not to have any identified cases of COVID-19, however, we know that can change very quickly.  In addition, with the number of school districts who will be cancelling for two weeks, this will have an impact on our staff with families who live in those districts.”

On Sunday, March 15, 2020, Governor Baker announced that schools would be cancelled until April 7th. At that point our world and our lives completely changed. The first few days were a complete blur. We were prepared for all types of emergencies and situations, but the pandemic was a new one and one that we were not ready to tackle. We all hoped that this school closure would last only until April 7th, maybe a little more and we would be back to school soon. However, when students, teachers and administrators left on that Friday, March 13th, little did they know that they would not be entering back into the schools for several months.

In person and remote school was cancelled for five days. During those five days, we worked behind the scenes and focused on Maslow’s hierarchical needs. Did our students and families have enough food, sufficient technology, internet access? We were very concerned about our special education, economically disadvantaged and English Language Learner students. Were our teachers able to make the shift necessary to educate children remotely? We then had to figure out how were we going to start educating our students remotely and what tools and training our teachers would need to make this happen. Fortunately, I had a dedicated team of Directors, Principals, and Central Office Administrators who all chipped in during those months with creative solutions. Furthermore, our teachers were amazing and many had the skills to make the shift. But, we needed to flip a light switch immediately and implement remote education for 4300 students and we did not know how long it was going to last. Little did we know, it was going to be for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year and beyond.

During those remaining months of the 2019-2020 school year we all did our best to educate students and support our staff. We focused on food insecurities, technology access, and the social emotional needs of our students. Our nurses, food service staff, custodians, facilities staff, and technology staff were the unsung heroes of our district. We needed to make sure that our students continued to make connections with their teachers and peers We offered food distribution twice a week for our families. We distributed all of the available laptops that we had available for our students and ordered more, along with wireless hotspots. We did daily check-ins with students to make sure that they were doing ok. Our teachers taught their lessons online from their homes, but the focus had to be on the social and emotional well being of students. I will be the first to admit that our model wasn’t perfect, but we relied on our experience as leaders and educators in our areas to do what was best, given the circumstances. In essence, we were building an airplane as it flied by developing a learning platform for our students and teachers to use. However, at the same time, there was a lot of uncertainty if and when we were coming back. We would meet via Zoom with the Commissioner each week and there was always this glimmer of hope that we would be coming back to finish the 2019-2020 school year. Unfortunately, it never happened. Looking back now, it was naive of us to think that we would be back that year. There was no vaccine and we did not know how to mitigate the virus to safely return to school. We needed to prepare our physical buildings for a completely different model of education with masks and hybrid learning and the vaccination was not available. Returning to school in person was just not going to happen.

In addition to managing their new online schools, our principals did an amazing job during the spring of 2020 to creatively develop those traditional end of the year celebrations so that our students in Kindergarten, 5th grade, 8th grade and 12th grade did not miss out on those milestones. Car parades, drive by yearbook distributions and promotion ceremonies, and a midsummer High School Graduation were carefully planned with support from the town. Thanks to our High School PTO and our Rotary Club, each Class of 2020 student’s picture was placed on the front law of Town Hall to celebrate their graduation. We set up times for our staff to come back to pick up any materials that they needed to teach remotely. Working collaboratively became essential to the success of our schools and our district.

Once we were officially told in late spring that we were not coming back for the remainder of the school year, our focus began shifting to the start of the 2020-2021 school year. We needed to start planning with the hope that we would be returning, at least part time, in person. Our facilities, finance, health and technology departments did a yeoman’s job ordering the PPE, plexiglass, wireless hotspots, and laptops needed to prepare for a hybrid or remote environment. Our facilities staff built plexiglass shields in our cafeteria serving lines and main offices to protect students and staff. We needed to create classrooms which had desks 6 feet apart and then find storage for all of the rest of the classroom furniture. Gymnasiums became cafeterias to reduce the number of students during lunch. Our food service department continued food distribution all summer and then into the next school year, averaging 500 families each week that needed support. Our teaching and learning sector began developing the learning platform, tools, and training needed to educate in a hybrid environment. Our principals need to create three different schedules in anticipation of what could happen: a completely remote model, a hybrid model, and a full in person model.

What complicated matters more is that were were not getting timely information from the state on what the expectations were. Our only option was to prepare for the scenarios that would impact us the most and work from there. Staffing the model that we decided on was also going to be a challenge. We had many staff who could not work full time in person because they were immunocompromised or they had family who was more susceptible to COVID-19. We met with over 120 staff between May and mid-September to address their individual situations and recommend accommodations so that they could work. Many decided to take a leave of absence which further complicated how we were going to staff our schools.

Another key piece of the puzzle was the value of the collaborative relationship that we had with the Town of Reading. Beginning shortly after that fateful day of Friday the 13th, the Incident Command Structure was enacted consisting of the Town Manager, Fire Chief, Deputy Fire Chief, Police Chief, Board of Health, Superintendent of Schools, and the School’s Chief Financial Officer. This group met frequently and led the Town of Reading through the most difficult challenges of this pandemic. We planned the car parades, mask distributions, food distributions, vaccination clinics, and a host of other dilemmas that we had not faced before. As Superintendent, I used a similar structure in our district using the Incident Command System by developing sectors each with their own responsibilities. We had a sector for student services/special education, a sector for teaching and learning, a sector for operations, a sector for health, and a sector for human resources. Representatives from these sectors would meet several times each week to make sure that we were all on the same page. In addition, we would meet with our principals and directors twice a week to listen, inform, plan and act on the challenges that we were facing both short term and long term.

We decided to go with a hybrid model which featured a two week cycle. Half the students in a cohort would be in week one, Monday-Thursday while the other half would be remote. They would then switch in week 2. Everyone would be remote on Fridays to allow a deep cleaning day in our schools. Our school opening in the Fall of 2020 wasn’t perfect, but we focused first on our youngest and most vulnerable students. Special Education, Preschool, and Kindergarten student attended full time from the very beginning. Other grades were slowly phased in to hybrid based on available staffing. It was not perfect and throughout the year, we had our challenges, but our focus was always on providing as much live and synchronous teaching as possible so that our students would have constant contact with their teachers. I still feel that given the circumstances, we provided the best education we possibly could with the resources that we had.

I could share so much more, but as I stated earlier, it was the most challenging 18 months that I had ever experienced as a Superintendent. However, I grew tremendously as a leader and learned so much from the experience. Here are some of the key lessons learned that I would like to share with you.

1. Timely and Proactive Communication was Critical-It was extremely important that we kept our staff and our community informed of what was going on, even though we did not have the answers. I sent out weekly updates to staff and the community on everything I knew and everything we anticipated. We sent out surveys to gauge opinions from both staff and community as we approached our school reopening on what models may work best. We held both staff and community forums on a regular basis on zoom to update our staff and families as to what was going on, but to answer questions. I also held remote Superintendent office hours for those staff and parents that had individual issues that they needed addressed.
2. The focus had to be on the health and safety of staff and students-We were in unknown territory and we had to rely on the health data, the science of the virus and how it impacted our staff and students. We researched models from all over the country and I relied on my background in biology to develop the best educational model for our students with the health data available. Early on, the research and data showed that wearing masks, physical distancing, improved ventilation, and hand-washing were important precautions that needed to be taken. We had to plan our return to school using those tenets, even though we knew, it would be different and look different.
3. Having a strong collaborative team was essential-As I mentioned earlier having a team of dedicated and qualified professionals was critical to our success. At the District level, I was fortunate to have caring and qualified Principals, Central Office Administrators, and Directors who were willing to work together, put their egos aside, and do what was in the best interest of students and staff. At the Town level, we had established a collaborative relationship with town department heads and officials prior to this pandemic. Looking back, those relationships was critical in the success on how we handled this pandemic. It does not mean we didn’t have our disagreements, but we were able to air our differences respectfully and move forward.
4. Having a trusting relationship with staff was important-In this time of uncertainty, it was important that we had a trusting relationship with our teachers and other staff. During the months after March 13, 2020, we had to work with each bargaining unit to develop memorandum of understandings that would navigate us through the pandemic. We would not have been able to successfully come to agreement without the trust and the relationships that we had developed prior to the pandemic.
5. Work with your colleagues in other districts-I was very fortunate that we had a very close network of Superintendents. Each of us had our own local challenges, but we had common challenges such as which learning model we would be using, how to implement it, what athletics and extra-curricular activities would look like, and how to communicate changes to the community. I worked with Superintendents from different geographical sectors of the state to share what we were doing with COVID and what others were doing. Our state association did an incredible amount of work to make sure that we had the latest information and research on legal, health, and HR issues. This was essential to develop the decisions that made the most sense for our staff and students.
6. Listen, empathize, and communicate and model a message of inspiration and hope-As the leader of the district, it was important to listen to staff, empathize with their issues and concerns, and inspire and create a message of hope. I personally met with over 200 staff and hundreds of parents, sometimes more than once, to listen to their concerns and help to brainstorm solutions to their concerns. This is above and beyond the hours on Zoom that we had meeting with staff and the community in forums. Sometimes it was just to reassure them that everything was going to be ok and we have put all of the necessary precautions in place for them to return to work. I wanted to make sure that our district was open for business and held all of School Committee meetings, my forums, and meetings via Zoom in my office. I am proud to say that our district office remained open for business during the pandemic and it was because I wanted people to know where they could go if they had an issue.
7. You are going to make mistakes. Be vulnerable, admit your mistakes and move forward.-There were mistakes that I made as a leader during the pandemic. Early in the pandemic, we were not as proactive as we should have been with communication in keeping the community informed even though we did not have all of the answers. I learned from those mistakes, and made communication with all stakeholders one of the top priorities during the next several months. When we made mistakes, I focused on expressing my vulnerability as leader and admitted our mistake and what we would do differently moving forward. This also built that trust level during the pandemic.
8. Everyone is not going to agree with your decisions or recommendations-Regardless of the decisions that were being made, we did not have 100% agreement with our staff or our community. In fact, there were times that we had much less agreement. Regardless, it is important to stay true to your moral compass and focus on the decisions and planning that is in the best interest of students. Rely on the data in making your decisions. Some of the decisions that I made during the pandemic were not the most popular, but they were the best decisions based on the health data and education information that we had at the time.
9. Balance work and life during a crisis-I failed this one miserably. For 18 months navigating the pandemic became my life because I wanted to make sure that I did the best job I possibly could for our staff and students. If you do not put the oxygen mask on you first and take care of yourself, you will not be useful for anyone else.

Was our response perfect? No, it wasn’t. But we did our best, given the circumstances that we faced. We did not create the pandemic, but we had to deal with it. In retrospect, dealing with the pandemic made me and others stronger leaders. I became a leader who was more reflective, more empathetic, and more willing to learn from the mistakes that I made.

2 Years ago today changed education, perhaps forever. Only time will tell what the true impact the pandemic had on the academic and social emotional needs of our students and the long term impact it has had on our staff and administrators. It was a time in my career that I will never forget and I am so fortunate that I had an outstanding team that tackled the challenges with me.