Strategic Planning for 2020-21 in Light of Covid19

Let us be bold and daring!

Viewed negatively, the likely re-occurrence of the Covid19 virus during the 2020-21 school year is a real threat to all of us, and especially our most vulnerable Catholic schools. Parents may decide if their children are going to be home a significant part of the year anyway, if athletic and music programs are going to be canceled anyway, if they’re going to need to find a way to supervise their children themselves, what’s the point of paying tuition? Perhaps they should just homeschool, or enroll their children in the local public school and save the money. Every school that requires tuition, Catholic or private, should be worried. 

Viewed differently, however, this summer COULD be an unprecedented opportunity for our most vulnerable schools to make a stunning turnaround—a chance to reposition and “rebrand” as the safest, most forward thinking school in town.  And it’s a chance for well positioned schools to further distinguish themselves. 

It will all depend on the wisdom, daring and boldness of our plans this summer. 

In a prescient “open letter” dated April 9 to headmasters and principals of private schools, two Kennesaw State professors, Benjamin Scafidi and Eric Wearne, provide us with some very helpful perspectives to help us begin thinking about the fall.  

They begin with a survey of medical opinion, concluding that it even if we are able to relax some social conditioning restrictions this summer and open the new school year normally, it is highly likely that the Coronavirus will return at some point during the school year.  We must prepare, then,  for on-site and off-site instruction, perhaps toggling on and off several times through out the year,  as the 'new normal' for the next 18-24 months— and hope, by then, that we’ve developed a vaccine. Given that daunting new reality, Scafidi and Wearne say we must prioritize four areas in our planning: 

1. Are our schools the safest in town?
2. Have we fully considered the educational design and technological needs of our school to implement first tier instruction? 
3. Are we prepared to absorb some of the negative financial effects? 
4. Are we taking care of our teachers, students and families?

I’d like to reflect on each of these. 

First and foremost, how do we show parents, credibly, not that we are merely “safe”, but we are the “safest school in town” for their children? 

I find that a helpful way to frame the issue and push us to be bold. Do we, for example, arrange to take temperatures of every student in the school to begin the day? Are oxygen finger monitors a suitable substitute? Should we develop protocols whereby students sanitize their hands at the beginning of each class period?  Are there sanitizing stations all throughout the school? More radically, do we hire additional custodial staff to disinfect every doorknob, every handrail, every place students may touch when they change class rooms, after every class change? Do we consider hiring a school nurse to assess, monitor and care for students?  What is our crisis plan if a student, teacher or parent in the school is diagnosed with the virus? If local governments allow schools to remain open, but insist on strong social distancing practices,  can we create a realistic plan to support those practices? How do we communicate this plan, quickly and transparently, so as to not elicit panic? 

Second, Scafidi and Wearne ask, what are the educational and technological considerations? Do we have a common software “platform” to post and receive assignments and to communicate grades? Do students have laptops to do the distance learning? Might it be the case that there are some days that half the student body comes to school and the other half stays home to watch “live streamed” classrooms--and then these groups flip the next day--so as to support social distance norms? If so, are our classrooms equipped with HD video cameras, mounted on tripods, to broadcast to those at home? Does our school have enough bandwidth to host simultaneous live-streaming in all of our classrooms? Do we need to hire a tech support person, perhaps at the school level, or perhaps to serve 3-4 schools collectively, so as to assist us in all this? And what assignments can we give that don’t require students to be permanently glued to a screen? With more time to assign reading, do kids have access to worthwhile books? Do classes without textbooks need to consider adopting textbooks so there’s a physical text if kids must stay at home? 

Third,  how will we plan ahead to absorb the likely negative financial impact on our budgets, should Covid19 re-appear next year? Can we help families who may have a one year liquidity problem? How will we pay for the technological improvements?   Do we need to implement a temporary reduction in our staffs? Temporary reductions in their benefits?  How can we reach out to our donors effectively, and convince them that their donations are needed now more than ever?

Finally, what are the practical considerations for our teachers, students and families in the “at home” environment? How can we make the home environment better for our teachers and staff, many of whom have parental responsibilities as well? And how do we find ways to support our stressed out students and parents? 

The professors suggest that one helpful idea for families, if we must return to social distancing, is to create “quarantine circles,” whereby 2-3 families pair up to intermingle, giving parents the chance to share child-rearing responsibilities, and giving children some sort of social outlet with children their own age, keeping the loop “closed” to all others. Have we outfitted our teachers with adequate laptops to teach virtually? Should we consider paying them to upgrade their internet speeds to avoid “buffering” while trying to teach lessons remotely? (It wouldn’t be a “benefit” but a work related expense). Can the school be a catalyst for social connections during lockdowns?  Between students? Between adults ? How do we make the role of our counselor more prominent, so as to offer sound advice and counsel to families while in lockdown? 

And these questions are just the beginning. 

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It is likely that principals like me, reading all this for the first time, may despair of the costs for these proposals. How in the world can we afford to upgrade teachers’ internet access? Or purchase video cameras for every classroom? Laptops for every student?  Hire a school nurse? And we’re supposed to give more financial aid on top of that? “Come on,” we’d be inclined to say, “be real!” 

I've been struggling with that, but I think there are two points to make in response. 

In an absolutely unheard of  “gift” to our schools, the federal government is giving us 8 weeks of money to cover payroll this spring, provided we don’t lay off teachers to meet our budgets.  Depending on the size of our staff, that money will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Except in a few dire cases, then, we should end the year with a surplus that would have other wise gone to payroll.  Before we allow that money to disappear into the black hole of our operational budgets, I believe we should set aside a portion of it to support whatever our strategic plan for next year requires, including increased financial aid. 

Second, we should remember these are emergency measures until we find a vaccine.  So if we can muster up the funds to hire a school nurse, full time or part time, that’s not a permanent commitment. We keep a nurse until the crisis is over. We don’t commit to paying teachers’ internet costs in perpetuity, just until we stop doing distance learning as a routine part of our schooling. 

When we create budgets to take on whatever extra commitments we deem necessary, then, we need to think in terms of 2-3 years, a year or two of which may show some deficit spending.  Within two years, God willing, we’ll have a vaccine, we’ll return to normalcy, and we can be back in the black again. This is what businesses do, after all, when they start up. When St. Michael first opened, I knew we’d have to spend more money than we made, so as to hire first tier teachers and to convince our families we were worth investing in—in effect borrowing money against our future. That worked, and enrollment grew dramatically each year.  We’ll need to think this way to get us through the pandemic.   

Here’s what we must wrap our heads around: These are unprecedented times.  To hold ourselves to austere spending when our very survival is at risk, in light of a once in a life-time pandemic, is foolish. If we don’t create a bold, convincing plan that tells our families we are safe, that we are educationally sound, that we are technologically capable, and that we’re operating creatively, with the best interests of our teachers, students and families in mind—even if that costs us—we might lose these families permanently. 

On the other hand, if we DO create bold plans and publicize them well, folks will talk about us admiringly with their neighbors, co-workers and friends. After nearly two months of staying at home this spring, one thing is very clear from a parent perspective: If there’s a school in town that convinces them it has the best chance of staying open because of exceptional pre-planning-- getting their kids out of the house-- they're going to be “all in” with that school! 

Let’s view this as an opportunity for us to boost our standing and make us stronger.  May God give us wisdom, grace and boldness to create these plans. 

Carpe Diem!