This morning I arrived at school with staff buzzing about an announcement this morning by the Costa Rican Ministry of Education, closing public schools for three weeks and shifting the school year into January (Costa Rica’s educational calendar runs from late February to mid-December). Of course we’re a private school, and we run on an American system calendar – August through June – so we are awaiting some further clarification from discussions between the Association of Private Schools in the country and the Ministry of Ed. Hopefully we’ll have some clarity by the end of the day, if not tomorrow morning. Regardless of the decision and subsequent details, it’s just another reminder of what a true roller coaster hybrid learning has been this year in schools around the world.
The longer we have been in crisis mode around the world, the deeper is my sadness for our kids. I’m by nature a very optimistic person, and I also believe that children are incredibly resilient. Yet still, the thought of kids around the world, not to mention at my school or my own children, who don’t have access to the spaces to play, to interact, to learn and grow brings more than a little heartbreak. I was commenting just last night to my wife, that our youngest daughter, now two, will likely never participate in what we refer to at our church as “nursery.” Nursery is a class for 18 month olds to 3 years old where our kids have typically had their first experience with formal learning spaces and interaction. They have a lesson, play games, color, have snack time, enjoy singing time, and generally begin the important process of socialization. Our little girl was just 6 weeks shy of entering nursery when we went into lockdown in California. Now in Costa Rica, it seems there is little chance that nursery will be up and running by early November when she turns 3. She’ll miss entirely what was for our other children an important rite of passage.
The same can be said on a much larger scale for kids around the world. While the United States and other wealthy nations are just now seeing shifts towards normalcy, much of the world is facing another 6-12 months (or more) of COVID restrictions and waves of cases. We’re planning a return to school in August under hybrid learning conditions. While our return to school hybrid plan will likely include a full day of school on campus, we’ll still have restrictions to how many students can be on campus based on social distancing. Plus, the past month and it’s COVID wave in Costa Rica has reminded us of the need for constant, daily flexibility in what we can offer.
The irony, is that after nearly 10 months of virtual learning, our staff and community were more than ready to come back to campus in late January when we opened for hybrid learning. While most of the schools in the Central America region stayed closed, we felt deeply grateful and lucky to be in Costa Rica, where things were being managed relatively well and schools were being allowed to reopen with certain strict protocols in place. For nearly 3 months, case rates in the country were low, and we didn’t have a single positive case amongst our students. Then, after our Spring Break week and Easter, it seems that the wheels came off the bus, and we faced contagion at the nationwide level, and increased cases amongst our school community. Our COVID leadership team was meeting on a day to day basis, scheduling interviews of potential cases, assigning quarantine measures as necessary, and in two cases, moving entire school departments into temporary virtual mode. Now we face the opposite set of feelings. 5 months of hybrid learning and simultaneous instruction has everyone ready for a vacation.
For our parents and community, there have been different needs. Many parents, especially of our smallest learners, have been desperate to get their kids to class and keep the school open. We have likewise gone to great lengths to keep our doors open. Yet there has been a different impact with staff, who unlike our parents and students, don’t have the option to stay home when case rates in the neighborhood or community spike. Teachers themselves are visibly torn, wanting to be at school for their students, while also concerned at the heightened risk that comes with being outside their homes. We’ve tried to walk that line and find the appropriate balance, but it has been very difficult at times.
And now, the announcement that public schools are closing for 3 weeks, which happens to coincide exactly with our last 3 weeks of school. Yes, it’s disrupting. Yes, it’s challenging to staff and students alike. Yet the positive side of all of this is that as a school we have learned a tremendous amount of flexibility. I was commenting to a member of our team how remarkable it is that we have the capacity to accommodate students in-person or virtually on an individual basis, on a week to week or even day to day basis. Schools have not been traditionally designed to accommodate such personalization. Of course that flexibility and adaptability has come at a cost. The learning curve for many teachers has been steep. Planning and delivering simultaneous instruction to in-person and at-home students can be exhausting.
Last week as I sat on a call with school heads around the Latin America region, several participants on the call announced how excited their schools were to finally move from virtual to hybrid mode. Unlike in Costa Rica where we’ve been in hybrid for the entire semester, most private international schools in the region have remained closed to in-person learning. We’re having the opposite experience, with many families and virtually all staff wishing we could move to virtual mode for a few weeks to wait out the wave of COVID cases in the country. It seems that wherever you are, when it comes to schools, we’re all still riding the roller coaster.
Related Links:
COVID Management in Hybrid Settings