What professional development are you planning for summer 2020?
Dr. Craig Ernstmeyer, Head of School, Lutheran High School, (St. Peter, MO)
“This is an organic question. I think it is hard to answer plans when we are not yet sure of the result of the pandemic. There are the normal questions of: What did we learn from the response of this crisis? What did we do well? What can we do better? Where was our time spent? Should it have been spent elsewhere?....I think there will be a review of our personnel handbook. We have never included words like ‘furloughed.’ These personnel categories would be where I would see much of our summer being spent. I think teachers sometimes do better by being ‘immersed’ (they may disagree). But I think if we had prepared them over two years for this type of methodology, it would not have gone as smoothly as it did.”
Sheila Psencik, Head of School, Luther South Academy, (Houston, TX)
“Now that we have adopted Canvas, we are going to continue using it into the next school year. This summer will allow us time for proper training for staff and an exploration of all of the features that this platform offers us.”
Dr. Jay Krause, Executive Director, Metro-East Lutheran High School, (Edwardsville, IL)
“I think one thing that will become evident this summer is what our lives will look like once we return to whatever ‘normal’ will end up being. There are things you can certainly plan for, but until we know and understand what life will be like when restrictions are lifted and we are allowed to return to our school buildings we won’t truly understand what we are faced with. The mere fact that we found our schools in this situation calls for us to pay greater attention to the events, activities, competitions, and gatherings that we plan for the 20/21 school year and beyond.”
Dr. Steven Buuck, Chief Executive Officer, Faith Lutheran (Las Vegas Nevada)
“We need to be better prepared with meaningful work for our hourly workers to do at home. We have kept everyone on the payroll, but we have 25-30 workers whose jobs and responsibilities are only needed when students are on campus. We have made a decision to keep paying everyone fully and paying their benefits. I believe if everyone was prepared with their own ‘rainy day’ tasks, we'd get more productivity, and I believe they would feel better about themselves and alleviate some of the boredom and dis-connectivity they are surely feeling. I did have them call every one of our families (we divided the names of all of our students up, provided them parents' and students' names, home phone, cell numbers, and created a Google sheet for them to place notes on their calls). These workers appreciated being a part of that (they mainly called just to see how they were doing, if they had any prayer requests, and if there were any special concerns and then routed those to admin), and it provided them a sense of purpose and connectivity to the outside world.”
Dan Gehrke, Executive Director, Lutheran High School (Parker, CO)
“While the move to regular Zoom classes was easier for us since we already had Canvas in place with teachers having 100% of their course content online, it has sped up the timeline for us to be able to offer classes in that fashion already this summer if needed….Preparing the team is mostly about planning for a decrease of projected enrollment and preparing for parents who may not feel comfortable with their kids in school even this August.”
Dr. Cary Stelmachowicz, Executive Director, THE Lutheran High School of Kansas City, (Kansas City, MO)
“Proactively preparing this summer for similar situations to arise from time to time within our school calendar next year. At any point, we all need to be ready to revert back to a modified delivery system. I hope some teachers adopt this style within their teaching strategies, a type of blended learning. This could create interesting ways to allow for teacher vacations and/or free time within what we once thought of as a traditional school year.”