May 13, 2020

 For all intent and purposes, today could have been the same as the last twenty-three May 13th car rides into school. The sun is shining bright. My mind is in a flurry of thought. It wanders from connecting our seniors to what they need, what they really need, in the final leg toward obtaining their diploma to thinking about end of year celebrations, all the individuals I need to connect with and what I still need to do in planning for summer programming and into next year, what is it going to look like, feel like, how will be supporting our students.

And yet this May 13th  could not be any more different.

For one, I am wearing jeans… I don't know the last time that has occurred .. and they fit- surprise… and I am grateful.

I am driving, and something looks different, there is a mask afixed around my ears, dangling off my chin, in the off chance someone walks past my car at a stop light, I can pull it up to cover my mouth and nose. Not so much for me, and to be respectful to them.

There will be no students at my school.

There will be no hugs, handshakes, fist pumps….

The few staff I will see will be at least six feet away from me, and moving into their rooms to quickly close them down for the year. There will be no lingering conversations about the family. No sharing lunch around a large table together.

The building will be quiet, sterile, and lack and community that we have known of the past.

How we are approaching closing school is quite different than ever before.

And we are continuing to find ways to reach our students, find and connect them to the resources they need, communicating to them and their families that their overall well-being, their health is paramount. We are finding opportunities to take care of the mental health and overall well being of our staff and we are engaging in self care like we have never done before. We are giving each other grace… well because we really have no other choice.

If we think opening our schools will be like any other school opening, we are misguided. 

If we think our students entering the building- first days will be anything close to typical … we are grossly mistaken.

If we think the focus of schools will ever be the same again, the rules of engagement will ever be the same again. We are just simply wrong.

And they shouldn't be; they can not be-  The time is always right to do what is right. And the time is now to rewrite our purpose. To rewrite our wrongs. To regroup, and to redesign. 

TO redefine our purpose and lead with our core values.

So today may not be like any other May 13th of the past… and I am thankful, grieving and yet still thankful. It will be the first of many where we are fully aware of ...well, that we are fundamentally aware of what matters most and that we possess the power to define our focus, goal and intentions for all the May 13ths that follow.

Lets not go back to the way things used to be.. Lets start tomorrow fresh and begin our Recovery!