STANDARD SEVEN:
Micro-Political Leadership
A. School Executive Micro- Political Leadership: The school executive develops systems and relationships to leverage staff expertise and influence the school’s identity, culture and performance.
Organizing a Staff Parade During a Pandemic
COVID-19 has impacted school systems across the country. This unique pandemic has changed the landscape of communities and the regular daily habits of our society. We have experienced a trauma of sudden isolation and its effect on all of our emotions has people unsure how to feel other than scared. Working and learning from home and using a digital platform has been a difficult transition to make. We were in school one day and banned from school the next with little preparation for the next phase of learning. "Social distancing" has become the phrase for 2020, and the compliance of this action is really life or death. One unexpected outcome of this experience is how much our staff missed our students. It is not like summer break, we are not experiencing joy with this new situation or even a break. In fact, the opposite is true, we are experiencing anxiety and worry for our students. One trend schools were doing to minimize this anxiety was to organize a parade, where teachers and staff drove into neighborhoods and waved at their students. Our staff was really interested in having an event like this, so I asked my principal, and she approved that request. So I got to work. A TA was also interested in helping to organize, so we worked together. We decided that instead of one long line of cars, we would divide the staff into four groups and using our bus routes, to go into the community and have our parade. This way, we could cover the majority of our area in the safest way possible. Because RES is built as part of a subdivision, and half of our students live there, all four groups would also parade in the subdivision hitting as many streets as possible.
I created a form for staff to complete if they were interested in participating. Next, I got to work on the routes. Transcribing the official routes from the district paperwork, I created routes that were easier to read for all drivers. Looking at the GPS, I created a route through the subdivision doing my best to hit every street. I realized that we could not have all the teachers driving through at the same time because of all the twists and turns, so their entry times would need to be scattered.
I asked the TAs who normally drive the bus routes to lead the groups and they were happy to. The next day, I spent hours driving the routes I created just to be sure they worked and I edited the routes as needed. In addition, I timed the routes and created a schedule that spreads each group through the subdivision. I sent the routes to the drivers to review. The TA had made an amazing flier for our social media and website, and I asked her to divide up the 70 staff members who responded to our four groups. On Sunday, the day before our scheduled parade, I emailed all those who agreed to participate and sent them a long list of expectations and safety measures in addition to their route. On Sunday afternoon, my principal sent the ConnectEd message to all families, and the flier, with the schedule, went up on the website and Facebook page. The excitement was immediate!
As teachers arrived, I had the staging area ready for the groups to drive into and line up. At noon, I stopped traffic on Pritchard Rd, and sent the groups on their way! Our community came out (social distancing of course) and were so happy to see our staff. The students made signs, our parents were happy and our staff was so joyful! This event wrapped up two hours before the Governor's Stay-at-Home edict was set to begin.
Our community supports our school and staff more than any of us realized. The appreciation for our staff parade was expressed over and over on social media. RES has always had a strong relationship with our community, but this event strengthened that bond. We did not call the press to cover our event, we just wanted to let our community know that we too appreciate and miss them. I believe that as we move into remote learning for the next month, this single event will give us the hope we will need for the next few weeks.
I created a form for staff to complete if they were interested in participating. Next, I got to work on the routes. Transcribing the official routes from the district paperwork, I created routes that were easier to read for all drivers. Looking at the GPS, I created a route through the subdivision doing my best to hit every street. I realized that we could not have all the teachers driving through at the same time because of all the twists and turns, so their entry times would need to be scattered.
I asked the TAs who normally drive the bus routes to lead the groups and they were happy to. The next day, I spent hours driving the routes I created just to be sure they worked and I edited the routes as needed. In addition, I timed the routes and created a schedule that spreads each group through the subdivision. I sent the routes to the drivers to review. The TA had made an amazing flier for our social media and website, and I asked her to divide up the 70 staff members who responded to our four groups. On Sunday, the day before our scheduled parade, I emailed all those who agreed to participate and sent them a long list of expectations and safety measures in addition to their route. On Sunday afternoon, my principal sent the ConnectEd message to all families, and the flier, with the schedule, went up on the website and Facebook page. The excitement was immediate!
As teachers arrived, I had the staging area ready for the groups to drive into and line up. At noon, I stopped traffic on Pritchard Rd, and sent the groups on their way! Our community came out (social distancing of course) and were so happy to see our staff. The students made signs, our parents were happy and our staff was so joyful! This event wrapped up two hours before the Governor's Stay-at-Home edict was set to begin.
Our community supports our school and staff more than any of us realized. The appreciation for our staff parade was expressed over and over on social media. RES has always had a strong relationship with our community, but this event strengthened that bond. We did not call the press to cover our event, we just wanted to let our community know that we too appreciate and miss them. I believe that as we move into remote learning for the next month, this single event will give us the hope we will need for the next few weeks.