Covid-19 Update: 4/24/20

As we reach the end of Week 6 of distance learning, three more ‘regular’ weeks remain, followed by our final week of school (the week of May 18) with the last day of school on Thursday, May 21. (We are developing various activities for our sixth graders and their parents for Friday, May 22, and are hopeful to have a ‘live’ graduation sometime this summer.)

As always, thank you for your continued work and effort in providing engaging and impactful virtual learning experiences for your students. And to external departments (enrollment management, business office, advancement, communication, technology, facilities) for continuing school operations remotely!

As of us are aware that Governor Kemp permitted some businesses to open today provided they follow safe hygiene and social-distancing guidelines. Other businesses, including restaurants, have the option to open Monday.

If you’re like me, you’re conflicted about this. On the one hand, I understand the economic motivation in letting businesses re-open. On the other hand, I’m worried this may lead to a resurgence of Covid-19 contagion as we begin to leave our homes and increase our contact with others. My wife and I spend a lot of time at our local YMCA (which has opted not to re-open today), but when it does reopen, we most likely won’t be working out there for a long time.

At Trinity, we continue planning for various contingencies: if Summer Camp begins on June 1^st, what safety protocols/practices will be when we return to campus, what happens if we need to close school again next year? There are a lot of hypotheticals and what ifs but the mantra of risk management is ‘prepare for the worst and hope for the best.’

As I watch and listen to the news (local, national, international), I still am anxious about the uncertainty of what is coming next—one week, two weeks, four weeks from now, yet there were a few more hopeful, positive updates this week.

Even as we begin to see some positivity, let’s not let our guard down! We all need continue to practice social distancing and safe hygiene habits, especially as some of us begin to venture outside our homes a little more.

Be safe, stay positive, and please reach out if you need any support.

Here’s this week’s corny joke:

That’s a pretty ceiling.

Thanks, it’s not the best but it’s up there.

Joe

Covid-19 Update April 17 2020

As we come to the end of our fifth week of online learning, we’ve reached the midpoint--we’ve got five more distance-learning weeks to the school year.

Even though many of us have begun to find a rhythm to teaching and working from home, a lot of stress remains for most of us. I try to put away my tech devices at certain times in the day, but I still end up responding to emails and answering phones calls and texts throughout the day and often into the night. You’ve probably read articles about people having especially vivid dreams (myself included) during this shelter-in-place quarantine time—I think it’s a result of our brains remaining active even when our bodies are at rest. We’re all multitasking and efforting to balance the many demands of our lives.

While the current forecast is for Georgia to reach the crest of contagion in about two weeks,  news updates have begun to share glimpses of positivity. For example, Denmark just reopened its elementary schools this week. I can’t quite see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but any positive news is a reminder that the Covid-19 tunnel will have an end.

As always, tremendous thank yous and kudos for all you’re doing. Your students and parents are deeply appreciative of and thankful for your work, effort, and support during this confusing and frustrating time. As I mentioned in yesterday’s webinar, for many of our families we are the foundation of support and continuity they rely on and need.

The video Jedd sent out this week was a great reminder of the strength and positivity of our community. (I asked Justin how many takes it took him to make the over-the-shoulder, half-court basketball shot. From now on, call him “One Take Cahill!”)

With the announcement that school will remain closed for the remainder of the school year, a number of parents have requested home addresses of Trinity faculty and staff as they and their children want to send thank you letters for all you’ve done. If for any reason you do not want your home address shared, please let your direct supervisor or me know and we will set Trinity’s address as your default mailing address.

One additional announcement: Dana Chambliss will be our Logistics Coordinator next year!

Enjoy the weekend, get some rest, and if possible lay off the technology for a while.

And here’s the corny joke from the week, courtesy of Pam Lauer:

I’m proud of myself. I finished this jigsaw puzzle in just six months!

That sounds like a long time to me.

Not when the box says 4 to 6 years.

Joe

COVID-19 Update: Distance Learning for the Rest of 2019-20 School Year

Faculty and Staff,

Next week I will be announcing that Trinity will continue with distance learning for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year, which will officially end on Friday, May 22.

Although not surprising, it will still be difficult for our community to hear and process, and you need to be ready next week for your students and their families to grieve the loss of not being on campus for the rest of the school year.

Like most other schools in Atlanta and throughout Georgia, Trinity will not be extending the school year into June. There are too many variables, complications, and uncertainties to even considering this.

I deeply appreciate how much time and effort our faculty have put into distance learning--Early Learners through sixth grade, specials, Extended Programs, learning support.

As distance learning will continue until the end of the year, it is essential that we continue to provide meaningful and engaging experiences and assignments (both synchronous and asynchronous) for our students. It’s vital that parents see that while distance learning is imperfect compared to their child being at Trinity and taught by you in person, it still has tremendous value and their children have been and will continue to learn and progress academically during the final weeks of the school year.

Adding to this value proposition, teachers will complete their regular end-of-year student evaluations/assessments through progress reports, parent/teacher conferences, and, for 4^th-6^th, numerical grades. The timing and specifics of each will be a little different (which Rhonda and Sarah will share respectively with EED and UED faculty), but again, it’s crucial that we document that our students are learning in real and meaningful ways; grades and checklist ratings validate that learning. Please also note that faculty will not have ‘writing days’ this spring.  

I also appreciate your work and effort in doing your best to provide important, traditional grade-level events into your distance learning plans like Colonial Day, Wagon Train, Chick Masters, etc. This includes the Sixth Grade team working with their students and parents on traditional milestone events; we are in the process of scheduling an ‘in person, actual’ graduation ceremony (but not Moving Up Ceremony for 1^st-5^th grades) sometime this summer for sixth graders and their families.

As a reminder, Trinity will continue to pay employees their salaries.

While Summer Programs currently remain on schedule to begin on Monday, June 1, we will obviously need to reassess in mid-May. If we do need to cancel Summer Programs, parents will receive a 100% refund—and counselors/teachers will not be paid for the summer sessions they were going to teach.

The 2020-21 school year is scheduled to begin on time, with faculty/staff Preplanning beginning on Tuesday, August 4, and Visitation Day on Wednesday, August 12.

As I’m sure all of you know, many variables and moving pieces remain as we move into the final weeks of the 2019-20 school year and plan for the 2020-21 school year.

Key for us—and other private schools—is enrollment. Many of our families’ personal finances have been adversely impacted by COVID-19 and the Board is working on strategies to help both new and returning families with next year’s tuition. The Board and Leadership Team are working on possible scenarios, but we know the essence of Trinity is our faculty/staff and our students and their families. We are all making personal sacrifices to support the greater good, and we may need to prepare to sacrifice more.

Like all of you, I have become accustomed to and productive with virtual meetings over the past weeks, but we all miss in-person connection. We all want to be able to go to a ball game, have a drink at a bar, go out to dinner with family and friends, socialize at a neighborhood barbecue, go to a movie theater, browse at retail stores, get a haircut, and countless other routine daily activities outside of our homes.  I’m hoping when we get back to our regular lives, we never forget how isolated we’ve felt sheltering-in-place and never take for granted these simple but essential pleasures in life!

And finally, here are two jokes—one for Passover and the other for Easter:

What’s the difference between matzah and cardboard?

Cardboard doesn’t leave crumbs on the rug!

How many Easter eggs can you put in an empty basket?

One—after that, the basket’s not empty anymore!

Enjoy the long holiday weekend!

I can’t wait to see all of you again sometime soon at Trinity!

Joe

Week Four of Distance Learning

Rather than an article summary, I decided to write a short note to all of you today.

For me, time is simultaneously moving fast and slow—with March being the longest month I ever lived through while at the same the same time I can’t believe we will begin Week Four of distance learning next Monday!

If you’re like me, you keep hoping to hear some positive news that the COVID-19 pandemic is abating, yet it just keeps getting bleaker and bleaker. We’re all waiting patiently for that first indication that things are beginning to turn for the better.

This week I watched the first few episodes of the wildly-popular documentary Tiger King on Netflix. For me, the show’s oddball characters and  bizarre, surreal story line is an apt metaphor for the confusing, chaotic world we’re currently living in. I find myself ending a lot of my emails not with the standard ‘sincerely’ but with comments like ‘the weird keeps getting weirder.’

Technology has become an even more ubiquitous part of my life. Sadly, I’m 24/7 on some tech device—be it video conferencing or responding to phone calls, emails, texts, etc. I’ve always been a sound sleeper but over the past month have been waking up in the middle of the night to check my phone for whatever new development will occupy my time come morning. I’ve typed and said the words ‘synchronous’ and ‘asynchronous’ so many times over the past few weeks that both Microsoft Word and Google Docs finishes those words for me.

When I’ not on a tech device, I make sure to get outside and exercise daily. I am definitely more appreciative of this therapeutic time to exercise my body as I try to unwind my brain.

But most of all I’m proud of all your work and effort in supporting our students, parent, and colleagues. We may not be at physical school but we’re all doing beyond-the-call-duty efforts on the virtual front!

I’m sure you heard Governor Kemp’s announcement that Georgia public schools will be closed for the rest of the 2019-20 school year. While Trinity has not made the ‘official’ announcement yet, being closed for the rest of the school year is our probable reality. I’m guessing we’ll make the official announcement after Easter.

The admin team has reviewed the calendar of events for April/May and will reach out to individuals or teams regarding to what extent we will be able to provide some sort of virtual experience for our students.

For us the present remains uncertain but I recommend you look toward some future time—maybe this summer, maybe next fall, maybe even a year from now—when predictability and normalcy will return.

I can’t wait to see our students and all of you back on campus, at drop off, in the hallways, in the Dining Hall!

Finally, here’s my corny joke of the week:

My favorite time on my grandfather clock is 6:30.

Hands down!

Joe