Leading Virtual Learning

Eric Fox, Associate Principal, Jenks High School

Do you remember your first year in school? I was in Mrs. Williams’ class at Fairview Elementary in the Moore School District. Her room was just down from the office and the cafeteria, and I sat near the back where I could see lots of books and her encouraging smile. My first year as a teacher, I was at Moore Highland East Junior High. I didn’t have a classroom to describe, but I pushed a cart through the hallway to use in other teachers’ rooms and I even made a trek out to the pre-fab building. My first week as an assistant principal at Jenks, I had a number of novel experiences including searches with the canine officer. Those experiences never showed up in grad school or the principal’s exam, yet I still was expected to navigate them with deftness. In the fall of 2020, I find myself a rookie again.

Our students, staff, parents and colleagues are all “first years” at schooling during a pandemic. We had a brief taste in the spring, but now, the stakes are higher. We are implementing new procedures in areas ranging from sanitation and safety, emotional health, virtual meetings, event planning, curriculum re-mapping and fielding sales inquiries from tech vendors too numerous to count. Last spring “grace” and “flexibility” were words we used often, but now, expectations are elevated since we’ve had the summer for additional planning. I was comforted by going back to my textbook “School Leadership in the Age of a Pandemic” until I remembered it didn’t exist. So without a book or class, what have I learned about leading blended learning so far?

I’ve come to realize that my hearing has been sharpened. Listening intentionally has required a variety of mediums as informal as text checkins or phone calls or as formal as surveys and working groups, but gathering input has been critical for plan development. Those plans have not been chiseled in stone but revisited based on new information and input. This should include the anxieties and concerns of all our stakeholders as well as their hopes and aspirations. Dr. Nick Migliorino shared with me the most important task of a leader is to build and maintain relationships. While I had always valued building relationships, I had not thought about the need to intentionally maintain them. Building and maintaining relationships with students, their families, our staff and our community strengthens our ability to truly listen in challenging times.

Students recently came to campus to pick up materials. Seeing students in the building made teachers’ faces glow even behind facemasks. Teachers receive energy from students whether through a face to face encounter or a virtual meeting, and they have been preparing for students throughout the spring and summer. They have invested in meeting social/emotional needs along with potential academic gaps. One of my teachers had a virtual scavenger hunt as a community builder on the first day, and students were asked to find something that started with the letter “w” or a favorite t-shirt or something that made them special. One student retrieved a lightsaber he and his father had built complete with lights and sounds.

Valuable insights were gleaned as a result of re-thinking the first day of class. If necessity is the mother of invention, we have witnessed the expedited process of innovation. Important conversations have been facilitated. For example, for us to discuss what quality remote learning would look like, we had to first define quality learning itself. Then came an exploration of how that might be the same or different when teaching from a distance or if face to face instruction was disrupted. Whether learning experiences are broken down into dichotomies of online-offline or synchronous-asynchronous, a consistent framework for identifying quality teaching and learning is developing and will guide us moving forward beyond the Pandemic.

Throughout the numerous conversations, contingency plans and Zoom meetings, one thing has remained constant -- our focus on what is best for students. This is the lens I’ve always heard throughout my tenure in Jenks at all levels of site and district leadership. We know having students interact with compassionate and competent staff regularly is best. While there have been a range of plans explored for how to do that effectively and safely, students have rightly been at the forefront of the discussions. Sometimes as administrators, we’ve had to face harsh realities and have courageous conversations. We’ve had to ask uncomfortable questions regarding why we’ve always done it a certain way or why we haven’t moved farther along. I’ve also learned that leading blended learning is a team sport.

A fellow administrator is willing to share an idea that has worked at her site or with one of his teachers. Professional organizations have hosted dialogues to learn from and commiserate with each other, and this discourse is a rising tide that lifts all ships. We will make mistakes and face setbacks, but we are also laying the foundation for future successes that, like our shadow, extend around corners we may not yet see.