16
S P R I N G 202 0
r: a f A m ing fro
e h t h t i c i w g m e n i d l n a e a P D s u r i v a n Coro
Learn
St. Timothy’s navigated this unprecedented situation by following daily updates from the state Health Department and Centers for Disease Control, enacting preventive measures and communicating changes in operations with the greater school community.
E
mpty classrooms. Empty hallways. Empty playgrounds. Empty administrative offices. No, it’s not a weekend at St. Timothy’s—teachers are still teaching, students are still learning, and the administration is still keeping the school running on track. Welcome to mid-March through the last day of school in early June when the St. Timothy’s campus was closed. Day-to-day operations remained somewhat the same: classes were held, tests and quizzes were given and group projects were worked on. The only difference is that everyone is working remotely. Contingency planning began in early March, with a team of administrators and faculty leaders determining the best platforms, designing distance learning portals, and investigating best practices around scheduling and communication for extended off-campus learning—all still with the hope that we’d never need to use the plans. Local news station CBS-17 learned of our contingency planning, and a reporter came to campus to interview Head of School Tim Tinnesz. Sarah Little, the head of the middle school math department, invited the reporter into her classroom to share some of the preparations.
After close consultation with the Board of Trustees, Mr. Tinnesz announced that St. Timothy’s would to transition to distance learning to provide the students, faculty and staff and parents greater safety from COVID-19. The announcement came on Friday, March 13, right before a scheduled professional development day the upcoming Monday. School was closed for students for the subsequent two days as the recently-developed contingency plans were put into motion: the teachers were trained and Chromebooks and iPads were distributed to lower school students who needed them. Many teachers of the youngest students delivered the classroom materials needed for distance learning by hand. During the transition, CBS-17 checked in with St. Timothy’s to see how the school was managing during the pandemic. Mrs. Little did a follow-up interview with CBS-17 as she prepared to teach that day’s lesson from her kitchen table. She explained that the most important aspect of distance learning is “making sure we have those live interactions with [students to] see how they’re doing, check in on them and have those opportunities for face-to-face interaction as we’re all separated from each other.” At the end of that week on Thursday and Friday, students began utilizing the tools the faculty
