T.J.’s Take

Sustaining Excellence

Dr. T.J. Locke The Greville Haslam Head of School

Our institution has always been known for excellence. Our approach to sustaining that standard is rooted in continuous improvement, knowing there is a danger in complacency. We constantly look for ways to get better. Sometimes we are actually so laserfocused on this goal that we do not stop to celebrate our accomplishments.

Looking back on one of the most challenging times in our school’s history, we have much to celebrate. While students around the world remained in virtual and hybrid learning environments all year, we are proud of our efforts that kept students learning in-person, five days a week for nearly the entire academic year.

Some of the stories in this issue will give you a glimpse into the herculean efforts that led to our success. We had to find creative solutions to keep our campus safe and to enable our teachers and students to thrive. Many of our past efforts to modernize our approach offered us an incredible foundation on which to lean.

Our ongoing work to ensure the fiscal health of our school served us well. From campus enhancements, to expanded staffing, to new technology, to tuition assistance for families facing financial crisis, we spent over $3M in COVID-related expenses. Your support empowered us to succeed. While other schools struggled with the financial burden that COVID introduced, we leveraged The Episcopal Fund and our growing endowment to sustain our excellence. We thank you for living the Stripe of Generosity and giving us the flexibility to invest where we needed in order to keep students in school.

The Learning Management System we implemented a few years ago allowed teachers, parents, and students to communicate and collaborate in all instructional modes. This system also helped us to execute more than 300 complimentary, virtual classes last summer, keeping students engaged and learning while they were stuck at home. Our 1:1 device program allowed us to easily deploy technology to every student to use during times of virtual and in-person learning. Everything we learned during our intensive work to design our current academic schedule greatly informed our work to design adjusted COVID schedules.

Our talent acquisition strategy led to us having the right people in place to support us through a challenging time. We have built a strong team of resilient educators who prioritize professional growth and who are open to change. This resulted in everyone quickly adapting and pivoting throughout the year. We were also able to leverage expertise from our partners at Global Online Academy and other like-minded schools and forwardthinking organizations through various networks and relationships we have built in recent years.

Another advantage was delivered by our Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). When I arrived at EA, our vision was to build a team of educators who would support their colleagues in taking their teaching to the next level, leading to better student learning experiences. Since its inception, the CTL has helped teachers improve their craft and explore ways of being more intentional with their lessons and assessments. Through workshops, designed specifically for EA teachers by EA teachers, and one-on-one consultations, our faculty have strengthened their ability to help students master content and grow their problem solving and leadership skills.

Since we already had the CTL in place, we were able to quickly shift the team’s focus to prepare our teachers to succeed in each instructional mode. We needed to make sure that our academic rigor and standard of excellence did not falter due to the global health crisis. The CTL helped teachers get up to speed on new and emerging software for the virtual learning environment. They then worked to design a customized, 40-hour online teaching certification course that 136 of our teachers completed last summer. Schools across the nation began hearing about our course and quickly reached out to see if they could offer it to their teachers.

While this coming year might continue to present challenges, we are more than ready to overcome them. We are in a great position to resume some of the strategic work we paused during the pandemic. This work will help us in our never-ending quest to not only sustain but bolster excellence at The Episcopal Academy.