23 minute read
Pennington thrives despite COVID-19 challenges
Pennington thrives despite COVID-19 challenges
At the beginning of 2020, just as the Pennington community was returning to school from Winter Break, we began to hear about the virus that was spreading rapidly in China. By the end of January, Dr. Hawkey asked Pennington’s chief financial officer, Graeme McWhirter, to convene a special committee to study the ramifications of the virus’s spread and to prepare the School’s response. Senior School leadership began to meet almost daily, and the new Pandemic Committee met twice each week to chart the course ahead.
December 31, 2019: World Health Organization (WHO) says mysterious pneumonia sickening dozens in China.
January 11, 2020: China reports first novel coronavirus death.
A virus is unleashed and the world responds
By the end of February, it became clear to the administration that, as the virus spread first to Europe and then made its first appearance in the United States, we would need to seriously consider closing the campus to help “flatten the curve” of the disease. On February 28, the School made the difficult decision to cancel
January 21: A man in his thirties from Washington state who traveled to Wuhan diagnosed with novel coronavirus, the first confirmed case in the United States
January 30: WHO declares a global health emergency, just the sixth time in history.
special trips abroad for our students. Although COVID-19 had not yet spread to some of the planned destinations, there were two important considerations that drove that decision. First, we could not risk traveling overseas with students, knowing that borders might close suddenly or that quarantines might separate students from their faculty trip leaders. Second, we could not take the chance that one of us might bring the virus to a place such as Malawi or Zimbabwe, where the lack of adequate medical help could endanger both our own groups and the lives of local people we planned to visit. The following week, as COVID-19 continued its reach throughout the U.S., Pennington also canceled its athletic trips to Florida and to California. Although all participants were deeply disappointed, we can now look back at that decision and see that it was clearly the best possible one we could have made.
Just before March 6, when Pennington students and faculty members were headed their separate ways for Spring Break, it became clear that the closing of campus might become necessary during the break. Students and faculty gathered for a community meeting, and everyone was told to take home all of their school books, laptops, iPads, and anything else stored on campus. A deep cleaning of the entire campus was planned for the two-week break, but School leadership also knew that if a distance-learning model would need to be deployed, its success depended on students and their teachers’ having the materials they would need with them at home. That day feels like a lifetime ago, partly because of the magnitude of what has happened around the world, and partly because we have spent the months since then apart from one another.
February 11: First meeting of Pennington’s Pandemic Committee, formed in January and convened by Chief Financial Officer Graeme McWhirter
After returning from that break on March 24, the School gathered in a very different space from our familiar classroom environment. Yet, when we gathered for Advisory and classes online for the first time that week, teachers and students felt the same unmistakable joy and hope and connection with each other. As we worked out technology issues and settled into a new routine, we saw the rise of engagement and the return to learning together.
Distance learning (DL) became our new normal out of necessity. A familiar bromide is that necessity is the mother of invention, and we completely reinvented the Pennington experience for our community. Our new program was based on three guiding principles: continuity, sustainability, and connection.
Continuity. Even before the campus was closed to everyone on March 13, planning was well underway for a transition to DL. The charge to the faculty during the week of March 16 as they considered
DISTANCE Learning
Manual
HONOR . VIRTUE . HUMILITY
their curricula was to identify essential understandings of current courses to both conclude this academic year and prepare students for next year. It is these essentials that students and teachers addressed so successfully this spring.
Sustainability. Cognizant of the many disruptions we expected to experience, the second principle behind our new DL design was to establish a daily schedule
Virginia Machado’s Spanish V class meets on Zoom during distance learning.
February 12: Dr. Hawkey meets daily with a task force consisting of Pennington’s senior administrative team and other key staff members to respond to the evolving challenges surrounding COVID-19. February 17: Spring Break trips to the Dominican Republic, France, Guatemala, Malawi, and Zimbabwe are canceled due to uncertainty about global travel amid the spread of COVID-19 abroad.
February 26: First case of suspected local transmission of COVID-19 in United States
that students and teachers could manage well over time. We designed backward from the idea that students would devote four hours per week to each course in a mixture of synchronous and asynchronous experiences. We were hopeful that our students would benefit from both formats; we monitored that process closely.
Connection. Finally, and recognizing that the Pennington community is greater than any one relationship or course, we felt a strong need to ensure that we were all together on a regular basis: in Advisory, in class, and, soon after, in club, grade-level, and community gatherings. Synchronous events serve a greater purpose above and beyond the academic, especially at Pennington, and we wanted to make that possible.
Over Spring Break, it was a truly inspiring, collaborative effort to get this program off the ground; on a dime (and during their well-earned vacations!), teachers learned new technology skills and tapped their creativity; the School’s Technology Department made herculean efforts to support every student and teacher through this transition; and all of the department chairs rallied their teams and kept the four academic leaders facilitating this process (Director of the Cervone Center Jo Prockop, Dean of Faculty Deborah Fermo, Head of Middle School Chrissie Knight, and Dean of Academic Affairs Scott Peeler) informed about any rough edges.
When we saw our students’ faces on our first Tuesday in DL classes, the burden of the work fell away, and we were awash in gratitude and joy. We worked hard to design a program in which Pennington students could continue to flourish. Three weeks into the DL model, we surveyed parents and students for feedback and then tweaked the schedule to allow for extracurricular activities to meet more often, and to build in some much-needed time away from screens. Throughout the spring months, we remained committed to the student experience of continuity, sustainability, and connection.
Beyond the DL classroom, we knew there were numerous other hurdles in students’ lives during this crisis, including social connectivity, household anxieties and hardships, economic hardship, and, of course, health concerns. Late in the spring, they also experienced nationwide social outrage and protests. We monitored these closely, too, and although we were confident that our program was sustainable, we anticipated that students would face additional challenges specific to their situation. The School established several support networks, including more frequent Advisory meetings, weekly webinars for parents with School counselors, and numerous ways for students to stay connected with peers and School programs and counselors, in addition to their classes, all to ensure students’ wellbeing and to be certain that grades did not suffer because of influences beyond a student’s control.
The show must go on: extracurricular activities continued
After the campus closed during Spring Break, it would be logical to assume that spring performances could not take place. But the Pennington School arts community is resilient and innovative; the arts continued during distance learning in new formats. Rehearsals continued for the senior spring plays, and the final performances were livestreamed in May (see pages 50–51). The Middle School play reimagined itself as a radio show (see pages 30–31), and music lessons continued for instrumental students.
Jim Horan led the Pennington Singers in rehearsals that culminated in an original performance of the beautiful song, “I’m Standing with You,” which he arranged and for which he played each instrumental track, recorded the singer’s voices, and then combined them digitally. The result was a stunning production that was featured in both the Upper School Commencement and the Middle School Graduation virtual programs in June.
March 2: Faculty video conferencing training takes place. Spring Break athletics trips to California and Florida are canceled.
March 6: Students are dismissed for Spring Break; all are told to take home belongings in case the School has to close the campus during that time. March 12: Head of School Hawkey makes the decision to move to a distance-learning platform upon students’ return from break on March 24. Pennington’s website adds COVID-19 resource pages to keep community up to date. March 16: The physical campus closes to all except residential community members, but School offices remain open during normal business hours; staff members all continue working remotely.
March 16: All dormitories close. Boarding students make plans to go home or stay with local families and/ or guardians. All School-related travel, including all travel related to School business, is suspended.
Keeping Pennington’s community together
Host families welcome boarders home
Several international students, unable to travel home because of restrictions or the threat of a solitary quarantine, needed to remain close to Pennington. At first, the students stayed on their residence halls. They continued to socialize with each other and their hall parents. But as their numbers dwindled, it became apparent that they would enjoy a better experience if they could stay with a local family instead. Many day families participate in Pennington’s Host Family program, which matches a local family with an international student for weekend outings, family dinners, and even homestays and vacations together.
In March, some families offered to house their student indefinitely, as the School could not plan a date to reopen campus until it became clear that it would be safe to do so, and under the guidance of state and local government and health officials. As this magazine goes to press, some students are still here in the U.S. with their Pennington School host families!
Left top photo: The MS Spring Play; Left bottom photo: I'm Standing with You singer; This page, top photo: The Overhiser family is still hosting El Hadj Gueye; in this photo faculty member Gretchen Overhiser awards him his Pennington diploma. Middle photo: Eighth-graders Ruoni Tu and Ruoyi Tu bake cookies at Humanities Teacher Jessie Shaffer's house during the Pennington Host Family Program before returning home to China. Bottom photo: A prop used during the virtual play
March 23: New virtual faculty lounge opens.
March 24: Students return to classes after Spring Break and meet via the new distance-learning platform for the first time. Applied Science program speakers and Global Studies speakers “visited” Pennington during the lockdown period by participating via online webinar technology. DJ Kleinbaum ’01, a pioneer in biotechnology, led the way for Pennington on May 4, serving as the first Applied Science speaker to deliver his talk remotely via Zoom. Kleinbaum, co-founder of Emerald Therapeutics, Inc., and Emerald Cloud Lab, was introduced to the audience by alumnae Mina Shokoufandeh ’19 and Sydney Gibbard ’19, whom he has mentored in their Girls Code the World project (see page 70). Kleinbaum spoke to the large online group about the experiences he and co-founder Brian Frezza had as they strove to acquire investors in a company that would combine computer science with the life sciences, a bond not unusual today, but almost unheard of at the time they envisioned it almost twenty years ago. Today, Emerald Therapeutics is working on antiviral therapies, and Emerald Cloud Lab provides laboratory automation to other companies, as well.
Kleinbaum is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a doctorate from Stanford University. As he told students the story of Emerald Therapeutics’ founding, he mentioned various bits of wisdom he gained along the way. For instance, he said that, in addition to providing necessary credentials, graduate school gave him and Frezza five years to vet ideas about what they wanted their company to do and how to accomplish it.
The two men quickly learned that “it takes money to get lab space, and lab space to get money,” and there were many approaches to investors that were unsuccessful. Eventually, a San Francisco venture capital firm provided funds enabling the company to get off the ground. “All you need is one or two people to believe in you,” he told the students, “—and sometimes that’s you!”
Formal dinners continued!
Residential faculty and families missed formal dinner so much that they participated in a Social Distance Formal Dinner. Families were encouraged to make their own table numbers and menus, and Ms. Hall sent around conversation starters. Dress ranged from sweatpants to true formal attire. It’s just not the same on our campus without our boarding students, so the residential faculty and families sent out good wishes for health and safety during this time. We can’t wait until we meet again around the table for good company and conversation.
Community service programs initiated during COVID crisis
During the COVID-19 crisis, Pennington School students, faculty, and staff found new ways to give back to the local community. Our community’s care and generosity have been especially evident over these past months as so many have offered their help and support.
• Community Service Club leaders Molly Gibbard ’21, Julia McDougall ’21, and Kofoworola Jolaoso ’20 created a GoFundMe to support HomeFront, a local organization serving those in need in Mercer County. The Pennington School has a longstanding history with HomeFront, hosting the annual Holiday Party for 26 consecutive years as well as biweekly Gym & Swim sessions. The leaders hoped to raise $25,000 for the organization and even secured a donor who matched every donation up to $25,000, meaning the group could donate over $50,000. The students also added a little fun motivation: for every $1,000 donated, a teacher agreed to create a TikTok video and post it on School social media.
• In March, Chef Edward Espinal and Don Toner from the Sodexo Dining Services team packed up a large number of perishable food items from the School, including a variety of individually packaged snacks and drinks. This delivery also included bulk packages of cereal, pasta, and waffle mix (they even included a waffle maker), perishable dairy products, canned goods such as pasta sauce and applesauce, and paper
April 2: The federal government extends social distancing initiatives until at least April 30. This means Pennington’s distance-learning platform remains in effect until at least Friday, May 1. April 5: Virtual Revisit Week begins for newly accepted families and is a huge success. The Admission team offered prospective families a brand-new virtual campus tour, six new videos, eleven live student events and panels, and a new edition of their “Admission Insights” podcast. By the end of the day on April 10, all enrollment goals for 2020–21 were met! products. On April 9 and 10, the team provided about 80 homemade lunches to the clients at HomeFront. On Friday, April 17, the Dining Services team received a delivery of 150 cases of frozen food that was then donated to HomeFront.
• A group of 35 students at The Pennington School split up into three teams to create a 3D face shield to donate to local medical facilities. The face shield consisted of two parts: a 3D-printed frame, and a clear cellulose acetate shield that attaches to the frame. One group of students used CAD software to create the frame for the shield. The second group located the material needed for the shields and used School’s laser cutter to make them. The third team shared the project with the community, creating a signup database and putting together a dropoff box on the Pennington campus for finished products. Phase two of the project was the assembly and delivery to various medical facilities, which were very grateful to receive this much-needed PPE.
• Pennington School sophomore Erin Penders held a food drive to help those struggling during these difficult times. With help from her family and Pennington School friends, she was able to donate $1,500 worth of food to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen. The items were delivered on April 10. TASK is a nonprofit organization that feeds the hungry in the Trenton area and offers programs to encourage self-sufficiency and improve the quality of life of its patrons. Even during the coronavirus pandemic, the organization continues to provide meals for those in need.
April 17: NJ Governor Murphy extends school closings until Monday, May 18. Slight changes are announced concerning the daily and weekly schedules for distance learning at Pennington.
• Pennington School student Alexander Huang-Menders ’21, along with his siblings Celeste HuangMenders and Christian Huang, created the Share Some Care project, an online database that allows people throughout to country to locate fire stations, food banks, hospitals, and police stations near them that are accepting donations for COVID-19. They collected new or gently used supplies that first-line responders could use, such as disposable gloves, N95 face masks, and other personal protective equipment. Once users select their local emergency service on the website’s interactive map, they are prompted with that branch’s contact information. For people who don’t know where to donate their supplies, Share Some Care offers to help pair them with a local organization in need.
• Over Spring Break, Collin Penders ’22 planned and organized the first annual skate-a-thon to support the Mercer Bulldogs Special Hockey team. With the help of junior coaches from Notre Dame High School, Robbinsville High School, and The Hun School, Penders and Andreas Oskiper from Princeton High School raised over $3,700 for the organization. The Mercer Bulldogs Special Hockey team teaches children with varying developmental disabilities to play the game of hockey in a specially adapted learning environment. The team is composed of players ages five to adult, with varying abilities.
• In early April, Michael Petrane ’23 put on an impromptu concert to raise spirits of those quarantined in his neighborhood. He practiced and performed a 25-song concert tribute to Elton John, putting on a show with his keyboard and microphone. Bikers, joggers, and community members stopped to listen to the music and sing along.
• Green Team members created a fabulous video about how to help the Earth while in quarantine, which was released on Wednesday, April 22, in honor of Earth Day. They offered many great ideas on how to get involved and make a difference.
• The Inspire Performance Academy, which trains our student-athletes and is an excellent resource for health and wellness, offered free access to The Quarantine Club for Pennington community members. The Club was launched on March 30 to help enhance one’s mindset, nutrition, and movement.
REACH program invented to keep the Class of 2020 connected
REACH, inspired by Dr. Hawkey’s speech during Convocation in which he challenged the Pennington community to reach for difficult goals, gave the Class of 2020 time for reflection, imagination, collaboration, and expression. This capstone program was created this year after the COVID-19 crisis forced the School to rethink the traditional Horizon senior internship program that takes place each May. During REACH, seniors met for two hours a week with a cohort of fellow seniors, guided by a senior member of the School administration. Each group participated in a series of challenges, completed at their own pace. The creation of REACH was driven by
April 21: New REACH program is announced, designed to help the seniors think about their past, imagine their future, and share their reflections with the larger community during the month of May. REACH seminars were led by senior School administrators.
Kathryn Wilder, Ph.D. P’21 ’24 was a Professions in Medicine and Psychology panelist during REACH 2020 Career Week.
the need for seniors to stay connected to one another, process, and share the unique experiences of this time together—all the while being guided by caring, experienced, committed faculty members of the School.
Highlights of the program included a Freshman Realities Panel, (hearing from our youngest alumni about the college experience), a presentation on transitions from George Scott (a local therapist specializing in recovering from stress events), Career Week (an opportunity for discussions with professionals in the fields of business and technology, environmental science, medicine and health, athletics, and the arts), Community Service, and a final Commencement project that was shared with the community.
April 23: The Pennington School announces that the campus will remain closed for the remainder of the academic year. The spring athletics season is canceled.
May 1: Virtual REACH program begins for seniors.
“I had a group of ten outstanding seniors who met online at the end of the year and had a great time working together. Their final Commencement addresses were tremendous and truly captured the goals set at the start of the REACH program. I appreciated how open and honest this group was, and how each student showed great respect for all the others and valued the different paths each took to get to this point. Despite being online for the program, I felt that the group became tighter each week. The four weeks with this resilient group of seniors flew by, and I will miss them all. I'm confident that our seniors are well prepared for the next steps of their academic adventures.”
—Chad Bridges Assistant Head of School for Community Life and Dean of Students
REACH was an opportunity to have the seniors reflect on their time at Pennington, prepare for the next steps of their academic journey, and think about their future careers. The seniors were engaged, remained connected to their classmates despite the difficult circumstances of being off-campus, and shared some memories as they celebrated their individual and class achievements.
The faculty lounge
Faculty member Erin O’Connell created a new space in March for colleagues on campus to meet and trade ideas and inspiration for distance learning and more. The virtual lounge included book recommendations, recipes, and a lot of useful content for Pennington’s teachers. Here is an image from their first meeting in this new space, which took place on Monday, March 23!
The virtual Faculty Lounge was created by faculty member Erin O’Connell.
Parents for Pennington
Pennington parents also worked hard to keep our community together despite having to remain physically apart. Book club meetings went online, the annual Red and Black Bash was reinvented as a Zoom party (and was the most successful parent fundraiser in recent history!), and these dedicated parents even managed to hold their annual Faculty and Staff Appreciation Lunch event on June 9, complete with generous gift cards for every member of the faculty and staff as well as ten huge baskets stuffed with fun items that were raffled off to their lucky recipients. (See page 11 for more news about Parents for Pennington.)
Pennington alumni connect and reconnect online
Pennington alumni sprang into action to help draw our community together. Alumni Christina McKitish Reinhardt ’02 and Jesal Trivedi ’07 introduced online yoga and meditation classes dedicated to the Pennington community. Their classes were well attended by current students, their parents, and a number of alumni. See pages 46–47 for more information about alumni outreach programs that were offered to the entire community. There is also a new page on the School website devoted to upcoming alumni virtual events that are planned for this summer and fall.
May 11: NJ Gov. Phil Murphy mandates that all NJ school buildings are to remain closed through at least June 30.
May 29: New Class of 2020 website launched June 5: Last day of classes for grades 6–11
June 1-5: Senior Week is re-imagined to include a virtual Senior Chapel, digital yearbook signing, a message board for faculty to celebrate the seniors, special videos for lifers and boarders, and much more. June 5: A Car Parade takes place on campus, and local seniors collect their yearbooks and have a special photo op with Dr. Hawkey.
June 6: Pennington’s first virtual Commencement exercises are broadcast live, the first disrupted graduation ceremony in the 182-year history of The Pennington School.
Many alumni also participated in the Career Week for the Class of 2020, which was part of this year’s new REACH program. See more in Class Notes on pages 64–70. Finishing the year #PenningtonStrong As the academic year came to a close, we celebrated the graduating classes of 2020 and 2024 with special live broadcasts (see pages 56 and 60). The Pennington Fund surpassed its ambitious fundraising goal by early in June, and School administration began preparing in earnest for the year ahead. Head of School Hawkey designated several committees to examine every aspect of School life in order to put into place the resources needed to deliver an exceptional academic experience for 2020–21, whether a student is in a physical classroom, attending class from another space on campus, or working from home.
New 360-degree video cameras that can follow student-led conversations have already been installed in every classroom. Teachers have started ongoing summer professional development programs to give them more best practices for distance learning and engagement with students beyond the physical classroom. All of this, and much, much more, is being planned now so that every student will enjoy the best possible Pennington experience this fall.
In close collaboration with medical professionals and our own Health Center staff and always within the guidelines offered by the CDC and our local government, we are also developing new protocols for health and safety on campus, and will provide more details about these as they are developed.
We miss our students and can’t wait to
see them back on campus this fall!
June 11: Middle School virtual Graduation takes place. Prior to graduation, faculty members delivered special gifts to all local members of the Class of 2024.
July 25: Planned Class of 2020 Celebration
Virtual Revisit Week, April 5–10, 2020 Watch our virtual campus tour!
Closing Pennington’s campus in March meant that our annual Revisit Days, a highlight of the admission cycle for newly accepted families, had to be recreated in a new, virtual format. The Admission team sprang into action and quickly created stunning content that offered prospective students and their parents an inside look at the Pennington School experience. A new campus tour video, live webinars throughout a new Virtual Revisit Week, panels with faculty members and current students, and thoughtful video and podcasts clearly communicated the value of a Pennington education. Despite the lack of an in-person experience, the School’s enrollment goals for 2020–21 were met by the end of the day on April 10—a strong indication of Pennington’s appeal in the local area and beyond.
