May 3, 2021

Standing Down

In a post this winter, I recommended that Heads play the long game when it comes to implementing change next year. This runs counter to other voices in the industry that argue for aggressive transformation, the mantra of disruption. Schools that aimlessly drift back to the old normal, this reasoning goes, will be left behind by those schools that transform themselves using the tools and strategies that we developed in the course of the pandemic, tools that could allow us to offer our "product" more broadly and cheaply. I agree with some of this thinking, especially that curating what we learned from doing school remotely is a very valuable exercise, and that many of the tools and strategies we created will make our schools better. But we've got to set out a humane schedule for innovation for everyone, and that should start with Heads defining (including for themselves) a pace of school life this summer and throughout the 2021 - 2022 school year that accounts for the exhaustion of the faculty and staff. One school that I know has established a two week (paid) blackout period mid-summer--phones off, no camp, doors locked, even maintenance activities on hiatus. This is a brilliant strategy. No innovation will be successful if it comes at the expense of the caring and connection that brought our schools through the pandemic and that have always been at the center of our success.