A Hybrid Approach

What will our world be like coming out the other side of the COVID-19 crisis? At every level from the planet as a whole to individual nations to communities to individuals, this is the question we are starting to ponder. At the moment we cannot really start to see the picture until we get some more data on the processes that nations might follow in trying to take the initial steps out of lockdown life. It looks like China will be our first model to learn from.

Looking specifically at education, what are the pathways forward first in reopening and then moving into sustainable delivery of services at the start of the next school year? An obvious adaptation is that schools must be prepared for a future of providing virtual schooling. This is something we bought into fully at HKIS when we reopened after SARS. Each year we would run a week of practice virtual school in which teachers moved their instructions and learning materials fully online.

Yet there is more to the picture than being either fully opened or virtual. There is an in-between hybrid approach that schools could be providing. Looking specifically at international schools in August, there is the possibility that some parents simply are not going to want the health of their children to be at risk by sending them to regular school if schools do in fact open normally. There is also the case of families and staff who cannot return due to visa and/or lockdown restrictions.

So what does this mean? It could be that some international schools adapt to this stakeholder group by offering ongoing virtual school. Without going too in-depth on this, we need to look at the possibility for elementary schools, for example, to have at least one teacher at each grade level who would be the virtual school teacher. In discussing this with a colleague we concluded that it is just too much to expect teachers to manage their regular classes all day to then facilitate the learning of virtual students.

The specialist teachers from PE to the arts to the librarian also would be providing instruction. But there are not enough of them in my school for example to designate some of them as full-time virtual teachers. This challenge will need some thought. Perhaps some international schools might share virtual specialists?

Another hybrid possibility is with the students who are flourishing during virtual school who really benefit from having more control over the place, pace, and path which many identify with personalized learning. These self-reliant and independent students are also sometimes the more quiet students who find a voice in blended and virtual learning environments. Perhaps schools might offer a pathway for these students that involves virtual learning of core subjects with their coming to campus for the arts and PE classes, life skills, and afterschool co-curricular learning opportunities.

Another angle on this hybrid model is that it allows schools to offer more flexibility and a broader offering of services, especially in the competitive world of international education. We are hearing stories of lower-tiered international schools that have been cutting wages of staff leading to low morale and/or dealing with parent groups unhappy with their virtual school offerings. Those schools in a capitalist market should see fewer applications for the coming school year. The stronger schools that provide quality virtual school learning should find more demand for enrollment with the understanding that across the board the lower economy might decrease the overall size of the applicant pool. It will become a reality that some of the local parents will need to move their students to public schools. And there is also the case to be made that some of the lesser schools with lower tuition still might pick up some transfer students from the more established and higher-cost competitors with cost being the primary driver for some parents.

Another possibility is that the schools that offer a dual-track approach offer parents a choice when the potential threat of COVID-19 cases growing occurs. The parents with students in school could move their children into the virtual school track as the school remains open if they are not forced to close by the government.

Lots to think about and there are probably many other permutations as international school leaders look at how they will adapt and compete for students in the coming school year.

The Humanity of Schools

I was talking to a teacher who is moving on to a new international school next year. It is a school that also interested me in reading about their approach to teaching and learning. They call their teachers “designers” which is the term that I have used over the years in describing teachers as architects designing and facilitating learning.

I explained that I will be interested to learn how her school which opens in August will prepare for virtual school. Will they focus on the tools? Will they see pedagogy coming first to be supported by the right tools for the task? But mainly, will they see virtual school preparation being about designing ways to support and connect the humanity that is at the center of our school learning communities? I am intrigued to learn how a community of designers forming a new and vibrant school will respond to the possibility of school closure just as they are opening up for the first time.

We will see.

Not a Normal Start

Getting back to the question of what will things look like for international schools coming out the other side of the pandemic, I am thinking a great many of the stakeholders in schools will not be where they usually are energy-wise at the start of the new school year. The social and emotional toll of going through the loss of normalcy in teachers’ personal and professional lives cannot be ignored. The students and their parents will have gone through the process of changing roles and the fatigue of home isolation and seemingly never-ending virtual school.  The emotional piggy banks for so many are low at this point with big questions of what summer travel will look like if it takes place at all.

A parallel storage area of sorts is our capacity to pump out adrenaline that so many have needed to call on, again and again, to work through the challenges of the moment during virtual school. I think of the medical practitioners who drained their energy banks and survived on the adrenaline and last vestiges of their hope and care for others. As we head into the fall and a new school year, our teachers and support staff will, I think, struggle to push through the weariness and fog of mental and emotional fatigue, if lockdowns continue and virtual school is in session.

With the possibility that summer travel could be curtailed due to travel bans, many might not be able to return to their home countries to be with their loved ones. They will also miss out on their normal summer recharging rituals (e.g. going to the beach cottage, attending baseball games, special summertime meals, etc.). The effect of so much loss will be deep.

This makes me feel that international school leaders need to take a very realistic look at their expectations for the start of the new school year. What comes to mind is the need for a huge focus on the normal class community building that occurs with the start of the school year. Emphasis needs to be placed on doing activities that are fun and energizing that help build bonds of connection between students and teachers. I can see the need for taking on fewer academic learning outcomes building in more time for students to work on tasks with depth that helps build their confidence and connection with others.

The reality is that the coronavirus might return in full strength in the fall. With this in mind, we need to be very intentional about recharging everyone’s batteries which will probably be lower than normal coming in. A focus on wellness will need to be front and center going forward which can be supported by having a wellness focus group come together to design both short and long term small initiatives to help design a “wellness toolkit” for individuals, teams and the community. A main tool of the wellness toolbox can be creating and implementing personal wellness plans. The plans can be based on engaging the character strengths within the PERMAH pillars. Staff members could find partners to coach each other in following their wellness plans. A full menu of self-care strategies should be put together with some designated for the individual to provide for him/herself and others provided by the school (e.g., gym memberships, on-campus yoga, and fitness providers, flexible virtual teaching from home or school, ongoing personal wellness PD, etc). And of course, there should be a focus on team wellness with support strategies in place.

An additional support effort can be offered by counselors in partnership with whoever manages the professional learning at one’s school. I can go on and on about “personalizing PD” away from the old sit and git one size fits all but I won’t as we covered it a few times in my old podcasts. The bottom line is wearing my instructional technology cap would be to design a user needs assessment mechanism as in surveys for the team meeting check-ins by admin and counselors to having wellness partners taking each other’s “well-being temperatures” especially around mental health. From this data and that of individuals’ knowledge of Positive Psychology, a menu of learning and self-care opportunities could be developed for face-to-face and online truly personalized for individuals’ needs.

This preparation and ongoing efforts hopefully can delay and offset to some degree the eventual fatigue that we have seen arise these past few months of virtual school. I can see the normal week of PD for returning and new staff focusing less on curriculum and logistics and more on making time to get people together to have fun and nurture our social connections. I also can definitely see a daily afternoon sporting event for interested players with cheering onlookers. Fun and light games like cornhole, bocce ball, and croquet along with beverages and food should become a mainstay way to end each day.

The need for frequent and transparent communication with parents and staff is more important than ever, especially with low batteries and potentially declining morale. Parent communication is a given these days with schools activating their crisis management plans. Our leadership has one voice and has very clearly communicated messages to parents. Just the simple numbering of the emails is a value-added protocol.

Staff will need to know where things stand with enrollment, travel restrictions, and other factors that can affect their contracts. My experience in Israel during the first Gulf War, in Saudi Arabia with a terrorist attack, and again in Hong Kong during SARS was that the administrative team worked diligently to create and communicate contingency plans so that staff knew where things stood with their contracts and options.

Admin and staff obviously need to be on the same page with a feeling of trust and a realistic understanding of expectations balanced by the individual needs of staff and their families. Flexibility and putting the humanity of the community first need to be the guiding mantra. The last thing a school community needs is a vacuum of information and rigidity which opens the door to rumors and an “us vs them” attitude. 🙁

Learning Support

I continue to be so impressed by the professionalism and dedication of the staff at my school. From the business office to the support staff to the teachers to the administration, I find myself constantly pausing and being thankful that I get to work at such a wonderful school.

The same goes for our students who accepted the challenge of virtual school. They have grown their character strengths around being independent, problem solvers, and hard working. Between the teachers and the students, a lot of wonderful teaching and learning has taken place. Our parents also have been incredible taking on new roles in their homes.

Yet we must face that our students are not learning as well as they would in face-to-face school. With many international schools having large EAL populations where English is not spoken at home, we must face the reality that at the start of the new school year many of the students will have lost ground not only in their language acquisition but probably in some of their subject areas as well as in their social development.

Coming out the other end of the pandemic, what will the start of the new school year look like regarding remediation to bring students up to where they would have been pre-pandemic? And how to balance these academic needs when I just wrote about the importance of SEL and community building? Thankfully I am not an administrator possibly trying to juggle these two outcomes… 🙂

A second factor to think about with international schools is that there will probably be a good amount of turnover of students changing schools. At least in my location, there have been schools that have excelled in providing virtual school while others have brought on the ire of their parents for supposedly not delivering the goods. Something tells me there will be some families trying to move up the hierarchy of schools especially knowing that virtual school could happen again in the coming year.

So how will stronger international schools keep their enrollment up and handle the possible influx of students coming from schools with lesser programs? In speaking to a colleague, one approach would be to possibly have summer school that offers language and other subject learning remediation for new students. This is predicated on the hope that summer school can be taught face to face. If not, we know that virtual schooling cannot match the learning in regular school so a virtual summer bridge program would be limited in its viability.

An additional approach would be to offer EAL standalone homerooms in the elementary division. Our current approach is to mainstream all students with one EAL teacher at each grade level for push-in and some pullout support. But if some schools are bringing in students at lower English levels than they might normally accept, they might need to adapt their program to provide intensive English learning provided by an EAL-trained homeroom teacher at each grade level possibly with the additional support of a dedicated EAL specialist.

As I know very little about the field of language learning, I am doing my usual throwing out a bunch of ideas to think about. 🙂 I would be very interested to hear from administrators and EAL staff as to how they would develop a hybrid program that continues their regular push in EAL support while also offering a pathway for students needing a more full-on English learning program.

Tying things together here, who knows what the new school year will bring. I know that the administrators at my school continue to be proactive as they are looking at multiple contingencies. I am not connected in any way to the managing of our virtual school or involved in planning for the future so please understand that these ideas are my own as I continue to look at challenges as opportunities for innovative and adaptive thinking.

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