Grace for Teachers and Administrators.

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I walked into my children’s school to meet the teachers, and after five months of quarantine and agonizing over the decision of whether to return to school in person, withdraw our kids and homeschool or opt for virtual learning.

When we arrived at the school, I was pleasantly surprised and quite frankly thankful for all of the efforts the school went through to ensure safety protocols were in place—making a good case for re-opening schools safely.

In-Person or Virtual Learning

There are so many debates and confusion around whether kids should return to school in person or virtually. Although, virtual learning has played an important role for my kids during this pandemic, but it is not a substitute for in-person learning.

So much pressure has been placed on school administrators and staff to meet the various needs of students, parents, CDC guidelines, etc. There are numerous conversations about what teachers should do and shouldn’t do; what school administrators should do and shouldn’t do. I quite frankly believe that we need to take a breathe and give everyone involved some grace.

Pre-Pandemic school administrators and teachers had the enormous task of ensuring the safety of our kids; leading the efforts of educating our kids; managing a school’s budget, ensuring that students had the right textbooks; enough supplies to meet the needs of every student under their care, etc.

I know teachers who spent their money to purchase supplies for their classroom; I have had teachers spend extra time with my kids outside of school hours to provide additional help to students.

Empathy for Teachers

Teachers are human, and like the rest of us will make mistakes. School administrators will make decisions that some people will love and others will dislike.

During the transition to remote learning, our school had one week to prepare for the shift. It was incredibly challenging, but we all pulled through it. None of which would have been possible without the enormous support, assistance, and hard work from the school administrators, the teachers, and the school counselor.

Applause for Teachers and Administrators

First, I think we should applaud the efforts and hard work of everyone on a school administration and teaching staff. They work incredibly hard and to the best of their ability to appease parents, school boards, kids, funders, etc. Applaud them for

• School administrators enormous effort over school operation and Student Success
• Teaching your kids to read
• Wearing many hats; teacher, nurse, caregiver, hugger, counselor, etc.
• Putting up with overbearing and overzealous parents
• Their passion and humility
• Showing up and teaching, whether virtually or in-person
• The many adventures they take our children on

Give Grace

While we all navigate the challenges presented by the year 2020, we, parents, grandparents, caregivers, humanity should give grace to the administrators and teachers. We entrust them to care for our kids without our supervision. We should give grace to them because they are also navigating the challenges presented by the current global climate. They also have families and personal challenges, but yet they show up for our children.

Thanks for sharign this topic with me.

Idara Joy

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