Dear Seattle Public Schools Community,
At 1:04 p.m. on March 12, 2020, with the scoreboard reading Creighton 35, St. John’s 38, Madison Square Garden's public address announcer informed the limited crowd in attendance and those of us watching on television that the rest of the game had been canceled along with the entire Big East Basketball Tournament.
I was sitting in my office with the game in the background, getting things together to transition to fully remote teaching for the rest of the semester. The day before the Chancellor of the City University of New York had announced we were about to go to distance learning, a phrase few of us had used before
New York City was already on edge, people were getting sick around us, the word COVID was on all of our minds. A specter of fear existed, but it was ephemeral, just hanging in the air, not yet real to most of us. And then we watched the Garden, the "World's Most Famous Arena,” shut off the lights.
At that same time, the Seattle area was also dealing with the pandemic, having been the first epicenter of the disease, with the first diagnosis of the coronavirus in the U.S. in mid-January. We on the East Coast admired the response and resilience displayed as Seattle responded to the pandemic. I also respected the courage and care that Seattle Public Schools summoned to protect its students, families, and staff.
When MSG closed, the 2019 novel coronavirus went from mythical to tangible, from whispers to real. In the months and years that followed, millions died and the world changed forever. Rarely do we live through moments in which we judge time, before and after. The way we live, the way we think about health and safety, the way we think about space and touch and breathe all changed that late winter, early spring. Coughing into your elbow, N-95s, social distancing, novel virus, singing happy birthday to time the washing of your hands -- new words and ideas sprang into existence around us. And we learned to cope, and adjust, and morph into new creatures.
It has been six years since that day. Life for most of us has gotten back to normal. Many of us experienced loss and pain. I got COVID three times, once pretty bad, the other two were mild. Some of my friends lost loved ones and almost everyone I knew in NYC got sick. And because of this, many organizations allowed people to work from home. With burgeoning technology, like Zoom, we were able to continue to press ahead, even when distancing.
But nothing will ever replace being together, working together, organically meeting and talking, finding those five minutes to chat about a project you are working on, or a student assignment, or a great lesson plan idea you have. As I visit all our schools to assess the needs of our school district, being present is even more important. We need to be there for our students, our families, and our colleagues. Our great educators have been back IRL for years now. School is where the heart of the district is. For us to be a team, we all need to present. And when we are able, we should be in schools, supporting what is happening. I appreciate that we were able to afford hundreds of staff members the opportunity to work remote and continued to do so years after we started, but for the good of the organization it is time for all of us to come back to work, face-to-face.
