Walk into any school. Read the signs on the door and the protocols for entering the school. Look around, especially at the walls for signs of school life. Listen to the sounds; pay attention to whose voices you hear. Check the housekeeping of the hallways and stairways and restrooms. Consider who greets you and understand the meaning of the first words spoken. Smell the air. The air, you wonder? Check for the telltale smells of integrity or mendacity. Tennessee Williams wrote that they have an odor we can detect. These are all signs of the ethos of the school; those distinguishing signs of the character of a school. All schools have it – ethos.
Then comes the reality; the pandemic has changed schooling in countless ways. Each pandemic challenge has pinged against the school ethos bouncing off, leaving dents, and some gashes. There is nothing in public education that has been easy during the pandemic. Arguments about in-school versus at-home learning, protecting teachers and school staff from infection, effects on student learning, effects on student social and emotional well-being, stress of schooling at home on families, effects of closed campuses on local economics – all are made in the context of school ethos. How have a school’s values and standards stood in the pandemic when critical issues arise? “What are we to do?”, is the constant bell ringing question. The school’s ethos tells us. Your ethos should be telling you, “Pay attention to me”.
The nifty thing about a school ethos is that it is a resolute clearinghouse for sorting what is important. A clear ethos – think of school vision, mission, values, goals, standards, and traditions wrapped up in a statement of “we stand for …” – helps to define a school’s pandemic plan. It is impossible to have a clear ethos and waffle on questions like continuing education for all children, health and safety for everyone in the school, inclusion of students, communications with all school constituents, and fiscal responsibility and resource management. It also is possible lose connection to your ethos and make decisions that drift you away from core beliefs.
That said, what part of your school ethos still stands? What parts have been compromised? What parts have been reshaped? As we enter a second year of pandemic education, what does your ethos value?
How this plays out in real time is fairly easy to observe in local schools. For example, a campus that was opened to in-person teaching and learning reflects a different set of value statements than a campus that remains closed to in-person school life. No matter the explanation or rationale, there are real and unarguable differences between an open and a closed campus; why they are open or closed. For example, a school where teachers taught and adhered to their school board approved curriculum reflects a different set of value statements that a school that substituted commercial curriculum and units of instruction. For example, a school in which teachers made constant, daily personal connections with every at-home learner displayed a value statement different from a school that taught to students as at-home screens.
Daily practices and routines in the pandemic are based upon school policies that are based upon school values. These values are reflected in the
- stories the school tells about its provision of continuing education in the pandemic. Is there connection between the ethos and the stories being created? Is the ethos driving the pandemic plan and its stories or are the stories of a time apart from the ethos?
- data the school collects to illustrate student achievement and growth. Is ethos the foundation for data collection or is the data being collected without consideration of the ethos? Is this usual school data that illustrates the ethos over time or stand-alone data?
- relationships between the school and its families that are evolving as a result of a school’s pandemic education. Is a pandemic plan based on the school ethos binding school families to the pandemic plan? To what extent have self-interests separated from the ethos presented themselves? Is the school family still intact?
- perspectives of students about their current education and educational future. Students are at the heart to the ethos; are they at the heart of the pandemic plan? How do the success of their educational experience during the pandemic? To what extent has the ethos helped to make their education pandemic-proof?
- breadth of goodwill expressed by the community toward the school as a result of pandemic programming. A community that supported a pre-pandemic ethos should be able to identify how the ethos shaped the school’s pandemic plan. What do the community’s stories say about this?
There will be a post-pandemic time. The ethos will be the compass that helps school leaders assure the post-pandemic school is on the school’s “right” educational track. A strong school ethos will have been the anchor keeping a school connected to “what it stands for” during times of extreme crisis.