How is SSFS Prepared to Support our Students in the Current and Post-COVID-19 World?

From the days in February 2020 when SSFS administrators first met to consider how our School program might be impacted by the novel coronavirus, to our current restrictions on group gatherings and travel mandating school closures and upending our lives, the uncertainties caused by COVID-19 have been a continuing source of anxiety. When will travel restrictions be lifted? What will the impact of this global pandemic be on our health, our jobs, our schools? When will we be able to see one another in person again? When will things get back to “normal”? What will “normal” look like in a post-COVID-19 world?

At Sandy Spring Friends School, we recognize and empathize with the fact that these uncertainties have been difficult for us all--parents, students, teachers, and staff alike. We also recognize the particular challenges faced by working parents struggling to balance childcare and job responsibilities, those with immunocompromised family members, and those whose jobs and/or health have been adversely affected by this virus. 

In the face of these uncertainties, the strong community ties that are the hallmarks of a Sandy Spring Friends School education have served as a source of constancy and comfort. Students have not only continued to progress academically during the spring of 2020; they have also continued to connect and engage socially and emotionally with one another, and with faculty and staff. Our families have reached out to one another--and to our community at large--to offer assistance and support. Now, more than ever, our sense of community is what sustains us, even as we are obligated to remain apart.  

Building on previous experience with our online Learning Management System (LMS), faculty and staff at SSFS participated in an intensive multi-day professional development experience in March to gain greater skills to navigate asynchronous and synchronous online learning via Seesaw, Zoom, and Google classrooms, so that they could migrate their curricular content online. When Montgomery County issued its mandate to shut down all businesses and schools in mid-March, SSFS teachers boldly moved forward with teaching their classes virtually, learning and tweaking along the way as needed. 

Our teachers did an amazing job with the transition, especially given the quick turnaround. See just a few examples of classroom activity here:

• Lower School math classes met regularly for live online classes to go over math concepts as a group, then used smaller breakout groups to solve problems collaboratively. The teacher visits the breakout groups and has each student explain a piece of the problem. 
• The Upper School Dance class continued to practice dance moves and socially-distant choreography, and learn about other dance companies who have performed together, while apart.
• A Biology teacher took his students on virtual field trips outside, hunting via phone video for different wildflowers in his backyard, and pointing out each part and distinguishing features of the various flowers and plants he found.
• The Handbells class used an online app and to record songs collaboratively, including The George Fox Song. 

Just as important as our commitment to providing challenging and engaging academic and arts content, however, has been the commitment to the School’s mission and values. When students, teachers, alumni, and families are asked about what they value about SSFS, they inevitably talk about the sense of community and connection they feel at the school. Our teachers are passionate about the content they teach, but they are more than just purveyors of academic information: they are lifelong mentors, they are student advocates, and they are friends and supporters who see and value the unique worth of every student. 

Students feel that care; they appreciate it. During our virtual learning mode, small group advisories continued to meet online for regular check-ins. Our counselors and learning specialists remained accessible and ready to address any concerns. Teachers offered fun clubs, electives, and other extracurricular opportunities to get together online after regular classes ended, such as Quiz Bowl, Baking Club, Photojournalism, Fitness for Friends, and more. Virtual Lunches, “Mix-it-up” lunch groups, and opportunities for Middle School students to visit via Zoom with their Lower School buddies as part of the “Young Friends” Club were offered. Teachers did fun (and socially-distant/safe) curbside visits to say hi to their students, holding up posters and signs letting them know how much they missed them, or putting together fun dance and music videos to spread cheer and say hello (see this one from Lower School faculty, and this one from Middle School faculty). There have been virtual Meetings for Worship, and student government leaders continued to connect with one another--and the School faculty and administration--throughout the spring to have a voice in the planning of graduation and other end-of-year celebrations and traditions.

Parents are part of our community, too, and SSFS has reached out in various ways to support them. Virtual “Coffee and Conversations” held regularly with our parents and guardians in each division provided ways to hear from our parents about what they need, and give our families updates on School planning. Virtual one-on-one parent-teacher conferences have also provided touchpoints to ensure that students and parents got the support they need in this new learning environment. Finally, as a way to help cope with the sudden changes in all our lives, SSFS staff and the Parent Association worked together to provide support such as a mindfulness app subscription and wellness webinars. We created a virtual community board space on our Parent Portal page, where all were invited to post provided resources for community-building, stress management, links to suggested activities for kids of all ages, and easy family recipes. Our PE staff created “weekly workout” videos, with fun ways to stay active, and we initiated a “Virtual Soundtrack Project” to connect with one another via music. 

The bonds created over the course of the 2019-2020 school year have carried us through the tumultuous spring of 2020, as our community pulled together and supported one another through a challenging time. 

But... what about 2020-2021? 

We continue to live in a world where “uncertainty” plays a large role. However, we are getting signals that, by September, we may be able to start off the school year on our beautiful campus… just with social distancing restrictions in place, and protocols that will help to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and keep our students and staff safe. 

With our large, open campus, extensive buildings and facilities, small class sizes, and our low teacher-student ratio, SSFS is uniquely positioned to offer quality in-person educational learning, while also maintaining best practices for social distancing. The expected opening of our new Upper School building this fall frees up existing classroom space in other buildings on campus, all of which can be used to ensure that we maintain small class groupings (10 people or fewer) with adequate (6’ or greater) space between everyone. 

The health and safety of our students, staff, and families is our top priority. It is our hope and intention to have as many students on campus as we can safely sustain, following the federal, state, and local mandates, as well as health guidelines set down by organizations like the CDC and WHO. SSFS is very fortunate to have facilities and a campus that are able to accommodate these safety requirements. We are also fortunate to have a staff of health-care professionals on site to help ensure that we all follow safety protocols and procedures. 

Recognizing that a virtual environment is most challenging for our youngest learners (and for working parents), we anticipate that we will have students in Preschool (age 3) up through 6th grade on campus each school day, and students in grades 7-12 on campus in some pattern of alternating days. We are still working out the scheduling details, but anticipate that this modified schedule will optimize the student experience, while adhering to public health guidelines. 

While we look forward to the time when we can safely be on campus together, we do expect that, for a variety of reasons, some students will not be able to attend school at the start, or for significant periods of time during the year. These reasons may include travel restrictions (particularly for our boarding students who live overseas); immunocompromised students or those with vulnerable family/household members; and students who may need to quarantine due to exposure, or who are symptomatic/have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Because of this, we expect to offer simultaneous virtual and on-campus educational programs, at least in some areas, and also anticipate the need to be flexible, alternating between on-campus and virtual/distance learning. 

We are committed to providing students the strongest possible learning environment, whether that is on our campus or though virtual/distance learning, or some hybrid of the two. This spring was an emergency transition, on very short notice, to a fully virtual experience for the closing weeks of school. For the fall, faculty and school leadership will participate in training to make the virtual learning experience we provide even more robust, emphasizing student engagement, inquiry, and mastery of concepts and skills. SSFS teachers will devote time between now and the start of school to redesigning courses so that hybrid learning and transitions can be as seamless as possible. Faculty are committed to this process, which amounts to a significant retooling to provide virtual/hybrid learning experiences that remain true to SSFS values about a quality education and our brand pillars. 

As a Quaker school, we are guided by the belief that there is Light within each person and that, through continuing revelation, we can all inspire and be inspired to reach our full academic, intellectual, artistic, athletic and spiritual potential. Although our physical campus has been, and will continue to be, an integral part of the Sandy Spring Friends School experience, the primary touchstones of an SSFS education are the connections between the people who make up our diverse community of learners, doers, activists, athletes, artists, and Truth-seekers. We know that these connections will pull us through these challenging times, and that we will all rise to the occasion. But, as Head of School Tom Gibian recently shared at our virtual end-of-year all-school assembly, “it turns out that just like the early Quakers figured out that the church is the people not the building, we have figured out that school is not a place or, perhaps, not just a place.  School happens when we care for each other, listen to each other, see the light within each other, teach each other, learn from each other.  When we find our great natural talent and share it with joy and humility and recognize the great natural talent in others and share in it with joy and humility... School is our community where we go because it is where we belong, where you belong.”