• This has been a process in phases as the situation has continued to unfold. At first, we all scrambled to figure out what to do. Then came a phase of grieving as we recognized loss, limitation, and frustration. Next, amazing and creative ideas began to emerge. Then meaning-making: how to help make sense and meaning of all of this – for ourselves and our students? This was followed by a focus on end of year events and beginning to look ahead to fall. Recently, there has been emphasis on how to bring this strangest of school years to a close. There will undoubtedly be more phases to come. Throughout, there has been a mood of generosity, support, and open sharing of what we are learning. 

• The presence of teachers and the role of schools matters profoundly. Children need teachers in their lives. Teachers and schools make all sorts of things possible for society as a whole; they are social glue. Maybe we will remember and won’t take this essential truth for granted in the future.  

• Human connection is key. We crave and need it and we know it is vital for our students’ wellbeing. You have all focused on finding ways to maintain connection at a distance with your students, worrying about those who seemed to have vanished, missing being with them, letting them know you are there for them. 

• In a word, teachers are remarkable: dedicated, responsible, creative, deeply caring, resourceful, determined. What you all did in almost no time, with no guidebook or training and few resources, was and is truly amazing. 

• The innovation had been extraordinary. There are many, many examples and I hope we can find ways to record and share all of them. Main lessons were revised and reframed. As a couple of examples, one teacher took up the question of “what matters?” and tied everything to that. Another took up the theme of past, present, and future as a framework. There have been studies of previous pandemics. Backyard or neighborhood nature walks. Window art projects. Three Sacramento area schools collaborated to develop a Sacramento Families Project with weekly themes that accommodated different ages and home circumstances:  This has inspired many to imagine new possibilities. 

• We are constantly confronting questions of what is essential, what really matters. School leaders are anticipating needing to do more with less. Early childhood teachers have struggled with questions of screens and young children: to zoom or not to zoom? At base, we all agree that we need to consider the children’s developmental needs, the tools and resources available, and a feeling of “rightness” and authenticity for the teacher, always with the child’s best interest at the center. 

• Complex issues of equity and access are present in everything we do. We acknowledge that not every child is happily okay, that parents and caregivers have vastly different demands on their attention and huge differences in resources, and that this pandemic has fully exposed the gaps and inequities in our society. This reality has been part of many conversations and a focus of ongoing efforts to avoid widening existing gaps.