Giving Compass' Take:

• Here are four queries that will support the empowerment of education leaders and the development of transformational change in schools during the pandemic. 

• One of the actionable queries focuses on strategically promoting equity during this time. Why is this essential during COVID-19? How can donors contribute to building more equitable school districts? 

• Read more about equity in education during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As educational leaders we are facing incredible tumult and uncertainty as we prepare for the fall amidst a pandemic. Like never before we face the challenge of delivering education in nimble and new ways. Even as I am writing this article, our province has not yet released guidelines for the fall, yet I feel prepared to take a deep breath and lead our school into this next season—we are change-ready!

How can we transform this pandemic into a positive provocation? How can we hold both the risk analysis for the safety of children and community, while also tending to innovating on the design of learning experiences? How can we hold the students’ social-emotional needs in creative and meaningful ways amidst the disruption?

Here are four actionable queries to support the development of your change-ready school.

  1. How is your school ‘rooted’? Interestingly enough, change-readiness begins by being rooted in a vibrant school culture and steadied in a set of aspirational values shaping your community.
  2. How will you strategically promote equity? Our society is groaning under the weight of injustice. We’ve paid lip service to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access for too long. While we can’t transform systemic racism in a school year or address gaps in diversity in 10 months, we must act proactively today.
  3. How will you care for your team? From the vantage point of a school leader, it is clear that professional educators often live under the haunting weightiness of the work. We face children struggling with learning, changing family structures, disabilities, trauma, poverty, and a sea of challenges found in every classroom, including a system that often beats down on them like a mallet on a drum’s skin.
  4. How will you invest in your own personal and professional growth? Rest, exercise, and intentional research and collaborations are at the top of my list currently. Investing in myself, my health and wellness, and my professional network is what is getting me through this season.

Read the full article about queries to help empower education leaders by Karine Veldhoen at Getting Smart.