Year 11 – Week 35: Ending The Year In A Pandemic...Again

Here we are again, trying to figure out how to do closing rituals of a school year during a pandemic.

This isn’t new. Last spring, we were in a similar place. Events like graduations, retirement celebrations, and music concerts all had to change. People moved these events online, others got creative with drive-through graduations, and unfortunately, some events had to be canceled.

Some of these changes had benefits. Virtual events allowed people to participate from almost any location, which led to the inclusion of people who otherwise would not have been able to share in these special moments. And some of these changes led to sadness, as modified events often had technical issues and sometimes could not capture how members of the school community felt in previous years.

We were left with doing the best that we could do by focusing on the positive and being grateful. Even though we had a shadow of what we wish we could have, a shadow was better than nothing.

While so much has changed in a year, many things have not. The vaccination came faster than any of us predicted. Federal and state mitigation recommendations are evolving. We know so much more about this virus and have tools and guidance on creating events that we lacked last spring. We are still in the thick of a pandemic, but we know how to manage it, and the light at the end of the tunnel is brighter than it’s ever been.

We still have to be careful.

The risks are there. We have to continue to make hard choices and what is most important to our community. Now that we can safely do small in-person gatherings, we have to figure out how to make this happen. The path ahead is still filled with unknowns. Being able to do more in-person last year means we have to adapt these events one more time.

In this second spring of school, during a pandemic, while more possibilities open up for events, we have to carefully ask ourselves important questions: What is most important about these events? What can we live without, and what is essential? Who are these events for?

I hope that all of you working hard to bring these meaningful ends of the year events to your school community find moments in work to remember the wonderful students we are serving in our work. It is their spirit and their joy that sustains us, and even when it is daunting.  Success is measured in these moments not in replicated the past, but in small moments of joy, and the satisfaction of knowing  that you did the best that you could in the worst of times.