One year after Catholic schools closed their doors on the 2019-2020 school year, principals, teachers, staff, parents and students have adjusted, altered and adapted to one of the biggest learning curves in their lives: how to educate more than 14,000 students during a global pandemic.
Dr. Melanie Palmisano, superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Baton Rouge, has weathered many storms during her 35 years in education, once as a Catholic school principal in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and again as superintendent during the flood of 2016 in Baton Rouge. However, the public health emergency is something completely different, she said, and school principals have had to constantly monitor updates from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Louisiana Department of Health and the Louisiana Department of Education.
“We know how to handle hurricanes, we know how to handle floods: you clean it and you rebuild it. But this pandemic – this was an emergency situation that none of us had in our wheelhouse, with how to deal with a germ that you can’t see and is highly contagious,” said Palmisano.
Summer workshops and development programs for principals and assistant principals, along with individual school site visits from a health consulting group from Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, helped Catholic schools get ready to open by August, according to Palmisano. The consultation was paid for by the Coronavirus Aid, Relieve and Economic Security (CARES) Act from the federal government.
Palmisano added educators also considered a school reopening plan from Loyola University Chicago which suggest three options: online only, in person and a hybrid of the first two with students alternating days in class and online.
Michelle Gardiner, principal of St. Jude the Apostle School in Baton Rouge, said the planning and consultation during the summer were a tremendous help in getting students back on campus.
“The faculty and staff, in our continued efforts to keep our school community moving forward in a positive direction, adopted the motto of Dory, from the Disney movie, ‘Finding Nemo:’ ‘just keep swimming, just keep swimming,’ ” said Gardiner. “This reminded us that if we work together as a school community towards a common goal, then we will all come out of the pandemic stronger.”
“Our school year has been outstanding,” said Katy Ullrich, whose daughter Paige is in the sixth grade at St. Jude. “My daughter was so happy to be back in school with her friends and her teachers. I think it’s incredibly important that our children are physically in school.”
“The biggest challenge for us would be the limited movement between classrooms,” said Adrienne Vaughn, whose third-grade son Colin also attends St. Jude. “It’s understandable though.”
Ellen Lee, principal of St. Michael the Archangel High School in Baton Rouge, admitted social distancing could be a challenge for teenagers but said students worked hard to keep a safe distance. Also, she said allowing sports and after-school activities “although conducted differently this year, have helped our students develop their own gifts and talents.”
“Our teachers are the real heroes,” Lee said. “They have adapted lessons for online learning, welcome remote-in students who were quarantined and taken on extra duties to ensure safety protocols were followed.”
St. Michael senior Drew Seelbach, who is also student body president, said students were grateful to be back on campus.
“I think overall it has been great, though,” said Seelbach. “Being at school gives everyone a chance to live a somewhat normal life and be able to see their friends everyday.”
And there have been plenty of lessons learned along the way. Palmisano said one student who rode the bus became ill and all 23 bus riding students had to be quarantined after it was discovered there was no seating chart or distance among the riders. She said after the incident, teachers took charge and assigned seats.
Also, during the first semester of the 2020-2021 school year, there were no middle school sports and staff members with Child Nutrition Services delivered “every breakfast and every lunch to every child in every classroom,” said Palmisano. The spring semester has witnessed limited sports for middle school and students, spaced six feet apart, back in the cafeterias getting their own food and either sitting spaced apart or going back to their classrooms to eat.
Even faced with the harsh reality of the seriousness of coronavirus, there were some light moments. Emily Vincent said her son Eli, a seventh-grader at St. Jude, mentioned the creative mask designs on “free dress” days, including some masks with LED lights. And, her daughter Stella, a freshman at St. Joseph’s Academy in Baton Rouge, had some comical turns trying to navigate the one-way traffic set up in hallways and stairways.
“For my oldest daughter, the beginning of the year made for some hilarious moments of never remembering which stairwells were designated ‘up’ and which were ‘down,’ ” said Vincent. “New school, one-way hallways, one-direction stairwells … lots of laughing, lost girls. But they quickly learned their way.”
Palmisano said the rate of infection among students from August to February was 3% and just a little higher, 11%, for faculty, who might have more opportunities for exposure with a working spouse or other circumstances. She said the biggest challenge has been among the pre-K and kindergarten classes, where the six-feet apart guideline is next to impossible.
“So when one of those teachers gets sick,” she said, “the principals have to quarantine those classes. The principals make that decision, following the LDH (Louisiana Department of Health) guideline.”
Meanwhile, educators also have been busy monitoring education. Palmisano said Catholic Schools received its five-year accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools during the pandemic with reports due in September and December and an on-site visit in February. She also said test results from the ACT Aspire, taken in August, showed “no learning loss” from the previous year, even though classes went to online learning in March, April and May.
“I was surprised. Every school superintendent expected learning loss and they started writing about it in the journals, how they’re going to address learning gaps and learning loss,” she said. “We didn’t have that.”
Palmisano said the key to getting through the year has been keeping the students at the forefront of everything, from health and mental well-being to education.
“We made lemonade out of lemons,” said Palmisano. “We made sure that we kept the students’ education and formation and connecting to them as little learners a priority and worked everything around that. So we were totally student-focused, and we got really clear on continuing this ministry. There was resilience and resolve this year.”