Principal Germundson Response-  Yes, this time is very crazy. My heart breaks for you seniors. But I vow, to have a graduation. I don’t know what that will look like, but we WILL have graduation.

Being a principal during this pandemic has been quite stressful. We went from walking the halls the Friday before Spring Break, to now we are totally online. That has been quite an undertaking. In one week, we totally transformed how the school works.  I have to give all the kudos to the teachers. They have jumped on board and took this and ran with it. It took us one week, to get everything up on PowerSchool and Google classroom. They worked so hard and were so ready when we went live on April 1st with the curriculum.

So we got the curriculum out, but the one thing about a school is that it isn’t a school without students. It is just a big building. So I can speak for all teachers, paras, and principals.   Without students, it just isn’t the same. We all miss the kids and hope this is all over soon, so we can get back to normal.

I myself have been doing my job from my house, as I went to Arizona for Spring Break to see my in-laws.  So for 14 days, I was quarantined in my house. I worked in my home office, with my life size-cut out of KISS looking over my shoulder. (I thought this would be a funny picture for you guys).

We are making it, but I look so forward to the day when we are back in school.

Mr.Abuhl Response- There are some surprising changes in my life as an assistant principal lately.

I have more time to deal with administrative stuff, like deadlines, summer school planning, school improvement, and teacher evaluations. I even have a little time to do some professional reading. I’m not sure how I got all this stuff done when the school was filled with 1,250 students.

I miss the students and the interactions that I had with them. Amazingly, we have not suspended anyone for the last three weeks.

I am very impressed with how our teachers have stepped up to meet this challenge of online teaching/learning. For some, it has been seamless because they were using online tools before spring break. For others, it has been a real stretch to modify their lessons, but they are excelling.

Many questions have arisen that we have never dealt with, e.g. grading, graduation, equity, access, absenteeism, etc. This is a new ground that we are exploring. It is exciting to see what permanent changes will work their way into our school lives when this is all over.

I still come into the school to work, but I’ve found that I’m not staying until five or six o’clock every night

Mrs. Larson-

It is an ADVENTURE!  There have been many meetings, conversations, and brainstorms about how to make schoolwork for our students.  The teachers and counselors have been amazing in their planning and flexibility. It has been really hard not to be able to see students—that is always a highlight of my day!  I much prefer working in person than over the computer—I have spent hours in Microsoft Teams meeting with teachers and staff, but I haven’t had very much contact with students.  I miss that a lot! I spend most of my day in front of a computer screen—not my favorite!

Some of the hardest things have been unknowns.  We all want things like prom, the spring concerts, spring sports, and GRADUATION to happen and it is so hard to not know what is going to happen.  There have been some good things though too—our teachers have totally banded together as a team and that is so cool! I get to work with some really amazing people!