At least once a week, while walking his dog, Lacy, Dr. Desi Kirchhofer, superintendent, reaches out through a video message to the “Lion Nation” of the Northwest School District in House Springs, Mo., to send out positive messages – and to simply connect with his patrons – during the COVID-19 crisis.
The videos – which are available on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and have made Lacy into a local celebrity – are just some of the many communication tools Kirchhofer and his team are using to ensure their students, parents, staff and the community know they will all get through this together.
Since the COVID-19 situation was so unique, many of the regular responses the district would use in a crisis did not apply. However, the theme from the get-go was to stay connected and provide learning opportunities and services during the closure, with an emphasis on relationships, flexibility and understanding. Rather than relying on an outlined crisis plan for a situation that was, and still is, fluid from day to day, Northwest used its mission document as a guide. Each message also ended with “stay connected” and “we’ve got this.”
“We reiterated and focused on a couple of our belief statements in our mission policy: ‘Challenges and failures are learning opportunities’ and ‘Positive relationships are the foundation for learning,’” Kirchhofer said. “We also leveraged our newly adopted mission statement, which states our ‘students are respectful, responsible, and resilient lifelong learners ready for success.’”
As the stay-at-home order changed from weeks to months and in-person classes moved online, Kirchhofer and his administrative team diligently worked to create a short-term (and then long-term) COVID-19 communications and at-home learning plan – all while regularly reaching out to patrons with regular updates, as the situation seemed to change by the minute, about what the district was doing to keep them safe.
“At first, there were so many mixed messages it was hard to know what to do,” he said. “Early communication was similar to when we hit a regular flu season regarding good hygiene practices and reminders to stay home if you’re not feeling well. We also started planning similarly with regard to cleaning and sanitizing. It wasn’t until events and gatherings across the country began getting canceled or postponed that we decided to put together an administrative team to discuss some ‘what-ifs.’”
And Kirchhofer was ready when it became apparent the stay-at-home order was not temporary, having already started planning internal and external communications with the district administrative team and principals. To make sure everyone was on the same page, the administrative team provided each building principal with a script for communicating with staff and parents. The team also created a slideshow presentation of next steps for staff and expectations for teachers and students, and made a district web page with a custom URL for COVID-19 information and communications.
The district also found it helpful to stay connected with the health department and neighboring schools and schools throughout the region.
Whenever the district received new information, as the situation evolved, it would blast the news through every communication channel – phone, text messages, the district website, app notifications and social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).
“We tried to tackle communication at a macro level, while also making it personal on a micro level, and created a FAQ document to send out and keep updated on our COVID-19 web page,” he said. “Staying connected in various ways helped us understand what communication and information was important and expected.”
One additional, and unique, way Kirchhofer reached out through the community was through storytelling. He created a story about staying home during COVID-19 from Lacy’s point of view and posted it to all the district’s social media channels. With Lacy already being a fan favorite, the video was a hit.
“By using social media to our advantage and leveraging video as opposed to strictly written copy, the connection to our community is stronger and more personal,” he said. “We’re proud of that.”
And all the extra steps the district has taken with communications and the at-home learning program seem to have made a positive impact, as Northwest parents, students, staff, teachers and the community gave the district exemplary marks in a recent complimentary COVID-19 response survey, facilitated by ExcellenceK12. Questions focused on how well the district was communicating, and patrons also ranked the success of the at-home/distance learning program. Patrons scored items as high as 4.62 and 4.61, on a 5-point weighted scale. The lowest score, 3.93, was for alternative educational materials for those families without regular access to technology, however, statistically speaking, this was still a great score.
“We are proud of our results and efforts,” Kirchhofer said. “We have been having weekly meetings with our leadership team and principals to review how our outreach and efforts are going. “We knew we had a gap with those who could access technology, but, overall, principals and a staff advisory had continued to report things were going well and that there was a high level of engagement and connectedness. I believe the survey results validated those anecdotal responses.”
As the regular school year draws to a close and with life not yet back to normal, Northwest is planning virtual summer school opportunities for its high school students, with the expectation that physical distancing protocols will be in place for quite some time.
Along the way, Kirchhofer and his team have learned and continue to learn several valuable lessons including “how quickly an institutional organization nearly grounded in over 200 years of tradition can actually make changes and adapt to an unprecedented challenge.”
They also discovered you cannot over communicate in a crisis. In others words, communicate frequently, quickly and with genuine transparency. Even when you don’t know all the answers, people need to know you are working on it.
But the most important takeaway they have learned (or relearned) is that relationships and human connections are still the most important part of education.
What’s Next?
To prepare for the return of in-person classes for the 2020-21 school year, the district will establish several task forces to review considerations and make possible recommendations for a safe reentry. Each task force will include a district administrator, a building administrator, certified staff/teachers, and classified staff.
Once the district begins the work, it may need to expand task force membership to other stakeholders and community partners when appropriate. The work of the task forces will be a critical step in planning and organizing a safe return for Northwest’s staff and students.
