Reimagining Education in a COVID World: Brimmer and May School
Navigating through a pandemic is difficult, time consuming, and ever-changing. This is new territory for most, and decision making, action, and communication are key ingredients for success. Every school, business, and organization are trying their best to keep safe while continuing to stay open.
Copper Hound Pictures was recently on the campus of Brimmer and May, a Pre-K through 12th grade independent day school in Chestnut Hill, MA. We were there to document their insights and reflections from the past 8 months, and to capture/show how the school is operating during this pandemic. It has taken tons of planning from all members of the Brimmer community, but in-person classes are occurring, new teaching equipment/technologies have been implemented, and a rigorous set of safety processes are being followed.
Brimmer’s dedicated faculty and supportive community benefited from consistently clear communications and honest transparency throughout this entire year. But it’s also a process that begins again every morning before students and faculty step onto campus each day. The school’s daily safety protocol starts with the completion of prescreening questionnaire delivered via app, usage of handwashing stations throughout the campus, and of course, mask wearing and social distancing. It’s impressive to see, and we were glad to capture it all on video.
Over the course of two days we conducted outside interviews with faculty and students, which enabled us to probe on the challenges and opportunities they faced this year. Brimmer’s model and commitment to education has enabled them to reimagine everything… physically, emotionally, and socially. But the one goal remained throughout: how do they ensure that their students are in the safest possible environment given the outside challenges. We invite you to watch the video to learn more.
We have included a transcript below:
Ina Patel: Our students are really happy. They're thriving. Yes they're wearing masks and yes they're six feet apart. But our students are so happy and that's because of our faculty. Just the level of commitment and the level of ingenuity and innovative thinking that they have engaged in has been amazing.
Carl Vallely: COVID has shown the strength of the Brimmer community. It has shown the strength of our students and how adaptable they are, how flexible they are.
Judy Guild: So what happened last spring taught me that our faculty are ready for anything. And we have a team that can lead in just about any circumstance. They were amazing. They pivoted, they showed incredible leadership.
Emily Miller: I think one of the biggest secrets to our success was really engaging our entire faculty and staff. So whether you were a classroom teacher or not, we were really calling upon everyone to participate and be involved in whatever ways were needed, just to support children.
Matt Gallon: They're really trying to reinvent, not even reinvent, but invent a new kind of school. And they really, I think, stuck the landing. They really did a great job.
Kat Klacko: It was honestly better than you would expect remote learning to be.
Joshua Neudel: Our faculty worked all summer long thinking about their classes. I couldn't be prouder of the work that they've done. Since March moving into the remote learning phase, over the summer, doing all the professional development and curriculum development. And then this year coming back to teach, but not just teach, but teaching with all of these other protocols in place.
Carl Vallely: We believe that students should be in school and that was our priority. And so as soon as we realized we had the space to do that, and we started exploring other alternative spaces like tents outside, we moved pretty much full steam ahead with having everyone back on campus.
Cassie Abodeely: Most of my day to day was thinking about, how do we make sure the air flows? How do we make sure kids can walk through buildings and see each other and be social, but also be correctly distanced?
Carl Vallely: We knew that parents were taking a leap of faith. They were going to need to make a decision about whether they were going to send their child back to school or not. And so in doing that, we tried to be as open and transparent with parents about our process as possible.
Matt Gallon: It's just a certain level of trust between the faculty and the students that needs to be there. When there's all of a sudden all these kinds of new rules, we need to be able to convey those to the students and know that they'll follow them.
Sophie Katz: In the morning we have to do the Brimmer safety app, take our temperature and make sure that we're all clear to come to school. And then once we get to school, we wash our hands throughout the day, we wear our masks. And really from the moment that I come to Brimmer, to the moment that I leave, I feel safe.
Rachel Wolf Hey...: In a lot of ways the school community is doing this much better than the outside community. I think in many ways, the children, this has become second nature to them. That of course they're going to wash their hands after they touch something. And of course, they're going to wear a mask. And it's strange not to keep distance at this point. So I think it's very quickly become part of our routine, because everybody's working so hard to make it part of our routine.
Matt Gallon: We've been really well supported by the administration and the board. I wouldn't be in here if I didn't feel safe. But we've had, every resource that we needed has been provided.
Carl Vallely: We felt like the science backed us up. We felt like what we could have in place backed us up. When we needed more hand-washing stations, when we needed to do a phased re-opening because we didn't want to have all 400 students back on campus on the same day. Anything that we said we needed, there was support from our head of school. And so because of that, we never had to falter.
Judy Guild: I go to middle school lunch and to watch the teachers deliver the lunches to our kids before they even open their own is just symbolic of who they are as a team of people. And nobody's telling them to do that. That's just who they are. And that is so incredibly beautiful to watch.
Owen Williams: At Brimmer we live by a set of core values, five of them. And they're kindness, respect, responsibility, honesty, and equity.
Cassie Abodeely: Never in the time that I have been here, have I seen those in action more than I do now. To drive our decisions, to enhance our programming and to really continue to keep us safe and functioning.
Carl Vallely: And we've talked a lot about this idea of like a dimmer switch, right, throughout the year, and being prepared for being in school full time, maybe going to hybrid, maybe needing to go remote. Coming back full time, going back remote if needed. We just don't know what this year is going to look like. And we don't know what the virus is going to do.
Joshua Neudel: What makes our response rooted in our core values and our mission, is really the way in which we look at each person individually and the way in which we are not just designing a program that we think people will fit into. But we're looking at who we are as our community, who our learners are. In the end that's really who we are as a school, a school that takes personalization in an authentic way and really looks at each individual person and really thinks about how they can live out our mission.
Owen Williams: It definitely still feels like Brimmer. It's just a different variation of Brimmer.
Carl Vallely: We've gotten incredibly positive feedback from parents about, first of all they're just saying thank you. Thank you for working to get our kids back to school. And they are just so grateful for all the work that we've done. Not only to get them back to school, but to make sure we were doing it in the safest way possible. We're an incredible community and I've always known that. I've worked here for 14 years, but this crisis and this virus has really shown how incredible we are and how strong we are and how dedicated we are to our students and their learning.
