Schools across the country have struggled to offer in-person learning or effective online learning programs because of this pandemic. The Fay School, tapping into its vision and commitment to developing emotional intelligence, offers this open letter to school leaders and administrators struggling with tired, frustrated, and impatient parents.
DEAR FAY FAMILY,
Remaining cognizant of the impact of COVID-19 on each of us and our educational model remains at the forefront of our anticipations, planning, and execution of Fay’s vision for your child. Balancing the competing tensions that arise from navigating the unknown remains exceedingly challenging and will likely impact us in different ways and throughout the year. The challenges will only increase in complexity as we enter the flu season.
So far, this school year has been even better than we could have imagined! Nevertheless, the unpredictable and unpreferred will likely happen. Paramount to Fay’s ability to serve your child’s education to the best of our ability in those moments is your flexibility, patience, and grace.
If we all continue exhibiting heightened emotional intelligence – self-awareness, social awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, and relationship skills – we will ensure that your child benefits fully from Fay’s laser-focused attention on the tasks at hand.
Practice self-awareness by consciously living in the moment or by slowing down and meditating. Ask trusted friends how a reaction might come across to others.
Take a moment for social awareness and empathize with your teacher and the staff at Fay. What is it like for them to be navigating this pandemic? What balls are they juggling at home or behind the scenes or when they are not at Fay?
Prepare yourself to self-regulate your feelings of frustration by waiting twenty-four hours before contacting your teacher or the school if something is not immediately going quite as you had anticipated, especially after a transition from Online Learning to In-person Learning or vice versa. Nearly every day brings new challenges where the solutions are not easily executed because of interconnected complexities, not on the surface. Draft that email but sleep on it before pushing send!
Self-motivate when you feel gratitude for your child’s teachers or when you feel that someone working at Fay needs encouragement. Send them an individualized note and share positive feedback that highlights a time that your teacher took action and its impact on your child or your family. Be specific about when that time was, describe in detail the behavior, and share how and why it was meaningful for you or your child.
Use your relationship skills to positively inspire and influence your friends who may reach a patch of frustration.
The next few weeks may bring about unpredictable challenges, but you chose Fay in large part because of our commitment to leadership development through emotional intelligence. Being in this together can’t be just a cliché. We must proactively prepare to support one another. This is especially true when guards may be down and you are overwhelmed by the joy of witnessing how happy your child is at the end of the school day.
Fay leads because we all look towards the future and your child will lead because we plan for it.
SUPPORTIVELY,
MORGAN B. SCOVILLE, M.ED.
About Morgan Scoville: Morgan is Fay’s Head of School and was drawn to the school’s leadership development through emotional intelligence programming. Morgan believes that no matter how ubiquitous technology becomes in our day-to-day lives or how much artificial intelligence makes our lives easier, there will always be a need for humans to tap into their emotional intelligence. Collaboration, synergy, and outside-the-box thinking absolutely depend on heightened emotional intelligence. The Fay School strives every day to ambitiously develop emotional intelligence in every student.