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Carey- Change Agent Case Analysis: COVID-19

Ricky Carey

ISTC 702 Educational Leadership and Technology

Dr. Robert Caples

September 17, 2023

Executive Summary
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Chesapeake Public Charter School (CPCS) is a small public charter school in the

southern end of Southern Maryland. At first glance, many people see it as a privately run charter

school, but in reality it is a school that is run with an overseeing board, and parameters set by

the St. Mary’s County school district. The charter school, as it is locally known, is a K-8 school

with about 525 students. There are about fifty staff members that include, but are not limited to,

elementary classroom teachers, middle school classroom teachers, specialists, special

education professionals and para educators. There are a total of four administrators, three of

which are allocated for day to day operation (Educational director and two academic deans) and

one that is in charge of the charter that governs the school.

The building itself is a converted racquetball court. The halls are narrow and the

classrooms are small. Each side of the building has been renovated to look like a school over

the years. The building itself is old, it has only been operating as a school building since 2007.

The population of the community is mixed between all factors. Because of the Naval Air Station

Patuxent River, the population of the community is diverse, ranging from people who have been

here all of their lives to people who transfer regions every three years. The school's

Socioeconomic Status is a mixture between the two ends of the spectrum. About 11% of the

students are considered economically disadvantaged with 13.5% of the population receiving

free and reduced lunch.

Academically the school is very successful. Historically the school has consistently

scored above the county level in both Math and ELA. According to the MSDE, CPCS scored a

12/20 in academic achievement compared to the rest of St. Mary’s county scored in the 9-10

range. In their MCAP testing the students at CPCS scored 46% proficient in ELA and 36%

proficient in Math. The students at CPCS have 1 to 1 device usage in and out of the school

building. They have access to technology through a multitude of different programs, learning

management systems and engagement activities. Teachers have a varying comfortability with

technology. Some staff are eager to try new technology out, others are not as willing.
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Administration does a decent job of putting staff in a position to learn new technology, but there

is not too much professional development geared towards new technology implementation.

Much of the technology learning is shared through ambitious staff members that share the

technology with grade level teams. Overall, technology use has improved a lot since Covid.

Covid 19

During the school day of March 12th, 2020 we received news through the grapevine that

we would be closing for the next two weeks. We got this information officially from our building

principal who reassured us what our expectations were during those two weeks and we met as

a staff for the final time for the year on the next day, March 13th. Being a Charter School

presents weird circumstances, but this was one that was made by our superintendent, who

notified us by email and phone on the night of March 12th. For our school, the message was

communicated very well and put the staff at ease. It was a sense of community knowing that we

were all going into uncharted territory together and didn’t know what to expect next. Next, the

administration worked with our own school leadership and country leadership to develop a plan

for the next two weeks and beyond. As the initial two weeks were unfolding, a plan was

developed for the county to use edgenuity and imagine learning two online learning resources.

Communication was constant from our building principal about the constantly changing plan that

was being developed. Our school held zoom meetings for staff to talk about plans and give

feedback and thoughts. Then we all watched Larry Hogan tell Maryland education that we would

be out until the end of April. On March 27th the country came up with a playbook that allowed us

to send materials home and create lessons that could be picked up so we could create different

types of engaging lessons while using edgenuity. Then the stay at home order came down and

all of that stopped and we were only able to use the Edgenuity or Imagine Learning platforms.

We were explicitly told that we were not allowed to use any type of video conferencing software
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because of privacy concerns, even though neighboring counties had started to use this

technology for their school. This was extremely frustrating.

Student laptops were delivered to students' houses or picked up at the school for the

hardware component. There were zoom sessions from the county to teach parents about how

the two learning platforms worked. There were many places in our hybrid rural/urban community

that did not have good or even below average internet connectivity. In the early stages this was

a major equity problem for students that were trying to accomplish their work in the learning

platforms. The biggest challenge was communication. The only way we could help was through

email which was extremely challenging. It took all of the great aspects of hands-on teaching out

of our toolboxes. The learning platforms were terrible regurgitation of information lessons and

quizzes. Some students finished their Social Studies assignments for the rest of the year in two

weeks and others barely started. Our IEP students struggled greatly to get a quality education,

some teachers created learning guides to help walkthrough the material of their entire courses

because there was not any differentiation in the learning platform. This part of the Covid plan

was honestly terrible and did not help any part of student learning.

In my opinion, there was fantastic leadership in our building and terrible leadership in the

county. I understand that they were doing what they could in a short amount of time, but the fact

that other counties were able to use zoom and google meet to evolve their lessons left teachers

in a position where they felt like they could not be as successful. The fact that students went

three months without seeing their teachers, participating with other students, or having engaging

hands on learning is a glaring lack of leadership at the county level. Teachers tried to get as

many extension activities as they could, but those coupled with the learning platforms that they

had to finish made for a frustrating time in many households. During this time, I felt like the only

community that I had was with my staff and administrators who were trying their best to operate

with square pegs and a round hole. I felt isolated from a parent community that, at the Charter
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School, is extremely strong and welcoming. Honestly, I feel that the community has never truly

recovered from that half year where they were left on an island by our county leaders.

Evaluation—

During the initial half year of the Covid response, there was not much that went well.

One of the few aspects that improved was the community of teachers. There was a real effort to

create a strong community that focused and helped with staff members' social and emotional

health during the time. But even in that win, there was frustration because we were not able to

give that same help to our students. Another positive was the relationship that was developed

with our school leadership. People could see how hard they were working and how loud they

were in trying to let us do different things to benefit our students. The challenges were endless.

A poor learning platform created stale and disengaged lessons that students presented and

learned nothing from. The lack of face to face interactions with students made us feel like we

were communicating through AOL in the early 2000s. Not being able to support our students

with more than an email was disheartening, especially for our students from struggling families.

It weighed heavily on us that we could not reach out to those students regularly. Families

struggled with internet access early on. The county did work on creating hotspots around the

county to try to help mitigate some of that. We had some attendance issues, but overall we had

most of the students that we would normally have in school. In classes I felt disconnected from

the material and the students because of the learning platform. Most of my correspondence with

students was about completion or giving them access to quizzes they had struggled with. There

was little to zero social emotional interaction besides semi-forced conversations and birthday

car lines for students whose parents reached out to us. It was baffling that we as a county could

not use video conferencing, it still confuses me to this day.

Over the next half year, the district realized their mistake. When we came back to school

in August we were able to use google meet and created a new plan to be able to teach our
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students through video conferencing. This created a reinvigorated staff that could come back

into the building later on and create lessons that were engaging and equally important, we could

assess and help with students' social emotional health. Our administration, and team lead

leadership worked together to develop schedules that worked and didn't burn students out. It

took some time and some growing pains but eventually we figured out a plan that was able to

be executed effectively. What happened when we came back is something that needs to

happen across the board at the county level, they need to be two steps ahead. When I viewed

some of the videos from the Corona Virus Chronicles, the schools that were most successful

had plans in place at a small level so they could build them and not have to create them from

nothing. In the future, our country needs to look into some risk assessment and develop plans to

make sure that something like this can not derail education again.

Presently, the school has taken a lot of lessons from the Covid plans. Student

technology is more accessible than ever. Teachers use more meaningful technology in the

classroom because they understand it from PDs that we have had and they see the

engagement that it gives to the students. We have learning management systems in place that

allow the students to be more organized and on top of their own learning. As a school, we can

use zoom and google meet for events that we used to only be able to use in person meetings

for. There are a lot of good solutions that came out of this time period that we can use going

forward. Unfortunately, they took too long and it made for a time that had lasting effects on

students, teachers, administrators and families.

Personally I think this time made me lose a little faith in the county decision making

system. I saw a school that had great ideas, supported feedback and listened to their staff and it

fell on deaf ears. I saw a lot of staff disheartened and losing their passion for education which

led to them leaving the profession shortly after the pandemic. I think it helped me evolve to be a

better teacher and go the extra mile for my students because I knew what the alternative looked

like. It created an avenue for me to pursue technology in the classroom and how it could be
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used in an effective and engaging way. But I think it created a vacuum in our community that

never came back. The school used to be so connected and families and teachers would

lockstep with each other. After Covid, the community has become distant and never recovered

from a time when they were given a laptop for their child and told to be a parent, teacher and

professional. I see the development of students in school and think that this period of time had

an extremely harmful effect on how students communicate with their teachers, each other and

how they participate in their academics. I don’t know if that is what it looks like in districts that

had great Covid plans, but I know that in our elementary school there is a major lasting impact

and lack of social emotional regulation.

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Works Cited

Chesapeake Public Charter School. MSDE . (n.d.).

https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/programs/Pages/Charter-Schools/
CharterSchools/ChesapeakePCS.aspx