Pillow Academy implemented lots of precautions when it decided to begin the new school year going straight to in-person instruction.
There would be temperature checks each morning for students and staff. Masks worn by everyone. An abundance of hand sanitizer. Limiting the numbers in the cafeteria and other common areas. Cleaning desks and other hard surfaces between class periods.
Donahoe
The steps are working, says Barrett Donahoe, the head of school.
“All of those things look different, but with all of that has been success,” he told the Greenwood Rotary Club Tuesday
Now into its fourth week of in-person classes, only two of the nearly 800 students enrolled in the school have tested positive for COVID-19, he said. Just 10 others have had to be quarantined because of close contact with someone who was infected.
The decision to return to school has been enthusiastically received, he said: “Our faculty, staff and more than anything our students are so appreciative and excited. The passion and energy to be on campus is fantastic.”
Donahoe, who was hired by Pillow after serving the previous four years as headmaster at Marshall Academy in Holly Springs, said the immediate focus for his new job shifted dramatically after the pandemic made its way to Mississippi in March.
Although Pillow finished the spring semester with everyone in distance learning, the feedback school officials received from parents was that they didn’t want to continue down that road in the fall.
Thus, the goals became twofold: to provide a safe and healthy environment at the school, and to maintain campus life for the entirety of the school year.
The decision to reopen the school, even with the layers of precautions to ward off the virus, has been gratifying for all those involved, he said. “A sense of normalcy got put back into their lives, even if the school day didn’t look normal like it used to.”
He said the school is prepared to do whatever it takes to maintain in-person instruction, even while it maintains a distance-learning option for families that aren’t comfortable yet sending their children into classrooms. Just 15 students have opted for distance learning for the first nine weeks, and those who have been quarantined have been shifted to this form of instructional delivery as well.
The school has tried to assess what impact abandoning in-person instruction for the last two months of the spring semester had on academic achievement. It’s been surprised that the learning gap does not appear to have been significant, Donahoe said.
“Virtual learning was a bit better than what it was anticipated to be.”
• Contact Tim Kalich at 581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
