Pam Nicholas is an extraordinary educator who serves as executive director of Huntington-Surrey High School. Below, she shares her candid thoughts and feelings about the challenges and uncertainties of the coming school year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic that is currently surging here in Central Texas.

I, like many other parents and people in the education community, have been glued to any news or information about what school district plans are looking like for the fall. As both a teacher and an administrator for our small private high school, I have so many emotions running through me about the idea of returning to school in the fall. I know that many kids learn best when they are face-to-face. I miss hugging my kids (okay, students) every day. I miss seeing them face-to-face, and I even miss going on my occasional Starbucks runs for them. It was hard to see them only online in the spring and to know that they too were emotionally struggling with so much going on in the world.

On the other hand, having my own personal health issues, I am not one to take my health or anyone else’s for granted. I was proud of the fact that my school managed to both help flatten Austin’s curve in the spring and provide our students with an excellent virtual education with no missed days of school. Now, these summer months are leaving me with time to reflect on what went well, what could be improved, how we can keep our students engaged, and how we can best support our kids, our teachers, and our families in these very disconcerting times.

With hospitals in Austin getting close to being overwhelmed, it is troubling for me to hear elected officials talk about having schools return to face-to-face classes in the fall. There is so much talk about how the virus is mild in children, but the facts of the matter are that some children do get quite ill and children can transmit the virus between one another, to their families, and to their teachers. There is no way to predict right now which one of us will have a mild case, who will have severe illness or ongoing medical issues to contend with, and who will die. As a private school administrator, could I ever live with the fact that I did have the “luxury” of keeping school virtual but I chose not to, and someone were to get seriously ill or die because of that choice? I know some of my parents are really wanting to return to face-to-face instruction because, of course, it is the best way for their kids to learn and there is nothing like face-to-face social interactions with their friends. However, I’m not one to gamble, and I am certainly not feeling comfortable gambling with the lives of the people in my community.

As a private high school, we were and are extremely privileged in the sense that our kids are old enough to be home by themselves, if need be, and our kids are already extremely familiar with technology. With our very small student-to-teacher ratios, we could still pay a lot of attention to each student during class times and were able to be available to them outside of regular class times for extra help. I won’t say everything went perfectly transitioning to live, online classes (we were Zoom-bombed only once, thank goodness!), but I know that our kids knew we were there for them, got to have some pretty interesting conversations, still managed to learn new skills, and were able to practice those skills with the live support of their peers and teachers.

So, what were some lessons learned, and what can we, as parents, educators, or, like me, both, do this coming fall? All of us need to have some positive interaction during the day. Having good, interesting conversations, even virtually, keeps kids engaged. Teaching using Socratic methods also helps to keep them engaged. We’ve learned that some kids are still going to struggle, especially those with ADHD. Our ADHD students can spend hour upon hour on a screen playing Minecraft, but it is quite different from taking an online course. We have found that having them attend class via cell phone in a well-lit room with just a table or desk really helps with mitigating the temptation to use other apps during class time.

Parents helping kids stay organized and on top of their homework as they adjust can help a lot, too. When kids were out and about during the day, it was easier to make sure they were doing their independent work at a regularly scheduled time. Now with them home all day, it is easier to assume they will just get it done. That really isn’t the case. Parents with children of any age can help their kids find success by having them on a consistent routine, including time slotted specifically for homework. Regular sleep times, physical activity times, and homework times can go a long way.

Another way to help our kids in an online environment is for teachers to record their classes. Our school will be posting them online so that if a student wasn’t able to focus, for whatever reason, the class is there for them to see at a better time. We are also continuing our study halls during the school days so kids can get their homework done with a teacher live to help them and make sure progress is being made on assignments. It’s important for schools to be able to provide one-on-one help if they can, even if it isn’t academic help. Our teachers will continue to simply check in with each of our students to find out how they are coping. Offering frequent “just for fun” opportunities can help, too. This summer and beyond, we will continue to offer online social opportunities for our kids to virtually get together. Working hand-in-hand with our parents, students, and faculty, we will give our students the best possible educational experience we can provide.

Times are tough right now for most of us, and alt-ed schools have a lot of difficult decisions to make over the coming days and weeks. The balance between the grown-ups having to work, the children needing in-person attention, and everyone wanting to help keep everyone safe is an exceedingly difficult one to find. I know we are all going to try our best, and hopefully working together with a lot of patience and empathy, we will make the best of what seems like an impossible situation.

Pam Nicholas

Elliot Hallmark, a staff member at the Clearview Sudbury School, contributed this guest post on the scarcity of and need for alternative schools that serve teenagers. Welcome, Elliot!

Two years after graduating from university, I was considering my options. I had been accepted into the University of California at Merced to study nonimaging optics. It seemed like a great opportunity, but I felt a strong concern that the engineering companies I would inevitably end up working for were not worth my life energy. The revolutionaries I admired all spoke of an attitude toward science that would bring freedom to humanity. Unsure of my final path, I decided teaching high school science would allow me to explore this possibility. I went looking around for alternative high schools in Austin.

I had heard of Sudbury schools and free schools. Democracy and freedom, both core principles in these types of schools, stand out to me as values necessary for the dignity of humans, including high school students. The teenage years are a period when freedom of thought and action is of great importance. High school was the time in my life when my mind was reaching out most for ideals, trying to figure myself into the creation of a better world.

Over months of research it seemed that I must be searching poorly. I found numerous alternative schools for students under 13. I found college prep private schools. I found the public "alternative high school" attempts at places for kids who could not or would not fit into the standard model. I found that the more established alternative models sometimes, sometimes, sometimes find their way to the high school level. But I did not find the high school community of freedom, equality, and respect I was looking for.

It was nearly two years later that I did finally find a fledgling democratic school, for ages 5–19. It is just what I had hoped to find. At Clearview Sudbury School, where I now work, as students and staff we cultivate freedom through democracy and respect.

I have heard high school aged students at our school say that the younger students sometimes look up to them. They are a model that matters to more than themselves. These teenagers have skills that are useful and interests that are interesting. I have seen them take an equal part in some managerial aspects of the school. I have seen them use their time and energy to pursue online classes, college classes, and performance arts, as they felt suited them. They correct me sometimes, and they tell me about interesting things I didn’t know. I see that the freedom to learn that is the foundation of being an adult also prepares the young to be adults, and I wonder why institutions like this are so incredibly few.

The standard model has produced hundreds of millions of adults who are intelligent and reasonably successful. I myself survived to become a person I am quite happy to be. Yet most thoughtful people I know consider high school to have been largely a waste of their days, sprinkled only sparsely with deeply enriching encounters. (Not to mention, the standard model has churned out countless incompetent and dull examples as well.)

One tough issue that families interested in alternative education face is concern over the objective value of an alternative high school education. Students need to be accepted by colleges and offered jobs based on how they look on paper. But standard accreditation and state test scores interest neither employers nor most university admissions officers. It is the combination of emotional maturity, curiosity, life experience, and intelligence of the student that carries the day (and also SAT/ACT results, essays, interviews, portfolios, etc.).

Studies in this regard have been conducted on generations of students and graduates of the Sudbury Valley School. Sudbury Valley departs from the traditional high school model to the most extreme degree. Institutions requesting a transcript receive, instead, a letter saying, essentially, “It is not the place of our school or its staff to evaluate students.” Now, applying to a university without submitting SAT or ACT scores or without the required essays most likely would result in rejection. But generations of Sudbury Valley graduates have shown that the complete lack of any evaluation by this high school does not hurt. Something like 80 percent have gone on to higher education.

Alternative high schools of the type I envision are small and few in Austin, but they are growing and maturing. Though teenagers are still largely underrepresented in the struggle for a sane childhood, there are—and there deserve to be— real alternative high school options.

Elliot Hallmark