The current pandemic forced distance learning in schools to keep students, educators, families, and communities safe. New stressors have emerged with this new style of learning, especially for students who may have already been struggling.
Right now, probably more than any time in history, the leadership in charter and private schools are facing their biggest management challenges. School leaders are being pulled in every direction. Social-emotional barriers to distance learning, information overload, confusion, mounting deadlines, and budget constraints are having a big impact on student and teacher retention.
On a recent episode of Influencers Radio with Jack Mize, Award-Winning Dean and Educational Consultant Jacqueline Gonzalez-Reyes discussed how she is helping Charter and Private School leaders throughout the US to promote students’ well-being, progress, and success during a pandemic.
During the interview, Jaqueline explained one of the biggest challenges facing school leadership today, saying, “When it comes to private and charter schools, we’re looking at retention. We noticed overnight when we started building some of our digital programs, it changed our dynamic, our infrastructure, and how we operate, which led to a lot of questions from all of our stakeholders and students. What did the school day look like? Was there a limitation of time? When was I going to go back in person? As well as our families. As you can imagine, our board members and teachers were on the frontlines really trying to navigate as best as possible. But this created a lot of stressors that were changing day by day as many of the guidelines started changing. Many people are concerned about academics, as well. We also went through some cultural differences that the pandemic brought in 2020. As a school leader, I am so excited to see how I can continue to support some of these challenges that really have an impact on retention. It’s not just impacting a student’s attendance score, but they also are starting to impact budgets, whether there’s enough of the budget to go around to retain our qualified staff, as well as operational budgets.”
