Webinar Recap: K-12 Leaders Share Insight on COVID Communication, Safety & Working Smarter

Whether you’re re-opening, re-closing, going hybrid or continuing virtual, leaders are looking to each other to see what’s working for them.

• What are the lessons learned from operating school during the pandemic?
• What has helped your school district most during the pandemic?
• What tools have helped your team stay productive?
• What keeps your team motivated while working outside of the office?

In a recent webinar, we invited a panel of K-12 leaders to share insights and lessons learned on their experiences in the pandemic.

Panelists:

Heather Williams, Ed.D.
Executive Director, Personnel Services
Riverside County Office of Education

Dr. Charles Park
Director, Human Resources
Hacienda La Puente Unified School District

Jonathan Brunson
Assistant Superintendent, Human Relations
Milpitas Unified School District

Linda de la Torre
Asst. Superintendent, Administrative Services
San Marino Unified School District

Judy Correnti
Personnel Analyst
San Marino Unified School District

These leaders shared lessons learned on remote working, safety and effective communication in a COVID world. They discussed:

• Lessons learned from the pandemic
• Keeping students and employees safe
• The process and advantages of going paperless
• Effective communication

What are the biggest lessons learned since the pandemic hit and what would you do differently now?

Linda de La Torre: You need to stay one step ahead with professional development. Our teachers were not prepared for distance learning, but were able to step up and adapt. It’s also important to have stakeholders in your community.

Jonathan Brunson: We were very aggressive to make sure our kids were learning within three days of school closing. We work with additional institutions to make sure both our students and staff stay connected during physical isolation.

Linda de La Torre: We use Care Solus and Health Advocate to provide counsel and free financial advice to employees and their families as well as a focus on fun, humorous games to play weekly with staff for boosting morale.

How have you kept your team elevated and motivated while working outside of the office?

Heather Williams: We have frequent district and team meetings via Zoom, as well as informal pop-ins or games whenever staff need it. This helps us best understand just where each staff member is at. We instituted Communicate to Elevate to help our staff and community. This keeps us connected across our 23 county districts. We also do a weekly motivational video to all 1,700 employees. We try to balance work, fun and motivation to keep everybody going.

Three of our leaders each mentioned a book that immensely helped their teams:
The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni

What tools have helped your team stay productive?

Charles Park: Our Request for Remote Work form was created for our Principals to track remote work with their Classified staff. That has been helpful since early and frequent communication is important.  For safety, we have our admin use yard sticks to ensure everyone is adhering to the 6 ft guidelines. Our Facilities team has also installed sneeze guards around campus for added protection.

How have negotiations and leaves been affected since COVID?

Heather Williams: We’re used to negotiations being around a table, breaking bread and in-person. Obviously, that’s changed. We’ve had MOU’s and Open Contracts this year where we’ve missed that advantage. We’ve had luck, though, with making our Zoom meetings as personal as possible, asking questions like, “How are you? Where are you at working from home? Got a pet? Alright, everyone who does, hold them up to the screen.”  It’s important to remember is that negotiations don’t start at the table, but build organically, day-to-day, so I always make sure to stay connected in small, personal ways, like brief texts to check-in (how someone’s family is, etc.). This has help make our negotiations go a lot more smoothly. Also, it’s important to remember, it’s hard to get rid of language once it’s in your MOU’s, so be careful to keep that in mind for the upcoming, post-COVID world.

A few helpful tools mentioned by our Leaders for remote learning:

• Google Meets
• Google Classroom
• Zoom
• And the PD that goes around learning it all.

Bonus: Teachers continuing to virtually teach from within their classrooms give a more familiar feel to their students at home.  

What communication strategies to the community have been most effective for you?

Jonathon Brunson: Maintaining that circle of communication is most important, along with your honesty when you’re still waiting on information to be gathered. Make sure to keep the one-on-one communication fresh and personal, not just through email. Ask a lot of questions like, “What can we do to support you?” This way you don’t feel so compelled to just come up with all the answers. Our weekly Team Hall meetings have been really helpful, as well, to just check in, play music, showcase different presentations, etc. Our Ad Hoc committees have been helpful to keep communication fluent through all parties.

With a focus on safety, what measures have you put into place to assure social distancing between your employees, as much as possible?

Linda de la Torre: Our COVID Task Force has made sure social distancing takes place by posting a QR code at entrances where employees have to answer a series of questions about how they’re feeling. If it shows that they are sick, they immediately return home. We’ve also provided masks, hand sanitizers, gloves and access to digital thermometers for all our employees. We’re also preparing student cohorts for when we’re ready to return to school on a hybrid schedule. We meet weekly with our teams and Superintendent to makes sure planning goes as smooth as possible.

What communication strategies to the community have been most effective for you?

Heather Williams: To clarify, our communication is to the districts, then districts communicate with their communities. We incorporate our labor partners before any outgoing communications are sent. Our FAQ, Personnel and Help pages inform a wide audience, as well as the short videos our Superintendent puts out.

What would you say to anyone wanting to go paperless?

Judy Correnti: I use Helios every day. I’ve saved countless hours with the electronic Onboarding and Reports. The remote access has been extremely helpful for viewing files, managing the Hiring process and doing Evaluations online. We also have less paper this year, which is great since our files were to the max! Thankfully, that’s no longer the case.

Linda de La Torre: I would, unreservedly, recommend Helios to anyone wanting to go paperless. It’s been amazing; absolutely seamless from start to finish. It’s so easy for employees to go online to access and e-sign documents and do evaluations, remotely. It takes so much pressure off our Principals and Staff. Helios has been a great partner in that they’re always available to assist with any questions we have. We never have to wait for responses. I can’t say enough great things about the partnership we’ve had with Helios.

Jonathon Brunson: Going paperless just makes sense. It takes having that vision and great relationship with a partner to make it happen. In deciding on that partner, Helios was, by far, the platform that my team felt the most comfortable with. We’re excited to introduce it to more folks.

Charles Park: We rolled out with Helios two years ago. They promised to always be available whenever we had questions and that has stood its test. The training and accessibility has been on-point, so we’re excited to continue this relationship.

Team need a morale boost?
Focus on fun, humorous games to play weekly with staff!

Watch the full webinar for additional tips and advice from these educational leaders. This webinar was hosted by Brian Juarez, who has more than 20 years in education as a teacher, education technology specialist and national presenter of professional development workshops.

About Helios Ed:
As a leading provider of web-based, K-12 HR and Business e-solutions, Helios has been helping schools with onboarding, electronic forms and more for over a decade. Watch video previews on Helios YouTube and Vimeo channels. Also, read our blog for everything from funding to savings calculator.