A Backward Glance at the Covid Years

Around 12:01 AM, Sunday, March 13, 2020, we will change our clocks to "spring ahead" for daylight-savings time. As we look forward to spring, that day may be a good time to take a backward glance at the past two years...

March 13, is the two-year anniversary of  the day we called a special assembly to inform the CCS students that all schools in the state were being ordered to close down for two weeks "to flatten the curve." The term was so new that we showed a video in the chapel to explain the theory behind it.  We will not complain here that the two weeks gradually morphed into two years. Nor will we rehash what the months of isolation and/or protocols were like. We will pause to remember the loved ones we lost during these two years, and then we'll thank God we're together again and those two years are behind us. 

The following timeline of video links is primarily for the sake of the 50 families who have come to CCS since the year the pandemic nearly closed down our school for good. Had our steadfast families not banded together "come what may" during those trying months...had we not stayed true to our tuition commitments...had we we not encouraged each other during those dark months... it is very likely that there would have been no CCS for us to return to in the fall of 2020. God is good!

So here is our "Thank you" to the families who were here that 2019-2020 school year; here is our "Glad you joined us" to the 50+ families who have joined the CCS family since that year, and here is a  "Welcome to Calvary" for the dozens of new families planning to join us in the fall. Please join me in this backward glance lest we forget...

1. I made this short video and sent it to our school family to provide a sense of "calm" on the very sad occasion of walking into an empty school on the Monday after the closure. The stones in the box had been written on by our high school at Retreat to mark the that year's theme: "Never Alone."

2. Below is the first "video update" we sent to our homes during the closure. We had been in distant-learning mode for one week, and the state state had just announced that none of the classwork we had already begun with our high school would count toward graduation requirements. I wanted to make it clear that the news did not apply to Calvary Christian Schools.

3. Eagle's Nest Preschool is an important part of our CCS program. Roughly half of each year's graduating class has been at Calvary since preschool. When schools shut down, figuring out a way to keep the preschool viable was very difficult, but Mrs. K and I began "filming" a little TV show in our basement called "Mrs. K's Cozy Little Cabin," and she kept teaching the regular lessons three times a week. Viewers from well beyond CCS began watching faithfully. I attempted to keep parents engaged by adding little "jokes" that the children could not read. 

4. The next video update was to soften the blow of the news that we were all expecting to hear that week: schools would remain closed indefinitely. I came to the empty building to make this video. 

5. All of Mrs. Kapanka's "Cozy Little Cabin" shows can be seen at this website. but I wanted to include this one here in which she discreetly teaches 4-year-olds about the letter Q and transitions from Quilt to QUARANTINE, a concept all of us were still struggling with at the time. In hindsight, it would be easy to forget the caution we were all exercising in those first weeks of the shutdown, and Mrs. K thought it was important to include a word that would typically not be introduced to this age group.

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6. As some folks know from the archives of this "To Begin With" blog, I have dabbled in poetry NOW AND THEN. By April of the closure, cabin fever was beginning to set in. This was not only from the hours we spent in the basement "filming" the preschool show but ALSO from the lost rhythm of days, weekends, Sundays, etc. The evening news was beginning to concerns about mental health and the growing sense that nothing really mattered anymore. What an unthinkable situation for students. These words came to me on April 1, and I wanted to share them with students to remind them that EVERY DAY COUNTS....

7. Before I moved from the classroom to "administration," I used to teach college and high school speech and literature. Back around 1978, I became familiar with the three pieces of literature that I allude to in this "video chat" from my back yard. It was when the reality that we were unlikely to be returning to school began making people wonder what things would look like on the other side of the pandemic. 

8. There were many other videos shared in April and May, but we'll close with this one in which I was trying my best to say that someday this will all seem strange. (I did not know at the time that it would be a two year ordeal.).

I have posted these video clips (and those at the underlined links below) for the sake of the more than 50 families who are new to CCS since that spring semester (March-May) of 2020 when most of us were living somewhere between inexplicable caution and growing frustration. 

As things turned out, we had a parade on the last day of school and were the first high school in the state of Michigan to have our Commencement Ceremony on the original day it was schedule (albeit outdoors). It was in all the news sources. 

The next school year we were back in the building, and even though things were not quite normal, it was wonderful compared to the previous spring.  Four new "outdoor education pavilions," made the state-mandated protocols much easier to bear. 

Even so, the 2020-2021 school year was a difficult in many ways, which prompted a much needed "day away" at the Muskegon Winter Sports Complex. 

By the time 2022 came, we were still reeling from the previous 3 semesters, but in taking this backward glance at the Covid-19 ordeal and protocols that now seem to be behind us, you might be thinking, "My goodness! You guys sure went through a lot just to keep school open and appealing to families." To which I and the teachers would say, "Yep... we sure did. It wasn't easy, but it was worth it!"