June 2021

Dear Preston Learning Community,

Congratulations to all of our students, especially our grade 8 students, for navigating this unprecedented time. As we close out the 20-21 school year, implement our first ever full summer school, and begin designing our 21-22 school reopening plan, it seems appropriate to take a moment and reflect on the challenges of the last 460 plus days!

A simple measure of the complexities of these last months, since March 2020, can be measured by the box full of thick three-ring binders in my office packed with advice and guidance from the CDC, DPH, CSDE, UNCAS Health, as well as the 90+ executive orders from the Governor’s office. These documents memorialize the shifts in direction and the community learning curve of how to implement mitigation strategies in response to the dangers of the pandemic. All of our learning community members; teachers, paraeducators, transportation team, food service team, custodians building and grounds, administrators, our PTO, the Board of Education, town leadership, parents, and, especially our students, worked hard to set a relatively stable path forward. We built understandings. We reviewed safety issues with our district safety team. We enacted Memorandums of Agreements. We created new learning environments. We learned and relearned instructional tools. We absorbed anxiety and worry so that we could move forward. We affirmed that there is nothing better than face-to-face instruction. As a state and as a community, we stayed ahead of the curve, gradually, safely opening our schools up after a total shutdown.

Returning to a full schedule enabled parents, educators, students, and citizens to reengage and support each other as we normalized our learning community. Our peaceful hamlet experienced disruption, illness, fear, anxiety, and loss. We needed time to stabilize and we found it by fully returning to in-person classes. We had time before the summer to check in on students, reframe their learning and assess their social-emotional temperament. We all carry quiet burdens, and it has never been more important to be aware and offer support to those who were challenged both physically and emotionally by the last many days of the pandemic. We are so grateful for the flexibility, dedication, commitment, kinship, and care of everyone in our learning community.

In many unprecedented and creative ways, our community has responded. It is a reflection of its people that Preston has prioritized relationship and come out stronger financially, programmatically, and as a community.

As we press on, stabilize and normalize, incorporate what we have learned, and plan to extend our understanding to address the pandemic's persistent worries, we authenticate that there is much work to do. It will be different work, not crisis-oriented but positive, building, creative, transformational work. With humility, humanity, patience, perseverance, kindness, and the reminder that we all need each other to move forward into a hopeful, positive, dynamic future, we will do more than succeed, we will transform.

It is an honor to serve you. With the deepest thanks and respect for your support and sacrifices, I wish you well for the summer and look optimistically toward the new school year.

With warm regards,

Roy M. Seitsinger, Jr., Ph.D.

Superintendent

Man (and women) is not affected by events, but by the view he (she) takes of them. Epictetus

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