LU’s alumni keep kids learning during the pandemic

Stu Guthrie

Principal

Bush Middle School  San Antonio, Texas

Bush Middle School Principal, Stu Guthrie, drew heavily on his experience in the LU doctoral program when implementing an online program for his school. The announcement about the pandemic came on Thursday of the school’s spring break, which gave Guthrie and his teachers a few days to prepare the “Bush Family” for an alternative learning system.

Before school was to start again on Monday, Guthrie sent an email to the semi-affluent school community comprising of 1,000 students, explaining the situation and what was going to happen. He also sent a Google form for kids to respond.

“Because I’m currently working on my doctorate, I knew we had to implement communication, which is big anytime but when you’re in a situation where everyone is going to be working from home, that’s even more important,” said Guthrie, who is in his first year of LU’s educational leadership program. “I told our faculty our communication has to be straightforward; we have to respond to emails faster; they have to be short and sweet with each other and we also have to do the same with our kids who would need real simple directions, checklists and a way to know they accomplished things.”

“As a result of being an online student at LU, I kept communication clear and concise, made all assignments phone friendly in the beginning and didn’t get fancy until we had everyone going in the right direction,”

Guthrie received 650 responses within a couple of days of sending his email survey, which was an indicator of how many students could be accessed electronically and how many students would need low-tech or paper options.

While Bush Middle School implemented Google Classroom for 95% of the online teaching, Guthrie continued his communication campaign to find out how he and the school could help students become online learners.

“Each week I personally called about 30 kids and parents - 10 per grade level - that had not been fully connected,” Guthrie said. “I asked how we could help them, devices, less work, etc. to get them through. It’s important that students see and hear from you and you continue to build personal connections.”

Guthrie learned what he expected; not every student had his or her home desk set up with computers, lights and materials. Additionally, some students were helping their younger siblings. Others had spotty internet connections.

In the coming weeks Guthrie remained focused on building strong personal connections and staying in touch with his faculty, students and parents, and consistently inquired how he could be part of the solution where problems arose, assuring parents their children would not fall behind and just listening to parents who needed to talk. The school issued Chromebooks and laptops where there was need and slowly implemented the online program for all students.

“As a result of being an online student at LU, I kept communication clear and concise, made all assignments phone friendly in the beginning and didn’t get fancy until we had everyone going in the right direction,” said Guthrie. “I've received good feedback from our community with how we rolled out our distance learning.”

In week five of the pandemic, Bush Middle School had 100% of its 1,000 students connected and working online, and Guthrie said teachers were able to stretch kids in their assignments and give a little bit more. 

“Initially, we stuck with one app or interface and didn’t get fancy until we had everyone open and going,” said Guthrie. “We still hit the highlights of the material we’re presenting and leave out the fluff, but I’ve told the teachers now is the time you can start to test the boundaries and ramp up the rigor a little bit.”

Guthrie continues to communicate and interact with students. He recently hosted a Zoom lunch, where he went into the school cafeteria with food from a local restaurant owned by a Bush family and kids popped in on Zoom. They talked about their food, their dogs, their families and the crisis.

The Bush pandemic experience is documented on Twitter: @mrguthrietweets.