Introduction

COVID-19 has a polarizing and contentious impact on the educational industry overall. Due, to COVID-19, that nation has realized the importance of education not only to children, but to the ability of their parents to properly perform their work duties. Without proper schooling, parents are heavily restricted in their overall ability to perform their career or job duties. Likewise, with the inability to perform job tasks efficiently, parents are often forced to work longer hours as they juggle multiple tasks within the household. This further contributes to parental stress as parents grapple with the pressures of properly educating their children while also maintaining their career and job prospects.

As an educator COVID-19 has exacerbated my professional growth. First it has allowed me to be much more innovative with the delivery of my teaching methods and techniques. As COVID-19 has heavily restricted attendance within physical classrooms, I was forced to leverage new technologies that expanded the manner in which I could deliver instruction. Hybrid class formats expanded my ability to teach in-person and online course in a much more productive manner. This format was ultimately a benefit for my professional growth as I was able to interact with parents on a much more consistent basis. A quick video call replaced parent-teacher conferences which are subject to transportation costs, tardiness due to traffic, cancellations by parents, or the inability for both parents to attend due to work related reasons. With video conferencing as was able to communicate and collaborate with parents much more frequently, thus enabling the growth of my students in a much more collaborative fashion. I also had to ensure the safety of not only the children who did attend the facility but the health of other staff members. This was critical to maintaining not only service, but the overall quality of service that can be delivered to a limited number of students. In these instances, I was able to take a leadership role in helping to mitigate the spread of infectious diseases throughout the facility. I was able to personally set standards of social distancing, cleanliness, and safety that was replicated by other teachers throughout the school.

From a personal perspective, I now have a much greater appreciation for healthcare and its implications for the world. Over 500,000 Americans have died which is a testament to the severity of it compared to passed viruses. I have been fortunate enough to receive a vaccine due to my role as a teacher, but many others still remain to get vaccinated, which could cause further death. I have personally become much more appreciative of healthcare workers and their overall role in keeping America healthy. Also, from a personal perspective I now have a much more appreciative for a holistic approach to teaching that combines multiple facets to deliver a higher quality experience. I enjoyed, looking for new and innovative methods in which to teach my courses. From the pandemic, I have personally gained a much more innovative mindset that looks to challenge the status quo and deliver unparallel service. Finally, I have also become much more operations focused. Although innovative and utilizing new teaching methods is beneficial, the benefits actually accrue through proper executive. From a personal perspective I often find myself thinking about how to better execute various functions within the classroom and within the teaching facility overall. I find myself thinking about operations and how to improve quality throughout the school as it relates to online learning, inclusion, diversity, and how to better engage with students.

Standard 3: Equity and Cultural Responsiveness - Effective educational leaders strive for equity of educational opportunity and...

…is experiencing family related trauma (Studer, 2004). Through this experience I developed a strong appreciate for counseling and its merits towards ensuring that student can maintain their overall academic success.

Standard 8: Meaningful Engagement of Families and Community - Effective educational leaders engage families and the community in meaningful, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial ways to promote each students academic success and well-being.

COVID-19 has caused unprecedented disruption to teaching in a traditional classroom setting. I have already articulated the numerous ways in which I have engaged with family members throughout this process. Evidence has shown that more engaged parents often lead to better student outcomes (Kellaghan, 1993). As such, I consistently engaged through video conferencing and dialogue with my parents to ensure that were involved in the instruction of their children, particularly for students taking the hybrid course options. Here, I set a personal goal of at least one video conference with a parent every 2 weeks. Although more frequent, the meetings often did not last long as we in constant communication. This ultimately helped the student feel accountable as their parents and the instructor where both working together for the benefit of the student.

Standard 10: School Improvement - Effective educational leaders act as agents of continuous improvement to promote each students academic success and well-being.

As noted above, I my primary contribution to the school improvement was helping to foster a clean, safe, and orderly environment in which students can learn without fear. Here, I utilized the CDC guidelines for instructing within a confined environment. I disseminated these guidelines to other instructors, staff, and leadership within the facility. With the help of leadership, we created an oversight committed tasked with oversee that all the guidelines were being met. In addition, instituted many of the now standard practices within the school such as temperature…