Tyndall Park staff staying connected

Tyndall Park Community School teachers are getting by with a little help from their friends.

With in-school classes suspended due to COVID-19, Tyndall Park teachers took to Zoom for a professional learning conversation (PLC) on March 24. Zoom is an online cloud-based video conferencing platform.

All 29 Tyndall Park teachers participated in the PLC, which principal Gisèle Mospanchuk says touched on four main talking points: How’s it going? How do you feel? What is your sense of student engagement? What do you need?

“The first one was very emotional,” says Mospanchuk. “We have a teacher who is new to our staff, she started in January and does kindergarten and nursery. Her first comment was ‘It’s pretty lonely. You’re not seeing all the faces.’

“I said, “If we’re not all crying by the end of the meeting, I’m not sure what’s wrong with us.’

“Nobody wanted to leave the meeting. We were all hanging around, but it felt really good to know that everyone felt safe and didn’t feel judged. And we talked about how we can better connect with our students.”

Mospanchuk says the meeting started emotionally, but soon evolved into sharing ideas around teaching in this trying time, clarifying expectations and setting limits as to not overwhelm students and families. 

“We were feeling really overwhelmed last week with the bombardment of everything we knew needed to be done, but let’s just breathe and talk about what’s going to be best for everybody and not make things complicated,” Mospanchuk said.

“We can add more details or add more information as we become more familiar, but there is not much sense in delivering too much until you know what the response is. We’re digesting what the response is to what we’re doing and determining what’s successful.”

Tyndall Park teachers are also using Zoom to communicate with their students, as well as online services like email, Google Classroom and Seesaw, plus good old-fashioned print materials and phone calls. 

Mospanchuk says Tyndall Park teachers are also receiving help from the school’s inclusion support teacher, intercultural support worker, attendance officer, and clinical support staff.

Tyndall Park teachers will participate in Zoom PLCs every couple days, with support staff doing the same. 

Tyndall Park vice-principal Julye Rogoski said the PLCs will be invaluable during this time of social distancing. 

“This format has allowed us to maintain a certain level of normality in the chaos and keep our Tyndall Park family close and support each other in a different way, whenever needed,” Rogoski said.