I mentioned to our teachers and staff that Monday kind of felt like the first day of school all over again. I don't know about your kids, but boy was I excited to be back! See students again and watching the school building come out of our forced Covidian hibernation was heartwarming. There is no doubt kids belong in school, not at home learning remotely. I am hopeful and optimistic that the days of school-wide closures are past us, although I am aware that COVID realities haven't left us. Toward this end, I encourage every family to continue to pay attention to local public health guidelines and follow all recommendations and restrictions. If we all commit to these sacrifices now, it will help lessen the possibility we have make harder, stay-at-home sacrifices in the future.

One of the challenges all of us will face as we begin to move into the post-Covidian era will be dealing with the long-term consequences of the pandemic. Outside of school, families, businesses, and individuals will need to recover and find their new normal. Here at school, we will need to start the difficult work of making up for lost learning time. Although the efforts of the students (and their parents!) and our teachers during our extended remote learning period were Herculean, there is no denying that negative impact of the loss of face-to-face learning will be immense. We, here at Flynn, as well as in the larger WPS school district, have already begun to consider how best to move forward. The first step is measuring where we are, the second step is developing a strategic future plan.

The answer to this complex problem will be, well, complex. It will also include all of us to do our part to ensure the solution we establish is realized. Although I can't speak with any specificity at this time, I know simply going about business-as-usual before COVID times probably won't be enough. We will need to do more to make up any lost ground our students might experience. So, I am asking every family, every student, and of course every teacher to be ready to give a 110% effort as we move into the next phase of this pandemic, which hopefully will also be the ending phase.

These conversations will happen at P/T Conferences, which will be held on Monday, February 22nd from 2p-6p and Wednesday, February 24th from 4p-8p. Keep an eye out for scheduling information from your student(s) teachers. I will also provide any new information as it becomes available via The Falcon Newsletter.

In the meantime, welcome back everyone! It has been so great to see all of you and I look forward to hopefully optimistic wonderful semester ahead.

Dr. Kosena