The pandemic represented perhaps the greatest single challenge that schools in this country have faced in a single year. At Indianapolis Public Schools, we made four detailed contingency plans for what school could look like — and we ultimately used every single one of those plans, from fully remote, to fully in-person and hybrids in between. Teachers had to totally reinvent their jobs, students missed their friends, and so many members of our community experienced tremendous loss.
After all of that, I know we’re all relishing this summer break — as a time to stop reliving the challenges of the past year, and embracing it as a time to rest, rejuvenate and to have fun. But as we closed out the 2020–21 school year, I realized something important: We’ve talked so much about the challenges of this past year, but we haven’t stopped to recognize the wins. And there are real superheroes among us.
In the days when we first started to understand what this pandemic would become, when we had no idea how bad it might get, I think we all asked ourselves how we would get through this. I can tell you how we did:
It was because of employees like Jamie Thompson, a pre-K teacher at Clarence Farrington School 61, who every day drove families to food pantries, and turned her garage into a depot where families could come and pick up what they needed.
And employees like Angela Knight, a family and community engagement liaison at Raymond Brandes School 65, who did home visits through the entire pandemic, even driving two hours to Merrillville to deliver school materials to children who were staying at their father’s house.
It’s easy to forget, as our world reopens, that Team IPS accomplished something we couldn’t have ever imagined a couple of years ago — we made it possible to offer school without the school building. No matter what was thrown our way, we kept going. And we never steered from our non-negotiables around safety and academics.
Our staff was resilient from the start: Since March 2020, IPS staff provided more than 870,784 breakfast and lunch meals to students to make sure every child had access to a healthy meal. We partnered with Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana to recruit 440 additional volunteers and establish 42 meal sites across Indianapolis, which distributed more than 70,000 meal boxes to IPS families — that’s 3 million meals!
When we got students and staff back in the building, we weren’t just resilient, we were ready: IPS provided more than 375,000 disposable and cloth masks to students and staff and used more than 2,800 gallons of hand sanitizer across the district. We installed 160 new touchless water fountains. Our bus drivers cleaned buses so no student ever sat in an unsanitized seat.
We redesigned our technology infrastructure to support almost 33,000 students and staff. That meant distributing 28,270 Chromebooks, 12,415 iPads, and 9,324 WiFi hotspots! We also partnered with Circle City Broadcasting to televise lessons that were accessible to everyone, helping our dedicated parents who were tasked with helping their children learn.
And we’re not done: Students who we identified as needing aggressive academic support — especially those who had become disconnected from school — have been offered high-quality summer school and high-dosage tutoring to catch them up. For those who’ve suffered trauma, we’re making it easier to access mental health supports. At the same time, we’re upgrading our schools so they’ll be safe and welcoming — with everything from improved ventilation to 21st-century internet technology.
It wasn’t just the IPS staff that stepped up to make all this happen. Parents and community partners did, too — and in astonishing ways. Deidre Fallon, a parent at George Washington Carver School 87, applied for her substitute teaching license and started accepting substitute teaching positions when no one else was available — while working her full-time job at IU Health where she volunteered as a COVID-19 vaccine site coordinator. We held 14 learning sessions through the district’s IPS Parent Institute and hosted four school-entry vaccine clinics in tandem with community partners.
Above all this, our students were the bravest, the most resilient, the most inspiring. When other students went back to school in person, Kelia Miller at Crispus Attucks High School decided to continue remote learning while balancing a part-time job and volunteer work at two organizations as a mental health advocate for other teens. Even with those extracurricular activities, she still graduated No. 1 in her class. This fall, Kelia will attend IUPUI and major in child psychology.
Then there is Stephanie Aguilar, a member of the student council and student voice association where she gained the courage to speak up and speak out against discrimination, amid all the challenges of the year. Stephanie, who graduated in June, plans to go to Taylor University and become a social worker. These students — and so many others like them — are my heroes.
I won’t minimize the impact that a year of a global pandemic has had on all of us. But, as I reflect on this past year, I realize that this IPS family — our staff, our parents, our partners, our students — not only met the moment, we rose above it.
And one thing is really clear: we’re never going back to “normal.” We’ve proved we can be so much better than that. We’re going to bring that innovative, nimble spirit into next year, diving into our strategic goals head first.
So, get outside, and enjoy a summer full of joy. But take a moment to be proud of yourself, and all we accomplished together. I’m proud to be your superintendent, and I’ll see you in August.
Aleesia Johnson is superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS).
