When we told our students to stay home on March 12 for a trial run of remote learning, our goal was to prepare for what we thought might be heading our way. We wanted to be ready. We had announced the at-home practice several days in advance, yet it never crossed our minds that our students would not return to campus for the rest of the semester. I will never forget the night before this practice run; I felt like I was watching the world shift. I sat reading the news in the wee hours of March 12. The World Health Organization had just declared the novel coronavirus a global pandemic. The United States surpassed 1,000 cases. The NBA suspended its season. The NCAA basketball tournament barred fans. 

At 4:04 a.m., hours before the start of our students’ first day of remote learning, I sent this message to a colleague: “Everything has changed overnight.” 

We shifted to full-time virtual school that day. We had to invite our students back to campus that weekend to collect the belongings they had unsuspectingly left in their lockers. Our teachers, with two weeks of remote-school practice behind them, revamped their classrooms and approaches to accommodate the shift. No one rested until June. What they accomplished thanks to dedication, collaboration, indescribably hard work and their devotion to their students amazes me to this day. 

No one prepared us for this, but we were prepared. We started laying the groundwork for a possible disruption in February. On February 1, a former student of mine emailed a video of an eerily empty Nanjing Road in Shanghai – one of the busiest streets in a bustling city. I shared the video during an upper school assembly on February 4. In his email, my young friend warned me: “Mrs. Townsend, be careful. It’s coming. This is where we are in Shanghai. It’s inevitable that it’s going to affect the United States.” I was also closely watching what was happening in New York City, where my daughter Emily, her husband and two school-age children lived. I spent much of that month on edge.

Once we began at-home learning, later dubbed REmote RE, we made the absolute best of a difficult situation. We had to, for the sake of our students and our community. Social distancing was something we hadn’t even really talked about. It was a new word in our lexicon, and we quickly learned what that meant. Many of us stayed on campus for the next week in something of a daze, but by the end of that week, March 20, both campuses were fully closed. 

The senior leadership team worked straight through spring break. We evaluated the daily schedule and made tweaks so kids would have less screen time. We did what we could to keep the spirits up in our community. I made a point of painting the cannon every week, and sharing personal messages in community emails. We strived to stay connected even though we could not get together physically. We brought in luminaries from Miami – several of whom were alumni – for virtual events that we called Paul Ransom Digital Podiums. We will take those with us into the future.

As the days turned into weeks, we realized that cherished end-of-year events such as Senior Send-Off, the 8th-Grade Send-Up and, of course, Commencement, would not be held in person. We did our best to keep events on the calendar, and we staged many if not all events virtually. We also invited our seniors to campus for a drive-through to celebrate Senior Send-Off. But it wasn’t the conclusion to their time at Ransom Everglades that the Class of 2020 expected or deserved. We promised to bring those students back to campus when it is safe to do so for one last gathering with their peers. In spite of their disappointment, our seniors led our school with optimism and grit. Student-body president Preston Edmunds ’20 showed incredible grace, wearing a constant smile and working to keep up the spirits of her peers. I relied a lot on Preston; I relied on my advisees. I wanted to stay abreast of what was happening with our kids, and I wanted to make sure they had a voice in this. That was important to us. 

A significant silver lining was the work that occurred in our new virtual classrooms. Our teachers’ efforts met with great success. We learned to use technology and remote platforms in ways that will long benefit our students. We really built muscles with technology, which was essential, and creativity and collaboration factored into everything we did. We remain fully committed to relationships and in-person learning, but we will toggle back and forth and take the best of both to continue to offer excellence at Ransom Everglades. We continued virtual learning when our students returned to school this past August, but it was no longer crisis learning. Our teachers logged many hours this summer in professional development. We have developed an online virtual learning program that is every bit as robust as our in-person academic program. 

This was a community effort. Our kids are excellent students, and good citizens. I could tell that they didn’t want to let their teachers down; they were resilient and dedicated. Our parents provided critical support. They created spaces in their homes for class work. They helped their children adjust, and they offered invaluable feedback. Our senior leadership team has never worked harder, and our board of trustees provided every resource to make this work. Yet I know we would all agree on this point: our faculty – flexible, unflappable, innovative – provided the foundation for all that we accomplished.

The speed at which COVID-19 hit surprised us. The ferocity of the pandemic battered us. But the learning never stopped at Ransom Everglades. For that, we can all be grateful.

Click this link to view a gallery of quotes from RE's faculty explaining how they met the extraordinary challenges brought by the pandemic.