I’m just going to say, if you’re a parent and your kids are going back to school this week and you even remotely complain, whine, or get angry at the local school staff for not having done enough or for not being prepared enough, you need to not do that.

Our whole admin team, counsellor team, and secretary team (as well as every other admin/counsellor/secretary I know) have been working non stop since Monday for 12-16 hours a day, including all weekend long to get things ready for student return.

Please remember that individual schools HAVE NO SAY when students come back into their buildings; that’s all on the division (or the minister if she wanted to do that across the province). I can guarantee you that people are working as much as they can to get ready.

I’ll also remind you that people are giving double or triple their normal working hours for ZERO EXTRA PAY all to get as close to ready as we can. None of us gets overtime, extra hours, nothing. And yet here we are HUNDREDS of people in each division, giving every waking hour.

So if you get on social media this week to whine about how your kids’ school was so disorganized, or the teacher didn’t have a fun activity ready, don’t you dare put that on the school. Email the minister, email your trustee, etc but don’t you dare put any of that on the school.

This message has been brought to you by a very tired school counsellor who hasn’t had time to do anything fun for a week now. Please, take your anger where it should go, but give your school staff some grace, some forgiveness, and some acceptance for not being magicians.

Also, I want to say that most of the parents I’ve dealt with this week have been fantastic, incredible, amazing, and wonderfully understanding and patient. So thank you for being those people. When you give us some grace, it’s like a warm sunbeam of joy shows up for us.

And the time it took me to write this thread is the longest break I’ve taken since Thursday evening, other than the seven ish hours I take to sleep.

I keep thinking of things to add, so a note about teachers (rather than counsellors/admin). Your kids’ teachers are rockstars. They’re working their butts off too, trying to plan their days and courses, all while having their classes changed, moved, and shifted.

They’re arranging classrooms to be as safe as possible, then rearranging when their classes are switched over & over again. They are dealing with the anxiety of back to school, all while sometimes being a day away from having students, & still not knowing what they’re teaching.

It’s a bit like that dream you have where you’re standing in front of a group of people all waiting for you to say something... but you haven’t prepared and you freeze. Our teachers may only have a day to prepare, so go easy on them too.

And no teacher, counsellor, principal, EA, learning commons person, etc get into education to be celebrated, but the work that is happening right now is one of the most astounding, remarkable, awe-inspiring things I’ve ever seen.

I wish I could figure out how to capture and acknowledge the Herculean effort that is being made right now. Because the people making this happen are... there are no words to describe them properly.