Interview by Maile Biehl
The Falconer: What have your feelings been like throughout the Covid-19 pandemic?
Mrs. O’Connor: Like everybody, when it first started, it was very overwhelming and from the perspective of a nurse and having experience with public health and communicable disease, it was scary for me because I was thinking about what it may imply and impose on the community. I think it went from overwhelming to a little scary, for everybody. There was a lot of uncertainty. I think whenever we feel uncertain about a situation, we feel a little anxious about what it will mean for all of us.
The Falconer: How have you been coping with the changes this pandemic has caused?
Mrs. O’Connor: When I think of coping, I think of coping strategies, so for me personally, it's been really important to keep connected with my friends by phone and the internet and staying as connected as I can to my family. My children live far away and I haven't seen one of my daughters in over a year or my grandchildren so I've been trying to keep as connected as I can through those means. I also cope by getting outside, getting some fresh air and exercise. I love to hike and I love to bike. In the summer it was nice because you could do that a little easier than you can now, but even now, I think it's important to get out and spend some time in nature. That's been my coping strategy throughout my adult life, to get out into nature. Those are the things I've done to be more physically healthy and to feel more settled emotionally.
The Falconer: What have your feelings been like throughout the Covid-19 pandemic?
Mrs. O’Connor: Like everybody, when it first started, it was very overwhelming and from the perspective of a nurse and having experience with public health and communicable disease, it was scary for me because I was thinking about what it may imply and impose on the community. I think it went from overwhelming to a little scary, for everybody. There was a lot of uncertainty. I think whenever we feel uncertain about a situation, we feel a little anxious about what it will mean for all of us.
The Falconer: How have you been coping with the changes this pandemic has caused?
Mrs. O’Connor: When I think of coping, I think of coping strategies, so for me personally, it's been really important to keep connected with my friends by phone and the internet and staying as connected as I can to my family. My children live far away and I haven't seen one of my daughters in over a year or my grandchildren so I've been trying to keep as connected as I can through those means. I also cope by getting outside, getting some fresh air and exercise. I love to hike and I love to bike. In the summer it was nice because you could do that a little easier than you can now, but even now, I think it's important to get out and spend some time in nature. That's been my coping strategy throughout my adult life, to get out into nature. Those are the things I've done to be more physically healthy and to feel more settled emotionally.
If we see the numbers trending down and we get down really low related to people getting vaccinated, that is very hopeful. I would hope that we would be able to keep the numbers down as people develop immunity as we have with other types of infectious diseases.
The Falconer: Before March 13th, was Covid-19 on your radar?
Mrs. O’Connor: Last February, you started hearing a lot of discussion about the “new virus” in the media and in medical circles, so I started to think about it and how it may affect us in the school setting. But we didn't wear masks in March and we didn't have all of these restrictions. I actually traveled last February vacation as there were no travel restrictions. Then March hit and we were trying to wrap our heads around all the information coming out, listening to the experts on what the next steps were. By early spring and summertime, we had different restrictions on us and we never got back to school last year. The governor closed the schools and clamped down on social interaction so we were starting to get the reality of the situation. During the summer we were still out and about which I think helped to cushion the impact of those restrictions. You could find plenty of other stuff to do, you could go to the beach as long as you stayed far enough apart. Everybody was out and about and the COVID case numbers were still manageable. But then the Fall happened...the cold weather came and we all went indoors, and I think that's when we all really started to feel the impact.
The Falconer: Were there any precautions the school was taking before the shutdown?
Mrs. O’Connor: We were trying to stay up to date on all of the information that was coming out from the CDC and trying to make the best decisions. When we left in March, I never thought we wouldn't be back. We didn't really start a lot of the planning until it was clear that we were going to be out of school for an extended period of time. Once we knew what it would take to get us back into the schools safely, we had to do a lot of planning to do and a lot of guidelines to follow.
The Falconer: What did it take to prep for this school year?
Mrs. O’Connor: The Administration and other community officials worked closely with the Mashpee Board of Health and the DPW. They looked at implementing all the regulations and all of the safety measures that are currently in place. These are called mitigating measures, things like the masks, social distancing and the hand sanitizer. The school administration did an incredible job, all summer long, trying to plan for the return of students in September. They had to think of the set up of the building and had to revise classrooms and limit how many people in each space based on the 6 foot distance criteria that we use. They had to order supplies and order them early on because they never knew when they were going to get them due to the shortage. They were diligent in ordering us enough supplies like the masks and the hand sanitizers. We changed some of the structure of the buildings. We now have all touchless faucets for hand washing and toilets that flush on their own so you don't have to touch any of the surfaces. That was a huge undertaking as far as infrastructure.
They considered the building, the space, the supplies, and the protocols. We were educating ourselves about what to do if you have a positive case, how you quarantine and how you contact trace. All of those things went into the preparation. The nurse at the K.C. Coombs, Stacey Schakel, took on the role as the COVID Nurse for the district. She is the COVID expert for our district and has worked very closely with all of those agencies that I mentioned. The VNA (Visiting Nurse Association) has been key in helping us with contact tracing so we can operate and stay safe. That's the goal, to keep kids as engaged as possible with their school work while everyone is as safe as possible.
That's where our learning model came into play. Our hybrid model allows half of the population to be here and half of them are remote. That's the model that the administration chose, with the one week on and one week offl. Some districts chose a few days on, one day cleaning and two days remote. It looks different in every district. I think the model that we chose was a wise decision. Aside from the continuity of being in the building with their teachers for one full week, if someone is in quarantine, they spend a week remote anyway so they can participate as they normally would. It is easier to negotiate the remote and hybrid based on what a situation might call for. I think the administration did a great job. They really were diligent. They didn't stop for a minute. The scheduling alone was such an undertaking to get all of the students scheduled and the way they had to modify the schedule to fit everybody in.
The Falconer: What has changed about your job this year from previous years?
Mrs. O’Connor: A lot of things have changed. At the MMHS I don't see as many students in my office. They hopefully don’t come to school when they are ill, so I don't see as many that come down to be evaluated and to rest and of course we have half the population here at this grade level. Sometimes a student is ill or gets sick during the school day. Instead of seeing all of the students I would normally see, I spend a lot of time on the phone with parents and answering emails, finding out about kids who are home, maybe not feeling well or who have gotten ill or have been exposed to COVID. The school nurse usually does the screenings, the vision and hearing and the postural screening, all of the screenings we are required to do by the state. Right now, the screenings are on hold so I have not done any of those this year. We rely on the pediatrician visits to get kids checked and hopefully we will be resuming those down the road. There are less kids here so there is less clinical activity and more communication and collaboration.
The Falconer: What about this school year has caused the most stress?
Mrs. O’Connor: I feel a little isolated, like everybody. I also want people to stay well and keeping people healthy and safe can be stressful. I think in general, just like you and your families, I feel the isolation. I think the hardest thing for me personally is not seeing my family especially my kids and my grandchildren because it's just been too long. I have a new granddaughter. She was born a year ago, November 2019. I was with her when she was a newborn and now she’s walking and I haven't seen her during the time in between. That creates stress for me personally. As far as my work goes, the most stressful thing is making sure I don’t miss anything...covering all of the bases regarding people who may be exposed... are they ready to come back to school... is the quarantine period over. There are a lot of moving parts to that. It is stressful in a different way than taking care of someone who is ill here in the building.
The Falconer: Based on what has changed from last year, how has it affected your work life or workload?
Mrs. O’Connor: I think when I see a sick student, I look at them through a different lens. Everything looks like COVID, the common cold looks like COVID... somebody has a gastrointestinal virus, it looks like COVID. That has affected how I operate in evaluating students and getting them referred to their own doctor and tested before they can come back to school versus just calling their parents and having them take them home and let them rest. There are more layers to returning to school after an illness. Students and teachers who are home sick may need to be tested or quarantined. Some do both but for the most part it's a whole new process before you can clear them to come back to school. Looking at the illnesses from a different lens and being on alert for community spread are the two significant changes in my work as well as educating staff and families on what they need to do and what they need to be looking for and how to get the evaluations that they need.
The Falconer: Is there anything in particular that you miss about work before the pandemic?
Mrs. O’Connor: I miss seeing everybody's face! I miss the students and the feel of all their daily activities in the building. I miss the freedom of not having a mask on. Aside from the physical discomfort, you feel like you're behind this shield. I mostly miss normalcy. I don't want it to be the new normal. I want to get through this and get back to seeing people and being able to give people a hug or just interacting the way we always have.
The Falconer: How is the school district looking at the vaccine?
Mrs. O’Connor: Right now it's early for the school population as the vaccine is not yet approved for children. We are watching the science. As you know, the vaccines are now available for adults and people are getting immunized. I am a proponent of vaccinations. Some people feel anxious about the vaccines but I feel like the science is there to support them. I look forward to getting my own vaccine because I feel like it is an important step on the way to getting through this. When I am vaccinated along with enough of the population, we will have the herd immunity that they talk about. It's interesting to learn all the terms related to the pandemic that everybody is familiar with now. Before the pandemic, would students have known what herd immunity was or what quarantine means? It is an education in itself. It's the language and the terminology being used by Dr. Fauci and others in public health. Even once the high risk population is vaccinated, I'll feel better. One of the biggest problems of the pandemic is the incredible strain it has put on the healthcare system. People with all kinds of illnesses may not have access to the hospital or you may not have access to a doctor or emergency room because it's so crowded with sick people. I think that's the public health impact that's been so alarming to people so I do look forward to the vaccine coming.
The Falconer: Has the vaccine provided a positive outlook on you and your job?
Mrs. O’Connor: Yes I think so. I think most people in the health care world are very hopeful that this will get us to the other side of the pandemic. It won't immediately change the other mitigating measures we use but it will hopefully hasten the end point where we don't need them anymore. We will need to continue the mask wearing and social distancing until enough of the population is immunized and we see the numbers coming down. Case data is looked at really carefully. Governor Baker does an update every week on the COVID statistics and they are in the news daily. If we see the numbers trending down and we get down really low related to people getting vaccinated, that is very hopeful. I would hope that we would be able to keep the numbers down as people develop immunity as we have with other types of infectious diseases.