By Jennifer Winters, Director
Though Bing closed on March 13 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the staff remained hard at work through the spring and summer. And though the school was still officially shut down during the summer, it was far from quiet, as major renovations were taking place!
After the shutdown began, teachers continued their deep connections with their classes in a number of ways: through video recordings of nearly 150 stories and songs for children to enjoy at home on Bing’s online portal for parents; live story and music times via video conferencing software; emails and letters sent through postal mail; and a website listing dozens of publicly available COVID-19 resources for families—from at-home activities for building math skills to a podcast of original bedtime stories (https://bit.ly/bing-covid-resources).
During the six months away from the physical school, Bing teachers and staff found many opportunities for professional development in addition to curating resources for supporting families during the shutdown. To ensure a smooth transition back to school, teachers worked on committees focused on a range of topics, including community building, health and safety guidelines and classroom set-ups. Additional committees focused on understanding disease transmission, creating a culture of belonging, identifying books and music to support social/emotional well-being, planning parent conferences during COVID-19, and preparing parent orientation materials for reopening.
In addition to the committee work, teachers and staff attended online conferences. Many staff members learned valuable information at both the Play First Summit (see page 35 for more information) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children annual professional learning conference. In addition to these two large conferences, teachers and staff attended many webinars, such as Pacific Oaks College’s Anti-biased Education Symposium: Fighting Against Racism.
We began our summer with the entire staff reading Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, a book by Stanford psychology professor and former Bing parent Jennifer Eberhardt. The reading and resulting conversations led to timely introspection after the death of George Floyd, providing the opportunity to expand our understanding of some of the issues of race and bias that are so prevalent in our culture. Replete with science on implicit bias and historical events, Eberhardt’s personal anecdotes were vivid and led to deep discussions about the book and how racial bias impacts our own personal experience.
Bing teaches two undergraduate classes on site each quarter that are instructed by Bing staff. One of these, Psychology 146: Observation of Children, was taught online in the spring quarter, and it was a great success. It helped us understand what we needed to do to create an online version of Psychology 147: Development in Early Childhood, for the autumn quarter. Our intent is to create online courses that have high student engagement, are academically rigorous, and give our Stanford students a solid foundation for understanding the stages of young children’s development.
Stanford psychology researchers designed an online platform for conducting research in child development and launched it in June. Starting in March, the researchers spent a few months to thoughtfully set up a video chat forum for online sessions. Their goal was to create a fun and engaging experience for children that closely resembles in-person participation. Children can interact with Stanford researchers virtually in the comfort of their own home. The researchers are continuing the online platform. Parents with children aged 3 to 10 are welcome to sign up to participate at http://sll.stanford.edu/participate_online.html.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Bing had plans to close over the summer for a much-needed air conditioning and heating project, in collaboration with Stanford, that had been in the plans for three years. We would like to especially thank our facilities manager, Greta Simpson, and her team at Stanford Buildings and Grounds; our facilities director, Julie Hardin-Stauter, at the School of Humanities and Sciences; RC Benson and Sons construction company; and Jon Florez, our Stanford project manager. As a result of the project, the school now has air conditioning with MERV 13 rating air filters (used in hospital settings and providing close to 90% efficiency for filtering particles), a new heating system, fans in the classrooms and office spaces, hot water at the children’s sinks, new carpet and flooring in the classrooms and offices, and fresh paint throughout. As a result of the air conditioning, the children can comfortably come inside on a hot or smoky day. The team did an incredible job on all the construction work, as well as completing the project on time so that Bing could reopen in September.