A long, tortuous year in the life of Jefferson High

Most mornings this school year, Mike Moodry has come to work with a pit in his stomach. There were so many unknowns, and so much that could go wrong. Had all the desks been cleaned? Was everyone wearing masks? What if someone got infected with COVID-19 but was asymptomatic? How far might it spread before being caught? On any given day, he says, “you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Moodry is principal at Jefferson High School. He’s in charge of getting the day-to-day details of educating 278 students right. In the last 15 months, that’s been unusually challenging.

On March 15, 2020, Jefferson High and every other school in the state were ordered by then Governor Steve Bullock to shift to virtual instruction for the next two weeks – which would turn into the rest of the academic year. In just 72 hours, administrators, teachers, and staff rethought everything about the way they educated kids; in an instant, Jefferson High became an online academy.