Kerri Kopp Murphy is parent to Quinn (grade 2) and Tatum (4’s/5’s) and a TCS board member. Her blog post below talks about the power of the TCS community and how she’s staying connected during the pandemic while also helping to keep our community healthy.
I really, really miss being on-campus! I miss the energy, I miss those precious few seconds observing my kids in their ‘natural habitat’ before they spot me, I miss the informal connections with teachers, and getting to know my daughters’ classmates and their families the way we once did so easily in-person, on-campus.
But, that’s not the world we are living in today, and keeping our kids on-campus and the TCS community healthy is clearly more important than me strolling the mini-college grounds of TCS.
I remember when my husband, Tim, and I first visited TCS – and why we chose it for Quinn and Tatum. We believed this school reflected the diversity of Atlanta, we believed in the strength of the academics and that TCS would let our kids learn the way kids learn best, and we believed the nurturing, child-focused environment would help us raise good, whole, little humans.
Even though I can’t see my kids in action, in-person right now, I am so confident that we made the right choice. Even in this pandemic world our beliefs in TCS continue to be proven true. I hear it when I squeeze stories out of my kids about their days, I see it when I peek on the remote learning Zoom, and I read it in the communications from Roz and her team as they address COVID safety AND maintain focus on allowing our kids to learn, develop and thrive at TCS. We feel privileged for the experience Quinn and Tatum have had since we joined this school in 2017, especially when we reflect on last school year, knowing that so many other kids in our city, state and country were not able to attend in-person school with the consistency our two did.
A current favorite bedtime book in the Murphy house is “The Invisible String” by Patrice Karst. Many of you probably have this one too! Over the last school year and in these first six weeks of the 2021 – 2022 school year, we’ve found ‘invisible strings’ to help us stay close to the school community: mystery reading on-screen, virtual parent happy hours, email exchanges with teachers to tell them how much our girls love them, and FaceTime dates with old friends and new. I was also honored this year to join the TCS board, which has allowed me to be part of this community in a new and exciting way.
I know that one day again we’ll all be able to visit campus regularly and briefly spy on our kids in the wild (it isn’t just me doing that I hope?). In the meantime, I hope you are finding your own TCS ‘invisible strings’ to keep us all connected!
