Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, once said, “If I had to name a person who has done more for the benefit of human health, with less recognition than anyone else, it would be Maurice Hilleman. Maurice should be recognized as the most successful vaccinologist in history.” (Maugh, 2005)
Although Hilleman invented a total of forty vaccines, saving millions of people from mumps, hepatitis B, and scores of other deadly diseases, he remained humble throughout his life. He did not use his name on even one of his vaccines.
Leadership Matters
Adaptive Leadership
The challenges brought about by the 1957 flu are somewhat different from those we face in a COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 world. Yet the lessons of great leadership endure.
Maurice Hilleman saw the need to act and did so for the greater good. He did not await official authority, instructions from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, or an infusion of additional capital from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He started without the answers as to whether there was even a new virus that was spreading. He had no idea as to whether he could apply an existing cure or, if not, how he would invent a new one.
Even before COVID-19, educators were increasingly being placed in positions for which there is no easy answer and no script to follow. In the Petersburg, Virginia, case study first brought to light in Chapter 2 (page 30), the new superintendent discovered shortly after arriving that the city had not paid its bills to the schools in months and funds weren’t available to meet staff payroll that week; the health insurance had ceased on teacher and staff medical claims; utility payments were delinquent, and the stoppage of services was imminent; meals for students were at risk of discontinuance; and the city had cut school funding by more than 30 percent. Dealing with these matters wasn’t taught in grad school! Nonetheless, strong leadership and teamwork resulted in a turnaround that both pulled the district out of debt and was recognized nationally.
▸ The adaptive demands of our time require leaders who take responsibility without waiting for revelation or request. One can lead with no more than a question in hand. (Heifetz & Laurie, 2011, p. 78)
In 2020, the world was thrown a COVID-19 curveball. The demands of schools closing challenged teachers and leaders at all levels to solve problems they didn’t even know they had. How will we deliver online instruction when students have no internet access? How will we ensure food students need to survive will arrive in a safe and timely manner each day? What will we do to provide high school seniors with the courses they need to graduate?
In addition to finding adaptations to meet new challenges, educators were called on to be transformative, inspiring staff to perform beyond their perceived capabilities (Steinmann et al., 2018). Millions of educators valiantly rose to the challenges COVID-19 posed, commandeering school buses for delivery of student supplies and sending out tens of millions of meals each week to children who would otherwise not eat. The value of fundamentals, and even the often overlooked staff, became apparent:
We’ve focused on taking care of and feeding our families and staff; people’s well-being; communicating with families with signs saying “we miss you”; and alerts to them from the principal. The true heroes became our food service staff—they came in to make food, while others were sent home. I was impressed that food service workers knew all the kids by name, what students like and don’t like to eat, and worried about many of the children when they go home. They have great pride in the work they do. (Amy Griffin, personal communication, April 10, 2020)
Courageous Leadership
The educators spotlighted in this book exemplify what has been named throughout recorded history, and even prior among Indigenous Americans, as the virtue above all others: courage (Lassiter, 2017). The written word comes from the French le cœur, or “the heart.” Most educators entered the profession in concert with the first principle of courage, by starting with the intersection of their passion and life mission—what we term the core.
Maurice Hilleman’s tireless hours of dedication came from deep within his own life experiences as well. He was born, as noted, to two Spanish flu pandemic survivors; but he lost his twin sister at birth, and his mother two days later. This fueled his passion for finding cures to prevent premature death in others. His intellect, meanwhile, was nurtured by his father, the education afforded him, and even chickens!
The educators whose experience we draw on in this book, likewise, are morally rooted in ensuring success for each of their students. Their deep connection to the importance of the work allows leaders, from the classroom to the boardroom, to overcome enormous obstacles to meet the needs of the young people they serve.
Many frontline employees didn’t even know if they were still getting paid, and with my time I’ve been working fourteen hours, seven days a week, for three weeks. Who has access to internet? Who has parental support? Who has a computer for more than one student in the house? How are we teaching homeless kids? If we hadn’t taken inventory prior, this certainly makes us now. (Aaron Spence, personal communication, March 23, 2020)
We needed first to know where every student was. Teachers made personal calls to check on every student. If they couldn’t get through, social workers went to their doors. Professionals networked online to talk about how many and which students have and haven’t been reached and to share strategies on what each had tried, what was working, and what was not. The whole community got involved, including the sheriff’s department, to make sure each child was well.
Academics had to wait. Many parents who work in health care had to minimize contact with their children to keep them healthy; others after finally seeing their children might easily skip the work, and just hug them! (Dena Keeling, personal communication, April 15, 2020)
Together, in this book, we will encourage readers to continue to find and act in concert with their “core,” as we provide examples of school, district, and state leadership teams that are rooted in their individual and collective purpose. One of the six vital principles of courageous leadership is exemplified in the next section (for all six principles, see Blankstein [2013]).
Courage: Facing the Facts and Your Fears
The degree to which we inaccurately see health care and education as expenses instead of a vital human right, we will continue to see human needs sacrificed, and needless suffering and despair. (Pedro A. Noguera, personal communication, April 8, 2020)
The reality of a forthcoming pandemic was immediately grasped and communicated by Hilleman, even though other leaders were loath to accept that. Yet he persisted in persuading them rather than backing away from the data.
What are the facts that COVID-19 has laid bare for us about which children have access to health care and which do not; about who does and does not have Wi-Fi and tutors to advance their academics; and about the essential and heroic role schools play in mitigating the often forgotten, hidden, or ignored truth that more than half of all school-aged children in America are officially poor, and would go hungry without the nutrition that schools provide?
Facing Facts About Racism, Food, and Housing Instability
While facing the facts is often inconvenient as they don’t always tell the story we wish to hear, not doing so can be deadly as outlined in the “Lessons of Willful Blindness” section of this chapter. More recently, we are again grappling with