Two Faulty Beliefs That Add Anxiety for Schools
Abstract
School communities continue to feel the academic, social, emotional, and spiritual aftershocks of the pandemic. Two faulty beliefs often intensify that anxiety: the belief that schools can return to a pre-pandemic definition of normal, and the belief that even the best plans will work exactly as designed. Trusted school leaders reduce anxiety by telling the truth, clarifying what matters most, adjusting expectations with wisdom, and helping students, parents, faculty, and staff grow through disruption rather than merely survive it.
A school community becomes more anxious when leaders treat extraordinary circumstances as though they are ordinary.
During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, many parents, teachers, and administrators carried an understandable longing for normalcy. School leaders tried to provide students with as much routine, continuity, and care as possible. Yet the expectation placed on teachers was not normal. In many cases, they were asked to redesign instruction, toggle between campus-based and home-based learning, support unsettled families, recover learning gaps, and attend to student well-being all at the same time.
The first faulty belief is that a pre-pandemic definition of normal can simply be restored by effort, desire, or calendar change. It cannot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that its 2013-2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey continues to show concerns related to violence, poor mental health, and suicidal thoughts among high school students, even while some measures improved from 2021 to 2023.1
Likewise, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that 31% of public school students were still behind grade level at the end of the 2024-25 school year, a finding not significantly different from June 2024.2
“Anxiety grows when leaders pretend the load has not changed. Trust grows when leaders name the load truthfully.”
That does not mean schools should lower their mission, soften their standards, or excuse avoidable mediocrity. It does mean we must be honest about the load we are carrying. If pre-pandemic pacing guides, achievement timelines, and social assumptions are used as though nothing has happened, teachers and students will be pushed toward discouragement rather than development. Students will learn and grow, but the path of growth now requires wiser attention to current realities.
Consider Hope Ridge Academy*. In the fall following several disrupted school years, the leadership team noticed a troubling pattern. Teachers were attempting to teach every missed unit, families were asking when things would finally “go back,” and students were increasingly exhausted. The head of school, Dr. Elena Ramirez, gathered division leaders and said, “We are not lowering expectations. We are clarifying which expectations matter most right now.” The team narrowed essential academic targets, strengthened feedback for learning, increased advisory check-ins, and communicated plainly with parents. Within months, the tone shifted. The school did not become easier; it became clearer.
The second faulty belief is that our plans will work exactly as written. Wise school leaders plan carefully. They build calendars, budgets, safety procedures, instructional frameworks, staffing models, and communication protocols. But plans are not guarantees. They are tools. When a plan fails, the leader has not necessarily failed. The greater failure is refusing to learn, adjust, and communicate honestly when the plan meets reality.
The TrustED® framework reminds school leaders that trusted leadership is built like a bridge: with a Foundation of Beliefs & Values, a Substructure of Connection & Support, Girders that Adapt & Contextualize, Bearings that remain Flexible & Involved, a Superstructure of Communication & Relationships, and a Deck of Clarity & Order. These components matter most when the environment is shifting. A rigid bridge is not safer; a trustworthy bridge is designed to carry changing loads.
“Plans do not build trust because they are flawless. Plans build trust when leaders adjust them with clarity, humility, and care.”
Research on social and emotional learning reinforces this point. A major meta-analysis of school-based social and emotional learning interventions found positive effects on students’ social-emotional skills, attitudes, behavior, and academic performance.3
A later meta-analysis found that the benefits of well-designed school-based SEL interventions can persist after the intervention period, supporting the value of helping students develop competencies that extend beyond immediate academic recovery.4
For Christian schools, this should not be surprising. Formation has never been limited to content coverage. Authentic Christian education aims at wisdom, character, service, self-control, perseverance, love of neighbor, and faithfulness. The pandemic did not create the need for formation; it exposed how essential formation already was.
This is why school leaders must communicate a different definition of success. Academic growth still matters deeply. Curriculum, instruction, assessment, and feedback remain essential. But if schools measure success only by how quickly students return to prior academic benchmarks, they will miss the deeper opportunity to help students mature through difficulty. Patience, empathy, resilience, responsibility, and spiritual steadiness are not secondary outcomes. They are central to the kind of education that prepares students to be trusted with an unpredictable future.
Applications
For School Leaders: Tell the truth about the current load. Revisit learning outcomes, clarify the non-negotiables, communicate what will be emphasized, and invite feedback from faculty, parents, and students. Do not confuse flexibility with weakness. In turbulent seasons, flexibility is often evidence of wisdom.
For Faculty and Staff: Resist the pressure to recreate every former pace and practice. Focus on essential learning, strong relationships, timely feedback, and observable growth. Students need teachers who are calm, clear, and supported more than they need teachers who are exhausted by trying to recover everything at once.
For Parents: Release the assumption that every child’s school experience must match an older sibling's or a pre-pandemic memory. Ask better questions: Is my child growing? Is my child known? Is my child learning responsibility? Is my child developing perseverance, faithfulness, and care for others?
For Christian Schools: Lean into the distinctiveness of your mission. In a fearful age, Christian education should offer more than academic recovery. It should provide a community of truth, grace, formation, and hope. Students are watching how adults respond to uncertainty. That lesson may last longer than any single unit of content.
“The chief end of learning is not merely content retention, but the formation of students who can be trusted to care for the world.”
The path forward is neither panic nor passivity. It is trusted leadership. Schools should plan carefully, but hold plans humbly. They should pursue academic excellence, but define excellence through the fuller lens of student growth. They should acknowledge losses without becoming captive to them. And they should remember that when students remain engaged in learning, supported by trusted adults, they will grow.
We can no longer experience a normal year as defined by pre-pandemic assumptions. And that is okay. What we can do is lead with honesty, clarity, and care. We can build school communities where plans are living tools, where failure becomes a learning opportunity, where teachers are protected from unrealistic expectations, and where students are formed to become leaders who can be trusted in a world none of us can fully predict.
Endnotes
*Name changed to protect privacy and confidentiality.
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2013-2023 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2024).
2. National Center for Education Statistics, School Pulse Panel: Surveying High-Priority, Education-Related Topics, June 2025 overview.
3. Joseph A. Durlak, Roger P. Weissberg, Allison B. Dymnicki, Rebecca D. Taylor, and Kriston B. Schellinger, “The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions,” Child Development 82, no. 1 (2011): 405-432.
4. Rebecca D. Taylor, Eva Oberle, Joseph A. Durlak, and Roger P. Weissberg, “Promoting Positive Youth Development Through School-Based Social and Emotional Learning Interventions: A Meta-Analysis of Follow-Up Effects,” Child Development 88, no. 4 (2017): 1156-1171.
About the Author
Toby A. Travis, Ed.D., is an educator, school leader, consultant, speaker, and author of TrustED®: The Bridge to School Improvement. He has served in multiple school leadership roles and works with schools and organizations to strengthen trusted leadership, stakeholder relationships, and measurable school improvement.
©2026 Toby A. Travis. All rights reserved.
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