The 2020–2021 school year has been unlike any other, especially for Shipley’s own health-care heroines: Lower School Nurse Terri Grossman, and Middle and Upper School Nurses Amanda “Mandy” Schauerman and Maria Buhl.

Fortunately, their active involvement in devising Shipley’s 2020–2021 Return to Campus Plan removed much of the guesswork as they endeavored to navigate uncharted territory following a fully remote spring semester powered by Shipley Learns Online.

“We knew going in that it was going to be a very different school year. What we do now—more than anything—is try to keep everyone healthy and safe as a community as opposed to working one-on-one with individual students,” says Grossman, who has more than 50 years of nursing experience. “With [Head of School] Michael Turner’s leadership, we felt confident that we could do this and we would do it the right way.”

In addition to performing their regular duties, Grossman, Buhl, and Schauerman, who are now essentially on-call 24/7, have been busy organizing and overseeing school-wide coronavirus testing clinics, fielding phone calls from colleagues and families regarding infections and exposures, and attending Pandemic Committee and Physician Advisory Network meetings.

As is the Shipley way, employees across all divisions and departments have provided much-needed support. “It’s not just the nurse show. There are a lot of helping hands and moving parts that make the show happen,” says Schauerman, for whom Shipley is a family affair—husband Thom is a physical education teacher and coach. “Nurses from other schools have been surprised by our teamwork and camaraderie. Not every workplace is like this.”

Buhl, a nurse for over 25 years, agrees: “I really love what I do. I love working with the nurses at Shipley.”