Pao School's thorough epidemic prevention work

Over the past few months of epidemic prevention work, Pao School has received the care and support from leaders at all levels and all walks of life. At present, our campuses have yet to open. However, all departments of the school have resumed normal teaching and administrative work, and all departments have carried out their respective responsibilities to combat this unprecedented crisis.

Pao School's President's Office, under the leadership of the manager Amy Ren, is responsible for the school's government relations. These responsibilities include regular communication with relevant government departments, as well as the exchange of key documents to the government. In order to provide accurate and timely updates to the Pao community about government policies and the school's related decisions, colleagues from the President’s Office and the Principals' Offices worked overtime and spent a lot of time on translation and communications work.

As of press time, all the teaching and administrative staff of the school have been fully prepared to welcome students back to school. To this end, the Human Resources Department has worked assiduously, its dedication to our staff showing the people-oriented spirit of the school. The HR department has been in regular contact with the teaching team. For foreign teachers, it has provided policy updates and mental health counselling as needed. For all teachers, it has been in touch with them regularly about their whereabouts and their date of return to Shanghai, including any quarantine requirements. The HR department has also been busy with data collection and residential neighbourhood committee reporting.

After the outbreak of the COVID-19, the HR department began to compile the statistics of employee movements since January and established close contact with employees who were already off-campus at that time. In accordance with the requirements of all government offices, Pao School's HR department completed the requisite reporting work.

As the epidemic escalated, the HR department worked to ensure it kept in touch with foreign employees who were overseas. It was imperative for them to get up-to-date information about the situation on the ground in China, so our HR team stayed in close contact with them, informing them of relevant government policies, as well as the school's response to those policies.

To ensure all foreign employees could return smoothly to Shanghai, the HR department prepared all requisite immigration documents for them and answered all of their related questions. As the situation became a global pandemic, the entry and exit policies in residential compounds became more strict. At this time, members of our HR team coordinated with the neighbourhood committees in different communities one by one to resolve bottlenecks around foreign teachers' movements and living arrangements.

Amidst a pandemic, undergoing home quarantine for 14 days in a foreign country is a huge mental challenge and disruption to everyday life. For this reason, our HR department team members put themselves in the shoes of foreign teachers who have just returned to China and communicated from their perspective. Additionally, our HR team prepared necessary food and drink for our colleagues during their quarantine period, so they wouldn't have to worry about the basics. 

At the same time, in order to accurately track the movement of students, the Clinics and Student Life Office of each campus also communicated with them and compiled regular statistics regarding their return to China and Shanghai. They later put the data into reports which they submitted to the President's Office and relevant government offices.

During the epidemic prevention period, the school set up an "administrative duty system" on each campus that ensured at least one administrative staff member was on duty as a school representative each day, in addition to the security guards and maintenance workers who were on campus. Their job was to stay abreast of all epidemic prevention and control measures, which included campus inspection tours (part of which involved checking on staff members), and communicating with school leaders as needed, especially in the event of an emergency situation or other special circumstances.

At present, the Operations Department of the three campuses is communicating with the school management team, school medical team and other departments to prepare students to return to campus. 

After the epidemic became a national emergency on January 24, the IT department quickly began to prepare the school's IT systems for working remotely. Once the Municipal Education Commission instructed about the online learning arrangement, an emergency working group was formed to prepare the school to conduct courses remotely.

The IT team worked assiduously to ensure an optimal online learning experience. It provided online teaching software customized for the needs of each of our three campuses. The IT department not only had to set up these platforms, but it also needed to maintain them and provided regular technical support to teachers and students.

Meanwhile, the IT department also had to equip the school's administrative team to work remotely. Because each user's network environment and equipment are different, the IT team faced many different types of challenges. They worked very hard to support teachers, students and staff, especially as in the early stages of the epidemic, some employees and students were overseas, and there was a big time difference with China. At that time, the IT department's working hours were 8 am to 11 pm.