Less than 24 hours after finishing her most challenging year as a school nurse, Lisa Morin-Plante arrived on the shores of New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee — not to vacation, but to take up her duties as the nurse manager at a summer camp for boys.
Over the previous 15 months Morin-Plante was a key figure in creating and executing St. Mary’s plan for the 2020-21 school year, which called for in-person learning for the vast majority of students, with Zoom-from-home options for those who needed it.
While many schools went to a hybrid schedule in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and some even had students stay home for months at a time, the 140-year-old Catholic school in the center of Lynn — with more than 600 students in grades 6-12 — had classes in session on campus throughout the academic year.
“As a direct result of her leadership, St. Mary’s not only safely opened our doors last August; we kept them open,” Head of School Dr. John F. Dolan said at a school function earlier this month where he presented Morin-Plante with the Connell Service Award.
Last spring and summer the administration at St. Mary’s met repeatedly, working to determine the conditions under which classes would resume in the fall. The school’s leadership team consulted with a wide array of individuals and organizations, especially the City of Lynn’s Public Health Division.
“It was a long process of many hours of meetings, phone calls, research, education and safety discussions of what was the best approach for us to take to continue to service the needs of our students and their families, as well the St. Mary’s faculty and staff,” Morin-Plante said.
The result was dubbed the “Care for All” plan, and it included procedures for students to check for symptoms each morning before leaving home, wear school-issued masks, sit a safe distance from peers in class, eat pre-packaged meals at lunch and quarantine at home when necessary.
Morin-Plante said her entire thought process a year ago evolved “from being concerned to being consumed” with protecting her family, as well as the entire school community.
Hand sanitizer was located throughout the campus, teachers wiped down desks between classes, and cleaning crews sanitized lockers, banisters and doorknobs throughout the day. In addition, the school arranged for weekly, on-campus COVID-19 testing for anyone in the St. Mary’s community.
Signs reminding students about wearing masks and social distancing were put up in the hallways, a video outlining the day for students was made and sent to all families and procedures for sick students, contact tracing and traveling out-of-state were posted online.
“Looking back, what we did right was not falter, and we played by the rules the whole school year,” said Morin-Plante, who has been at the school since 2005. “We worked diligently and tirelessly up until the very end. And we prayed a lot.”
One consequence of the pandemic’s economic upheaval surfaced when St. Mary’s contacted the parents of students during the summer: “We have no food,” some told Morin-Plante. She jumped into action and, with help from the Salvation Army, the school made deliveries to ensure that none of those families went hungry.
Even before the pandemic, Nurse Lisa — as she is universally known at St. Mary’s — was a beloved figure at the school. Not only does she tend to students who are sick or injured, but she is the moderator for the school’s chapter of Rachel’s Challenge, a national nonprofit with the goal of reducing bullying, violence and suicide among teens.
The group’s many service activities have included baking bread for the elderly, buying Christmas gifts for needy children, handing out sandwiches to the homeless, placing flags on graves and shoveling out fire hydrants after snowstorms.
“My passion for nursing came at a very young age as I watched and followed the footsteps of my dear mother,” said Morin-Plante, 61, a lifelong Lynn resident. “One of the gifts I have been given is the gift to care for others, and I wanted to always make a difference.”
The day after the year-end faculty meeting at St. Mary’s on June 8, Morin-Plante drove up to Moultonborough, N.H., to train the medical staff and counselors at Camp Winaukee, where she began her 14th year as nurse manager.
She was planning to step back into a more supervisory role at the camp this year, but the pandemic changed any hope of that. “You have to come!” Winaukee’s owners pleaded, and Morin-Plante couldn’t say no.
When the camp season ends in mid-August, she will finally have a couple of weeks to catch her breath, and then it’s back to her busy schedule at school.
“Nurse Lisa is very important to St. Mary’s,” said Ema Maccori, a rising senior who has been part of Rachel’s Challenge for two years and worked with Morin-Plante on a number of activities. “She cares for every individual student as if they are her own.”
