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...we have been thinking a lot about school. Even as we live our long and aimless vacation days, summer is flying by and the start of school looms, rather like a tsunami, over our heads. In the last week school districts (CH-UH included) have published their plans for the great "reopening" of schools. Drama has ensued. Parents are clamoring for a return to the classroom, citing a need for socialization, a fear of "falling behind" and mostly, somewhere for their kids to GO as adults return to work. The CDC issued vague guidelines for opening schools safely, and educators nationwide immediately realized that those guidelines eradicate school as we know it, and may well be impossible for many districts to enact. The president determined that all schools MUST reopen! and decided the guidelines were too tough, and asked the CDC to rewrite them. The Education Secretary threatened to withdraw funding from districts that did not fully reopen. And educators continued to raise their hands in the back of the room, wondering if anyone who'd been IN a classroom might be able to have a voice in all this? I have been viewing/obsessing over all this from two sides, as a parent and as an educator, and I am overwhelmed.
Cleveland Heights has presented us with 3 options and is asking families to decide on their favorite by the 24th: A hybrid plan where kids attend in the building, with 10-11 kids in a class and social distance/masks, 2 days a week and then work online the other 3; a "synchronous online" option where kids attend class with their CHUH teachers on the in-school bell schedule, and an online option with flexible work completion. As parents, with Covid cases on the rise in our county, and in an effort to conserve in-building resources for those families who need them most, we are currently leaning towards option 2. We'd love to see the kids have even two days a week with teachers and friends, to "go back to school" in some real sense. But- school this year will bear little to no resemblance to what we are imagining in our hearts. We want kids to have socialization- yet how much of that will happen with masks, distancing, no collaborative projects, no gym, no cafeteria, constant supervision to ensure safety and hygiene... We want kids to engage in rigorous learning yet how much will they be able to get done in those two short days, with their overwhelmed teachers balancing instruction and Covid-behavior support, supervising hand washing and redirecting mask mis-use and not getting within 6 feet of the students and having to repeat their mask-garbled words 400 times? How much learning will they be able to get done when they are constantly reminded of the fear and trauma of this pandemic, each time they look at their teacher or stop to sanitize or someone in the room coughs or they get their temperature checked or.... We need kids to have a safe place to be while parents work, a place where they can access the social support services that so many children rely on schools to provide: food, medical care, mental health services. But two days a week in the building-- while potentially plenty of time to be exposed to a deadly virus-- is nowhere near enough to actually meet those needs and leaves working parents in an unworkable scheduling bind.
And so the risk-benefit analysis of the hybrid version is weighted significantly on the "risk" side in my opinion. Sharing air and space and germs with all of those kids and teachers -- and all of their networks while you're it-- just for those two inadequate, strange, possibly traumatic days? Not worth it.
Right now we are planning to do synchronus online to give the kids a sense of structure but we have many questions before we commit. What is the model/ interface for insructional delivery? Will kids REALLY have to be seated in front of the computer for all 6 hours of the day, for EVERY class? Will it be a livestream of the classroom instruction going on with the hybrid kids? Or something more individualized for the online kids? Will our children do any better with online learning now than they did in the spring (given doing it from day one with structure in place)? Because it was HARD, the online learning. But- we are in a position of privilege, with the technology and parenting resources at hand to allow our kids to do this (even if they do it badly!) and so I think we are going with it. As sad as it makes me. Both kids are in a "transition year" next year and it breaks my heart to think about all the social milestones and clubs and sports and music they won't be able to do in their last year in their schools. Freaking breaks my heart. But you know what would break my heart more? If someone in our family or our circle gets sick and dies because of exposure that we have the power to limit in any way possible. Learning and social skills and musical progress and extracurriculars are the stuff that makes life good-- but you need to be alive to enjoy them.
Meanwhile. My district has not yet announced its plan for reopening, so I sit here in anxious suspense. This is compounded by the fact that I am changing positions next year, making a move to mild/moderate interventiion at the elementary level. In the best of times this move would be a huge change, full of unknowns. This is not the best of times. Due to ... everything... my new principal literally has no idea about my room or caseload situation, leaving me unable to start planning IEP goals and instruction or even to pack up my old room. Not only do I not know WHO I am teaching, I don't know HOW I will be teaching them. I generally spend my afternoon down-time here at the Point starting a lot of mental prep for the year. Pacing guides and data collection sheets and parent contact lists and all the other paperwork I like to have in place for the start of the year. Instead, this year, I drift. The one consolation for all this unknowing is that even if I were staying in my old job (one I know pretty darn well after 9 years, and with more than half of my students continuing on with me), nothing would be the same there, either. This way as I leap into the great unknown (times 2) at least I don't really know any different.
As I drift along, unable to get my ducks in a row for my upcoming year, I cycle through all the different scenarios: Online teaching? How will I work that with little kids? It's going to look super different for Kindergarten vs 4th graders so it would be nice to know which grade I'm teaching! My middle schoolers sure struggled to learn online, I wonder how it is going to go for little ones who may very well still be non-readers and non-writers and who need manipulatives to learn the material.... Most of my intervention strategies, in fact, use manipulatives. Or at least sitting side by side with a child and sharing materials. There goes everything I have been trained to do.... What about if we are in- person? Will it be hybrid, where I'll be working in real time with kids 4-5 days a week and simultaneously managing and providing instruction to the cohort at home? Or full time regular class sizes because our district wants to mazimize achievement? Since I'm doing mild-moderate intervention I won't have my "own" class and quite possibly I'll be pulling kids out 1-1 so that bodes better for maintaining their attention while wearing a mask and staying 6 feet away (from children with ADHD who won't have gym or recess or lunch to decompress and who need constant teacher proximity, high engagement and prompting to focus and learn)... and 1-1 instruction also will limit my exposure so that would be cool. But, I might be in the classroom, pushing in to 4 or 5 different homerooms with different cohorts ... and bringing back all those disease vectors to my family. Especially if I'm working with K-2 because they won't be wearing masks.... Better order some N-95s and prepare a "decontamination tent" outside our laundry room door... What happens when I get exposed, or sick? How do I plan for a two week sub? Or a 6-8 week sub if I get a bad case? How do I protect my family? I guess we will need to go back on isolation from our extended family and network of friends to protect them...Oh, and I need to familiarize myself with the K-4 standards so I'm ready to support my students with disabilities in the rigorous curriculum so they can do well on their state tests once we teach them to not play with their masks or interact with their friends and while we spend 15 minutes 4 times a day helping them wash their hands...
Welcome to my brain right now. September is ON my mind and I am frankly terrified.
Oh look! A lake! Time for a swim. I'll drift on the waves and try to enjoy this moment. These are the good times, right now, my friends.
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