So my district is scheduled to open in a hybrid situation on 17 Aug
I teach high school (nearly all seniors) so my students will be divided into 3 groups by last name. First week group A will come one day, B another, and C the third. then I guess two days remote. After that.
Group A gets 1 week face to face, group B gets the next week face to face, group C get the next week face to face repeat. All weeks will have Wednesday as an all remote day. When groups aren't face to face, they are remote.
I was supposed to have class sizes of 30 but so far I am at about 20. That means I should have between 6 and 8 students face to face in each group but depending on how the students are divided I could see some classes with 5 face to face on a day and others with 9 or 10. Also about 15% to 20% of the district's students signed up for remote learning for the semester which should reduce my numbers some.
Now NC as a whole is setting records in terms of new cases, deaths, and hospitalizations. My county is static on hospitalizations, increasing on cases, static to increasing on new cases.
We are supposed to have all kinds of cleaning going on. Students are supposed to be required to wear masks. Our central office staff, who are trying to work this stuff out, still has no answer to some rather basic questions. What happens if students or teachers get sick? How will students get to school? Will each school have a nurse?
I posted this on my facebook on July 4, before my district made its decision and for that matter before our governor did.
I have to say I have been reading numerous posts about the need to open up schools to students in August. Trust me I get the frustration. I would love nothing more than being back in my classroom in August with a full class of students. Well that isn't quite true, I love them and me being safe more. There seems to be this myth that teachers will sit around all day eating bon bons if we have online instruction. Ah, no. The fact is, especially the hybrid instruction that is being discussed in most places is vastly more work for teachers not less. Under any plan that requires different groups switching between online and face to face instruction, teachers will have to plan for two different classes for each class they currently teach. That is a lot more work. Add in the endless calls and emails to parents to be sure the online students are actually doing stuff and it is a lot lot more work. So honestly, as a teacher I am pissed.
I am pissed that we have no guidance at all from the Secretary of Education who is a dilettante who hasn't so much as set a foot in a public school as a student, parent, or employee. It has been total radio silence. Nothing on platforms to use, nothing on ideas of how to present, nothing on ways to social distance at school. Not a damn thing.
I am pissed that Trump told his people to slow down the testing. We need a testing regime that works in order to have any chance of opening schools. In many states it takes hours upon hours to get a test if one can get them at all. Without testing once a person gets COVID we will have to isolate every person they come in contact with. With testing, we could test, isolate the sick, and the rest of us could be at school. That is how every country which has opened school has been able to open schools. I doubt we could test even 1/10th of a percent of the country on a daily basis right now. At that rate it would take 3 years merely to test everyone and we likely can't even test at that rate.
I am pissed that the federal government (let's get real the GOP) won't spend one thin dime in an attempt to open schools. McConnell says let them go bankrupt. He is a real Marie Antoinette for our times. Schools will need vast resource to open up. Cleaning is already a problem for many schools. Now we need to clean every room every day top to bottom. We will need vast numbers of janitors for this. Most schools share nurses. We will need a nurse every day in every school. This will take money, and most states don't have it.
And finally I am pissed at the Veruca Salts and Cartmen of the world, let by our very own President and VP who won't follow simple instructions to slow the spread of this virus and instead send out Kellyanne Goebells to tell us it is all in our heads and the fault of local leaders. Every country which has succeeded in controlling this virus and opening their economies and schools has done so through their populaces wearing masks Their leaders showed them the way and the people followed. And now the EU which has a population about 4/3 of ours has fewer cases a day than Arizona. Many EU countries either didn't close schools or are planning to reopen them in the fall. That is what happens when you combine a populace that doesn't act like spoiled children at the thought of wearing a mask and social distancing with leadership that supplies testing and tracing policies that stop the spread.
Frankly a whole bunch of people sacrificed a whole bunch of things to buy us the time to do what other countries did. Seniors lost proms, picnics, a last chance to play winter or spring sports, a last concert, spring musicals, and god alone knows what else. In some cases, students who were counting on AP courses to raise their GPAs to get scholarships lost that. Many of their families lost their jobs, had their businesses imperiled, had hours at work cut all to buy this government time. And they squandered it. While Trump and all around him get daily tests (a fact they point to, to justify not wearing masks) the rest of us still can't get tests without jumping through hoops. Because he slowed down the testing (his words).
The fact is, some places will force schools to open when they and the populace aren't ready in the name of the economy. And like Trump's pathetic rally in Tulsa, only the desperate and the delusional will show up. That is what happens when the reality of a virus collides with the delusions of a narcissist. Reality tends to win.
To end, we have a right to be furious that our schools can't safely open some 7 months after the first cases were discovered in this country when countries that are more densely populated and poorer than us such as South Korea are able to. But teachers and school districts aren't to blame. The fault lies not within the stars but within our leaders.
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I have no idea what is going to happen. We might have to revert to C due to cost and other issues. Our school board made this decision at a meeting at which the public was not physically present due to COVID. Several board members didn't wear masks. One stated at the meeting that he had COVID and had recovered after a long illness. So these are the people who are going to give us the power to make others wear masks.
On top of everything else I have to teach two classes per period now. One in my room and another at home. I am taking my first out of state trip on Sunday since December. The choral festival I was supposed to go to got canceled. I was supposed to read national board entries that was remote. I was supposed to go to Dallas for a conference on education, that was online. I am taking my out of state trip so I can see my brother and sister in law before I start up with this and might not be able to again without running the risk of infecting them. I have had no rehearsals with my chorus since March. We are likely not to start up before January. Yet, it is supposedly safe to open schools. Oh, and now, the CDC is saying let parents screen the kids. I hope our district doesn't opt for that. Fun times indeed.
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