District/School/Teacher preparation for distance learning

Based on the board meeting last week, our school is not prepared at all and has done very little to successfully implement on line learning. I’m preparing for it to be a disaster. Current plan is a 2 on, 3 online hybrid model with the kids split into two groups.

ETA: I’m not upset at the teachers at all. Our superintendent has done very little all summer to plan for various scenarios and has been pushing for a 4 day all kids there everyday plan despite being a current hotspot with a recent ridiculous uptick in cases. I wish the school board would fire her.

My district has pushed its start date back to September 8, at least in part to allow more time to prepare for online learning. All middle and high school students in our district are assigned Power Up laptops, and I believe last spring there was an effort to get as many as possible out to the elementary students as well. The district also provided wifi hotspots to families who needed those. Because of the rise in COVID cases in our district over the summer, none of this was ever collected back so presumably most students still have them, and of course some are likely gone for good.

The state has said it will provide CARES funding for additional technology for students. I suspect there will be a backlog of students unable to actually get the technology because it simply won't be produced fast enough. That will be an issue.

Another thing the district has done is to have strong teachers record video lessons (targeted to PK-1) that are broadcast multiple times per day on local public television. These coordinate with work packets that students can pick up at their school. It's by far the least desirable option, but as an emergency measure, I understand it was well received by families of our youngest students.

That's just technology, though. We have a staff meeting online on Thursday to discuss how we will plan for the upcoming year, both for digital and in-person learning. We have two weeks of paid development before school starts so what we do will officially take place during that time. I'm also attending music-specific professional development online this week and next that is specifically geared to converting our curriculum to an online format. This is something I sought out and paid for, not something the district pushed, but most of the music teachers I know are doing it as well.

I've gotten mass emails about PD for core area teachers being provided by the district this summer. It appears their idea is to get all the curriculum updates and best practices stuff out of the way now, so we can focus entirely on digital delivery during our official PD time.

Personally, I'm less concerned about whether or not I'm on contract right now and more concerned about setting myself up for the fewest headaches possible when we do start teaching. As a "party of one" at a new school, starting a new program, the entirety of how to best do this will fall on me. This will be the third new elementary music program I've started up, but the first one I started via distance learning. Oy. Always a new challenge.

Our district hasn't said much other than hybrid will be an option and every child from Grade 1 - Senior will be given a laptop. From what I gather, the first few weeks will for sure only be online only with the hopes of in person classes starting later. Parents can opt to keep their children home, but there will be attendance taken and if you do any extra UIL sport/event, then you had to be in class and not virtual unless the entire school is virtual.

I'm on the district team to write virtual curriculum. We will have a K-12 Virtual Academy. Teachers will either have regular in person classes or they will have all virtual classes. We still don't know how many teachers are doing virtual or even how many students because TEA is giving parents until 2 weeks before the first day of school to decide.

All classrooms (in person and virtual) will be giving the same common tests and assessments. Grades will be given on the same assignments whether the students is online or in person. This will allow the movement between virtual and in person learning that we know will be happening.

For teaching, virtual teachers will use a blend of synchronous and asynchronous methods. They haven't given us a specific amount of time for synchronous instruction, I'm not sure if kids will be expected to be online at a certain time every day, or just a few times per week. Teachers will also be pushing out practice and online content to virtual kids. My district is 1 to 1 and has been for over a decade. We have been using the learner management system, Canvas, for 6 years, so we have the technology to support virtual learning. It was a bit of a hot mess in the spring though because we were all forced into it and parents were stressed out, so we went very slowly and our expectations were not as high as normal. For the fall, it's a choice and TEA has already said the expectations and grading has to be the same in virtual vs. in person, so I know it will be much better.

We are doing an optional training on Thursday for the tech part. Today and tomorrow I was working with just my department on planning. And next week I am sure there will be more training.

I know that some of my colleagues are NOT tech-savvy and will struggle quite a bit. But I'm ready, because I've taken some time to really learn about the tools at my disposal and the best ways to teach online. My district has been working on getting hotspots set up and devices to students. So I would say we'll sort of be ready...ask again next week and I'll have a better idea of how ready!

Ours is going to be TERRIBLE. I didn’t think it could be worse than last spring, but it is! Basically, the kids will be doing two programs—Dreambox for math and I Station for reading. We will have one whole group synchronous lesson in the morning for a read aloud, social emotional learning, community building, etc. Then we will do three 75 minute small group sessions. While I am meeting with small groups, the kids will be doing the Dreambox/ I-Station and watching videos made by our Teaching and Learning Dept. (which were pretty terrible last year). Art, music and PE will be prerecorded videos.

Here’s the kicker....the kids that opt for ON CAMPUS learning will be doing the same thing! They will be sitting at a desk with a computer doing the virtual learning while I am on my computer teaching both them and the kids at home. I think parents think if they send their kids to school, it/will be like normal school just with a mask and 6 feet apart. But it’s not going to be! They will be doing virtual learning at school. Can you imagine what my day is going to be like? Kindergartners don’t even know how to log on. Teaching them requires me to move their little hands to press the keys, and it takes weeks for them to be independent. And they will be expected to stay on task in a computer program that keeps them occupied for about 15 minutes for 75 minutes. How am I going to teach kids in my class and at home at the same time? They’re doing this to be “equitable” and to make the transition from home to school to home again seamless in the case of another outbreak.

school kids will stay in one room and watch the lessons from their other teachers virtually.

Ugghhhhhhh. 

This sounds somewhat similar to some of the methods our school is proposing. Teachers I know are asking how in the world are the supposed to teach full time in a classroom and do the online portion too. Our school has very limited money and resources, so I imagine it's going to be a huge shitshow, no matter what.