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Post by missfrenchjessica on May 15, 2020 0:31:17 GMT
I teach in the largest school district in Maryland. We're closed for the rest of the school year and what school will look like in the fall is still up in the air although the Governor and State Superintendent have put out a list of 8ish (  ) scenarios that the school districts can choose from when schools reopen in the fall. All but one scenario has all students returning sometime in the fall (probably late-ish August) on a rotating schedule. It would either be a Day A Day B schedule, a Week 1, Week 2 schedule or a combination of a rotating T-Th and W-F schedule with Mondays going every other week and Fridays being a teacher work day (I'm not 100% sure, but based on my memory). On the days students aren't physically in school they will do distance learning/packets/online activities. The one I think will eventually win out in my county/district is to have all elementary school students go back to a physical school. They will be spread out across the county taking up the spaces in the local middle and high schools in order to be able to properly physically distance, while middle and high school students would continue with online/distance learning until it is safe to move elementary students back to their home schools and open the buildings for the upper level students. I think they'll go with this model simply because parents need to get back to work and middle/hs students can be left at home unsupervised while ES students can't. While I hate to think of my profession as "daycare", the reality is, for many families, we are needed for them to be able to go to work. Our district curriculum head said she doesn't expect to see us physically back in buildings until Jan 2021 at the earliest. I am apt to believe this. I don't think we'll have this under control by the end of the summer. We'll be lucky if we're holding steady. Getting 1400+ (the size of my middle school) students TO school safely, socially distanced etc. is going to be IMPOSSIBLE. Even just half that size is going to be a nightmare. You think ES students are bad--holy moly MS students are super duper fun when getting them to follow directions they don't believe are "fair". Not to mention, how the heck do we keep staff safe? How do we keep our medically fragile students safe? What about the adults these students go home to? What about my family? I have 2 people who are high risk for contracting the virus if I were to be an asymptomatic carrier. How do I protect my family in that petrie dish? It's crazy and I'm just glad I'm not responsible for making these decisions. So, while online isn't ideal by any stretch, I'll do that over the alternative! |
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johnnysmom
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,687
Jun 25, 2014 21:16:33 GMT
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Post by johnnysmom on May 15, 2020 0:35:39 GMT
The one I think will eventually win out in my county/district is to have all elementary school students go back to a physical school. They will be spread out across the county taking up the spaces in the local middle and high schools in order to be able to properly physically distance, while middle and high school students would continue with online/distance learning until it is safe to move elementary students back to their home schools and open the buildings for the upper level students. I think they'll go with this model simply because parents need to get back to work and middle/hs students can be left at home unsupervised while ES students can't. While I hate to think of my profession as "daycare", the reality is, for many families, we are needed for them to be able to go to work. Of the options I've seen I like this one the best, it makes the most sense, but.....where are all the extra teachers coming from? We're expecting budget cuts here, there's no way we could hire more teachers for even 4 months.. |
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Post by missfrenchjessica on May 15, 2020 0:50:48 GMT
The one I think will eventually win out in my county/district is to have all elementary school students go back to a physical school. They will be spread out across the county taking up the spaces in the local middle and high schools in order to be able to properly physically distance, while middle and high school students would continue with online/distance learning until it is safe to move elementary students back to their home schools and open the buildings for the upper level students. I think they'll go with this model simply because parents need to get back to work and middle/hs students can be left at home unsupervised while ES students can't. While I hate to think of my profession as "daycare", the reality is, for many families, we are needed for them to be able to go to work. Of the options I've seen I like this one the best, it makes the most sense, but.....where are all the extra teachers coming from? We're expecting budget cuts here, there's no way we could hire more teachers for even 4 months.. My husband and I were talking about this today. Honestly, I think they're going to hire a bunch of brand-spanking new teachers straight out of school on 1 year contracts just to get through the school year. I think they'll get some special lee-way/provision or something due to the emergency nature of the situation. They may even take "highly qualified" candidates who may not have their certification yet under a provisional certificate, again, under an "emergency" certification for a year and then let them go if needed. I also suspect they're going to have PE/music/arts teachers doing regular classroom duty and I GUARANTEE you it's going to cause feathers to fly. It's already a HUGE bone of contention with all the online stuff going on and how they are being asked to teach and/or support math/English and/or other 'core' subjects instead of teaching their subject areas. I suspect they will be corralled into teaching these smaller, spread out ES classes...And the union will allow it because of the "emergency" situation. |
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Aug 18, 2025 20:04:53 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2020 1:06:02 GMT
This is how I taught today. My own laptop tied to a ladder. This is crisis teaching. Not one day off since March 13. I have yet to hear a teacher saying this is working. The big change that has to occur for this to be successful, is a change in perception of what distance learning looks like. Now, teachers know it is a reduction in what would be occurring in the classroom. Everyone else seems to think we are capable of doing the exact same thing -or more- that we would be doing in our classroom. However, no student is required to attend live sessions or complete work because of inequalities. No student can fail, even if they refuse to work because they just want to play video games. California has notoriously high class sizes. We also have been told there will be bigger budget cuts than we had in 2008. A successful distance learning program is going to need more money and pro-classroom (teacher and student) decisions. Until then, we do the best we can for our students. Thanks for sharing your experience. As a parent, I feel things are OK but not great and I wondered how teachers really feel about it too. Michigan is estimating a 25% school funding cut which is going to make things worse. |
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Post by shescrafty on May 15, 2020 1:08:35 GMT
missfrenchjessicaI am also in MD. There is NO WAY one group of teachers will have to meet face to face with students (elem teachers) and secondary teachers teach virtually. That would mean that all elem teachers have to face exposure and bring that back to their homes and families. Not to mention the fact that it would mean all secondary and high school teachers would not need to put their kids in daycare (added exposure for those kids and families) AND pay for the daycare. Nope not equitable at all. The unions would never allow it.
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Post by jenjie on May 15, 2020 1:09:22 GMT
I honestly think part of the reason people hate it because they were thrown into it. If teachers had more training and if students were more familiar with the platforms and tools, I think it could be better. Nope. I hate it because I don't get to be with my students. I miss them and relating to them. I miss helping them. There is only so much I can do through a computer and that is if they have a computer and log on. If I had wanted a job that didn't interact with students, I would have become an accountant I imagine it would be that much harder, too, to start the school year at a distance. Being together in the classroom for the first half of the year allowed teachers and students to get to know each other and build some kind of relationship. Beginning a new year with a new class or new teacher on a computer screen isn't ideal for connecting. |
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Post by Merge on May 15, 2020 1:26:13 GMT
I honestly think part of the reason people hate it because they were thrown into it. If teachers had more training and if students were more familiar with the platforms and tools, I think it could be better. Nope. I hate it because I don't get to be with my students. I miss them and relating to them. I miss helping them. There is only so much I can do through a computer and that is if they have a computer and log on. If I had wanted a job that didn't interact with students, I would have become an accountant Exactly. Music doesn't happen on paper and it doesn't happen in a google classroom. The organic feeling that happens when the students find their "groove" together can't be replicated online. And I know that doesn't just happen in music class. There's a classroom magic in every class that just can't be replicated online. |
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TankTop
Pearl Clutcher
Refupea #1,871
Posts: 4,876
Location: On the couch...
Jun 28, 2014 1:52:46 GMT
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Post by TankTop on May 15, 2020 1:38:04 GMT
I visited all 28 of my students yesterday. I drove to their houses, parked on the street, honked my horn, and they came out to their porches to talk to me.
We laughed and giggled. We told stories. We gave air hugs. We did our dumb dances.
You know what else we did?
Every house but 1... we cried together.
You can’t create that virtually. You can’t foster that love and trust through a computer. I don’t know what the fall will bring, but I for one know that if I am not in my classroom with my kids my heart will break into a million pieces.
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Post by missfrenchjessica on May 15, 2020 10:22:43 GMT
missfrenchjessica I am also in MD. There is NO WAY one group of teachers will have to meet face to face with students (elem teachers) and secondary teachers teach virtually. That would mean that all elem teachers have to face exposure and bring that back to their homes and families. Not to mention the fact that it would mean all secondary and high school teachers would not need to put their kids in daycare (added exposure for those kids and families) AND pay for the daycare. Nope not equitable at all. The unions would never allow it. I'm not so sure about that...I appreciate my union, but they haven't done so well by our arts/PE/specials teachers at the moment and it wouldn't surprise me to see them allow this due to the unprecedented circumstances. I hope I'm wrong, because if I were an ES teacher, I'd be totally freaked out. BUT, I also can't see how we're going to safely get all those kids TO school. How the heck do you socially distance all those kids ON A BUS? Do you do multiple runs? Do you disinfect between runs? How? Where do the students go who are there early? My head spins just thinking about it. Like I said, I'm glad I don't have to figure it all out, but if we do ALL go back, I had better have PPE (masks, protective shield, etc.) because if you think little kids don't know how to wash hands, cover their sneezes etc., they've never been in a middle school classroom!    |
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pyccku
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,831 
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Post by pyccku on May 16, 2020 1:11:22 GMT
Our super told us there is a survey coming on Monday. We are going 1:1 no matter what. He mentioned that we will absolutely have an in person option, but that we would also be adding virtual options as well as Expanding evening school And hybrid options.
Every year we have to fill out a trip reduction survey and every single year I’ve said I’d like to work from home/telecommute. Crazy to think I might actually get my wish. I enjoy teaching the kids, but I am also enjoying my time at home. I’m a very tech savvy teacher, though - I know some of my colleagues are hating this.
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Peal
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,524
Jun 25, 2014 22:45:40 GMT
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Post by Peal on May 16, 2020 1:45:17 GMT
I'm not a teacher, but I've got kids. Luckily, next year I will only have one left in public school and he will be a high school sophomore, so I don't have the "can't leave him home alone" issue. DS is the first of a wave of classes that are unusually large for the area and the district has already announced they would have to put pods at the high school to accommodate the influx of students over the next three or four years until class sizes shrink again. How that will look if they also need to distance kids I have no idea.
The only thing that has struck me as possibly useful is, to make up for lost instruction time from this year (because there will be catch up in the fall) and potential lost instruction time for next year, is to do away with state testing indefinitely. It just seems so much instruction time is used up preparing for and taking these tests that could be used for education. Has anyone's school districts talked about that at all?
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Post by Merge on May 16, 2020 14:50:15 GMT
I'm not a teacher, but I've got kids. Luckily, next year I will only have one left in public school and he will be a high school sophomore, so I don't have the "can't leave him home alone" issue. DS is the first of a wave of classes that are unusually large for the area and the district has already announced they would have to put pods at the high school to accommodate the influx of students over the next three or four years until class sizes shrink again. How that will look if they also need to distance kids I have no idea. The only thing that has struck me as possibly useful is, to make up for lost instruction time from this year (because there will be catch up in the fall) and potential lost instruction time for next year, is to do away with state testing indefinitely. It just seems so much instruction time is used up preparing for and taking these tests that could be used for education. Has anyone's school districts talked about that at all? That's a decision that would have to be made at the state level here. Districts can't just decide not to test. I would be all for it. The cost savings would be enormous (Texas spends billions in education dollars on testing and it all goes to private companies) and yes, everyone could focus on teaching during whatever time and in whatever capacity we have. |
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artbabe
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,844
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Post by artbabe on May 16, 2020 15:26:20 GMT
I honestly have no idea how it will work. The only thing that logistically makes sense is to keep kids at home but that is a problem. I teach 116 kids right now and 10 of them have never shown up. I work in a suburban school- the schools in our district that are inner city have over 50% of the kids missing. I just don't think anything that is logistically complex is going to be sustainable, though. It is hard enough with the basic logistics we have now.
If we have to split the kids up I'd rather do a week on and a week off, too. I don't know what that will do to my workload though. Right now, in order to be a good online teacher I'm putting in full days on the computer. I don't know how I'm supposed to teach kids that are physically in my class and at the same time give the kids who are home the attention they need to be successful.
I have no idea how to get the kids to school, either. There is no way to social distance on a bus and a large percent of our kids are bus riders.
I miss talking to the kids and I miss the ability to give the work back to a kid and have them revise, add, refine, etc. Right now I try to do that but I feel like I'm talking to myself most of the time- most of the kids think if they click "submit" then they are done. It is really hard to teach drawing skills without physically being there to show things about individual work. I would love to see the kids in person sometimes to do that and to give kids supplies to do the assignments.
And then there is the budget problem. Our district has been cut by $3 million. I read about what districts in other states are doing to art teachers and I feel like I'm on very shaky ground.
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) scenarios that the school districts can choose from when schools reopen in the fall. All but one scenario has all students returning sometime in the fall (probably late-ish August) on a rotating schedule. It would either be a Day A Day B schedule, a Week 1, Week 2 schedule or a combination of a rotating T-Th and W-F schedule with Mondays going every other week and Fridays being a teacher work day (I'm not 100% sure, but based on my memory). On the days students aren't physically in school they will do distance learning/packets/online activities. 
