Covid and School

[sterlingice]

Some I know, suggested in the abstract, what if we just paused education for a year?

You were in 6th grade last year, you're in 6th grade refresher this year. You can receive the base level of instruction to not decay learning but keep things pass/fail, etc. However, the job is to just do that "daycare/working parents" task not the education task and instead use that time to ease pressure and focus on the metal health aspects of the pandemic.

You wouldn't need the same level of teaching to just maintain so you could get substitutes who don't need the same level of expertise. You could shield older teachers and those who are willing to risk it for a job in a tough job time could help out. Would the level of instruction be the same? Of course not, but it's not going to be with the situation as is so we need to stop pretending it's going to be.

Yes, there will be students on crazy advanced tracks who want to get ahead, but that's not going to be the bulk of students. And those will likely be the ones with more means who don't need the other functions as much.

It kindof sounds crazy but what we're doing with the "status quo" is similarly crazy because it's not the status quo.

SI

[Comey]

Here in Rhode Island, the word is out that the school year will be pushed back a few weeks, so there's more time to prepare (and perhaps gauge where things are). A formal announcement is expected tomorrow. I'm still expecting to report to my school on Monday to start prepping, but I guess we'll have more time to be fully ready as a school.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Some I know, suggested in the abstract, what if we just paused education for a year?

I'm already seeing people make noise about wanting refunds on their school taxes. How well you think a pause would fly without some significant rebates?

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Comey

Here in Rhode Island, the word is out that the school year will be pushed back a few weeks, so there's more time to prepare (and perhaps gauge where things are). A formal announcement is expected tomorrow. I'm still expecting to report to my school on Monday to start prepping, but I guess we'll have more time to be fully ready as a school.

That must be really tough. Are you also expected to have a plan in place for remote instruction?

[ColtCrazy]

We just finished out first day of in person school. I challenge anyone that wants to bitch about schools, school taxes, or whatever to come in for a couple days and see how it is. Just spend some time with the kids and the staff and understand why this is so difficult.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Some I know, suggested in the abstract, what if we just paused education for a year?

You were in 6th grade last year, you're in 6th grade refresher this year. You can receive the base level of instruction to not decay learning but keep things pass/fail, etc. However, the job is to just do that "daycare/working parents" task not the education task and instead use that time to ease pressure and focus on the metal health aspects of the pandemic.

You wouldn't need the same level of teaching to just maintain so you could get substitutes who don't need the same level of expertise. You could shield older teachers and those who are willing to risk it for a job in a tough job time could help out. Would the level of instruction be the same? Of course not, but it's not going to be with the situation as is so we need to stop pretending it's going to be.

Yes, there will be students on crazy advanced tracks who want to get ahead, but that's not going to be the bulk of students. And those will likely be the ones with more means who don't need the other functions as much.

It kindof sounds crazy but what we're doing with the "status quo" is similarly crazy because it's not the status quo.

SI

For college kids it's not a big deal. Maybe even make the case for high school. But at young ages, losing a year is such a huge loss.

I have no clue how to do any of this but I've read a lot from experts that point out how much it would fuck up kids to just not learn for a year.

[RainMaker]

For the schools that are delaying an opening to better prepare, what the fuck have they been doing the past 5 months?

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

We just finished out first day of in person school. I challenge anyone that wants to bitch about schools, school taxes, or whatever to come in for a couple days and see how it is. Just spend some time with the kids and the staff and understand why this is so difficult.

How did it go? We start in September and I am still weighing our options

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

For college kids it's not a big deal. Maybe even make the case for high school. But at young ages, losing a year is such a huge loss.

I have no clue how to do any of this but I've read a lot from experts that point out how much it would fuck up kids to just not learn for a year.

yeah, especially because a lot of parents would use TV, video games, Ipads, etc...as substitute for the missed time. Kids would be totally fucked up and I am about as liberal with screen time as you can get.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Danny

I'm a school psycholgist in a management position and have been practicing for about 10 years now. As someone said, there are no good options here unfortunately.

There are a lot of factors that really are not being considered here. My responses are primarily for areas who are not in stage 4 of opening. In my case our county is on the watch list and already has a significant rise in cases. There may be areas where some of my points do not apply.

What happened in the spring was crisis learning, not remote learning. I can only speak for my district, but our planning, and training is significantly better now than it was then. As usual there will be variance but we have some teachers who are going to be doing a great job. Now will even a much improved remote learning experience be as good as pre pandemic normal schooling? Not even close. But is it on par with what school will look like with in person learning under these conditions? Possibly and in some cases in person could be worse. I can tell you some of our more talented teachers doing remote learning is much better than whoever we'd get in for an in person sub. .

Some practical considerations. There are huge sub shortages. We couldn't get enough sub coverage pre pandemic. With in person learning its due to a number of reasons its quite likely many teachers will be out and using their sick days often and we will likely have many classrooms with no teacher. And a lot of teachers who are not new have a lot of sick day. Not to mention time out if there was possible exposure.

Teachers are not health care workers. They are not trained in this. Teachers are scared, really scared. Scared teachers do not provide quality instruction. This isn't making sure a patient lives, its creating a learning environment for kids. Schools are not set up to follow procedures like hospitals. My wife works at a hospital directly with covid patients. But they have strict protocol. Not kids chasing each other threatening one another with covid. And along the previous point, starting on in person school where cases are high is just going to lead to shutdown and emergency response again, resulting in poorer remote learning. And for my county it currently takes a week to even get a test and a week to get results so again your going to have classrooms and potentially whole school sites shut down for weeks at a time to even know if someone was negative.

Mental health is a very real concern but this is true regardless of the learning model. Being at school 6 feet apart from everyone, not being allowed to play with classmates, do collaborative learning, play on the playground, having to wear a mask, not being able to come near your teacher, or having them back away from you etc.. these are not therapeutic conditions for mental health. Having more people get sick and or die are not good for mental health. We have many many kids who have their older grandparents as their guardians. Them getting sick or dying isn't good for mental health. Counseling services can be provided remotely. As a community we need to step up in regards to mental health, not just the schools.

Now remote learning has some major issues too. Some primary ones being equity and special education. Remote learning is really difficult for students who had school as their safe place and home is not a comfortable or safe place for them. These kids are suffering, though based on the polling we did, almost all of them chose remote learning for the year anyway. And while I do think kids with specific learning disabilities and speech or language can still benefit from remote support services, kids with autism, intellectual disabilities, significant emotional and behavioral difficulties and others in special day classes are the most affected.

All the options suck, but I am seeing teachers work their butts off all summer in prepping the best they possibly can for remote learning this go around.

This whole mess was caused by irresponsibility in the first place. We should have the virus largely contained and testing and tracing to a degree that in person learning could work and specific cases quickly isolated and dealt with. Back when we to crisis learning in the spring and shut down I was hopeful wed have the virus response managed and be back in to in person schooling now as when safe that really is best for kids. But were not even close.

This whole crappy situation is the result of our societal failings.

Thank you for your perspective. If you allowed to say, when did the staff receive the actual plan for how the school would operate for in person schooling. My wife's school is still waiting for guidance for the school board and as such does not have an actual plan for how the school will operate if/when they are open for students.

[Danny]

we are opening under remote learning. The board voted initially to start in person but that quickly changed due to feedback, governor recommendations and a surge in cases. That was early July. Since then all the planning has been going into remote including an extra week of training for all staff

[Glengoyne]

My wife started back to work no kids, but prepping for remote instruction. The staff are wearing masks when venturing out of their classrooms and figuring out their tools. Everything is very new, and will be for the students as well. I expect a few weeks for the kids just to learn Zoom.

[ColtCrazy]

Originally Posted by Lathum

How did it go? We start in September and I am still weighing our options

Keep in mind I'm a school of about 240 PreK to 5th.

The kids really handed it well over all. I had more mask issues with MS and HS students on the bus in the morning and afternoon than I did with our kids.

Recess was interested. We were told that masks could be down for "vigorous play" but we had to police a lot of the ones that wanted to stand and chat without masks. We had them put them back on. Reality is the kids will be all around each other at recess, but not for more than the 15 minute proximity guideline.

We sent one home with symptoms. That'll be the kicker once we hit flu season. We'll have kids out right and left.

Overall, not a bad first day if you step back. However, the staff is exhausted. I really feel for the support staff, especially duty aides who have to be really on to not just watch behavior but social distancing as well and the custodians who now are busy constantly between normal duties and sanitizing areas when kids use them.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

I expect a few weeks for the kids just to learn Zoom.

Nice to see a school teach a valuable workplace skill!

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Danny

I'm a school psycholgist in a management position and have been practicing for about 10 years now. As someone said, there are no good options here unfortunately.

There are a lot of factors that really are not being considered here. My responses are primarily for areas who are not in stage 4 of opening. In my case our county is on the watch list and already has a significant rise in cases. There may be areas where some of my points do not apply.

What happened in the spring was crisis learning, not remote learning. I can only speak for my district, but our planning, and training is significantly better now than it was then. As usual there will be variance but we have some teachers who are going to be doing a great job. Now will even a much improved remote learning experience be as good as pre pandemic normal schooling? Not even close. But is it on par with what school will look like with in person learning under these conditions? Possibly and in some cases in person could be worse. I can tell you some of our more talented teachers doing remote learning is much better than whoever we'd get in for an in person sub. .

Some practical considerations. There are huge sub shortages. We couldn't get enough sub coverage pre pandemic. With in person learning its due to a number of reasons its quite likely many teachers will be out and using their sick days often and we will likely have many classrooms with no teacher. And a lot of teachers who are not new have a lot of sick day. Not to mention time out if there was possible exposure.

Teachers are not health care workers. They are not trained in this. Teachers are scared, really scared. Scared teachers do not provide quality instruction. This isn't making sure a patient lives, its creating a learning environment for kids. Schools are not set up to follow procedures like hospitals. My wife works at a hospital directly with covid patients. But they have strict protocol. Not kids chasing each other threatening one another with covid. And along the previous point, starting on in person school where cases are high is just going to lead to shutdown and emergency response again, resulting in poorer remote learning. And for my county it currently takes a week to even get a test and a week to get results so again your going to have classrooms and potentially whole school sites shut down for weeks at a time to even know if someone was negative.

Mental health is a very real concern but this is true regardless of the learning model. Being at school 6 feet apart from everyone, not being allowed to play with classmates, do collaborative learning, play on the playground, having to wear a mask, not being able to come near your teacher, or having them back away from you etc.. these are not therapeutic conditions for mental health. Having more people get sick and or die are not good for mental health. We have many many kids who have their older grandparents as their guardians. Them getting sick or dying isn't good for mental health. Counseling services can be provided remotely. As a community we need to step up in regards to mental health, not just the schools.

Now remote learning has some major issues too. Some primary ones being equity and special education. Remote learning is really difficult for students who had school as their safe place and home is not a comfortable or safe place for them. These kids are suffering, though based on the polling we did, almost all of them chose remote learning for the year anyway. And while I do think kids with specific learning disabilities and speech or language can still benefit from remote support services, kids with autism, intellectual disabilities, significant emotional and behavioral difficulties and others in special day classes are the most affected.

All the options suck, but I am seeing teachers work their butts off all summer in prepping the best they possibly can for remote learning this go around.

This whole mess was caused by irresponsibility in the first place. We should have the virus largely contained and testing and tracing to a degree that in person learning could work and specific cases quickly isolated and dealt with. Back when we to crisis learning in the spring and shut down I was hopeful wed have the virus response managed and be back in to in person schooling now as when safe that really is best for kids. But were not even close.

This whole crappy situation is the result of our societal failings.

Thanks for your insight Danny, this is very informative.

Our school board had a meeting last night where they outlined their plans (distance learning to start the year, re-evaluate after Q1 ends in October), which were summarized in a 19 page document. One thing that was mentioned during the meeting that Danny alluded to above is that in a survey of teachers, over half of them had someone in their households who have complicating risk factors if they were exposed to COVID-19 and expressed concerns about working in person as a result. I am sure that was a significant factor in deciding to start the year with distance learning.

[Comey]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

For the schools that are delaying an opening to better prepare, what the fuck have they been doing the past 5 months?

From what I've read regarding Rhode Island, we don't have the supplies, and the federal government is dragging its feet. Also waiting to see if we can get increased transportation from the National Guard (which I thought was interesting).

With the cases going back up here, they decided they are not at a point where they can make a decision. So they pushed the decision date (this week) back two weeks.

Originally Posted by dawgfan

That must be really tough. Are you also expected to have a plan in place for remote instruction?

No idea. We're in the dark. I can't even speculate on what's going on. The plan from the Governor is full in-person. But even before the announcement is made later today, one of the towns has already annouced they're starting the year with distance learning. And they aren't a town that has been hit overly hard with the virus. Where I live (Pawtucket and Providence) are the hardest hit areas in the state currently. There's no way we can be in-person, probably even in a month.

Our administrators are scrambling, because there was no indication on this until yesterday.

To be perfectly honest, as someone who gets sick really easily, I'm terrified of going back. And as someone who deals with severe anxiety...well, this is already ripping me up pretty good. So...yeah, not a great time for me, emotionally speaking.

[Edward64]

Wife starts teaching again this Mon. For the past week, she's gone in to prep. It's all remote learning for the forseeable future where teachers come in and teach from the classrooms. Tough enough as is but she is special ed and they need more attention/care to make it work.

IMO kids are being short-changed with remote learning but it is what it is. Definitely better than having kids come to school right now.

[miami_fan]

Anybody have advice for a school who was already short two paraprofessionals now has half of its special needs teachers in quarantine with two of those in the hospital for breathing issues?

Asking for a friend.

[Flasch186]

Close

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

Anybody have advice for a school who was already short two paraprofessionals now has half of its special needs teachers in quarantine with two of those in the hospital for breathing issues?

Asking for a friend.

This definitely won't be playing itself out over the next 2 months all over the country.

SI

[miked]

Our digital learning has been a disaster so far. The teacher, who is one of the better in the school, is older and has no idea how to work zoom. Took her about 20 minutes to figure out how to share her screen, zoom keeps telling us she has low bandwidth and she is choppy, and none of the parents can seem to keep their machines on mute (and she does not know how to set it to mute all). Kids are totally disengaged (he is in 2nd grade). It's going to be a long digital month (and more).

My 6th grader is going to an art school and they are slightly better. She had a joint session with two of her teachers, who apparently argued about volume for the first 10 minutes of a 30 minute session. It's almost as if people who do not get training and time to learn tasks cannot do them.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by miked

It's almost as if people who do not get training and time to learn tasks cannot do them.

At the risk of asking a glaringly obvious question ... what the fuck have they been doing for the past 5-6 months?

I get that there are going to be some who simply aren't going to be able to figure out Zoom (et al) but it's not as though there might not have been a notion that getting a handle on the basic stuff might be a good idea.

[JPhillips]

Yeah, there's really no excuse not to be familiar with Zoom, or something similar if your school is using it, coming into this school year. Getting good at distance learning is tie consuming and requires institutional support, but you can get pretty comfortable with Zoom with just yourself and a computer.

[Edward64]

My wife's school uses TEAMS. I've helped my wife out in prepping for classes (e.g. how to project on a second monitor, some TEAMS configuration etc.) and know other teachers are less tech savvy and don't have the support I've given my wife.

TBH there is fair amount of confusion not only about tech but also processes in this new normal. But yeah, no excuse for not able to do the basics considering remote learning done already back in April.

[ISiddiqui]

So my wife’s school district has decided to jettison Microsoft Teams and go to Google Classroom starting next week. Apparently MS told schools they’d put in features to help with learning - this week teachers found out that they can’t force mute the class or disable the chat features (which are things they specifically asked if MS was going to address and they said they were). So kids were unmuting themselves and chatting with each other during learning time. Apparently Google Classroom can do those things.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

At the risk of asking a glaringly obvious question ... what the fuck have they been doing for the past 5-6 months?

Considering that the virtual learning decision wasn’t made until recently, training wasn’t really done for most of those months. Add to that school districts would have to pay teachers for training days and they are currently figuring out how to furlough days instead. So most districts just had 1 week of training before students started.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Considering that the virtual learning decision wasn’t made until recently, training wasn’t really done for most of those months. Add to that school districts would have to pay teachers for training days and they are currently figuring out how to furlough days instead. So most districts just had 1 week of training before students started.

Then those districts are ineptly run,and those teachers don't seem to have much interest in remaining viable. Even as a fairly vigorous opponent of shifting to online in most circumstances I recognized the significant chance it was going to come into play this fall.

But I've long understood the usefulness of acquiring skills that would come into play professionally, at least at a basic level.

[Edward64]

My wife hypothesized (not confirmed) the reason why schools in her district are pushing for students to come back in Sep is so they don't lose any federal funds (e.g. maintenance of school). Anyone know if this is true?

If true, this seems very short sighted for public schools.

[Lathum]

Really don’t like what my town is doing. There are 4 elementary schools. If you opt for virtual you can’t come back until the end of the marking period. Ok. But they put in a disclaimer If you opt back in they can’t guarantee your kid will be able to go back to their school. That’s horrible for the kids.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Edward64

My wife hypothesized (not confirmed) the reason why schools in her district are pushing for students to come back in Sep is so they don't lose any federal funds (e.g. maintenance of school). Anyone know if this is true?

If true, this seems very short sighted for public schools.

Does it have anything to do with Trump's treat to do just that if schools don't go back in person?

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

At the risk of asking a glaringly obvious question ... what the fuck have they been doing for the past 5-6 months?

I get that there are going to be some who simply aren't going to be able to figure out Zoom (et al) but it's not as though there might not have been a notion that getting a handle on the basic stuff might be a good idea.

Have you been ignoring my complaints?

Here is an example. My wife’s school district is transitioning from Edsby to Canvas. I guess it was planned prior to the shutdown. They just allowed the teachers access to the live system on Monday after a four hour seminar (through Zoom, no hands on) about a month ago. She is one of the lucky ones as she has access to what the student would as well as what the parents see. Those teachers who don’t have kids in the school don’t have those views or at least have not been taught that. They are also supposed to be transitioning from Zoom to another platform because of some complaints about the platform That’s right, they still don’t know if that’s happening as yet. School starts Monday.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Edward64

My wife hypothesized (not confirmed) the reason why schools in her district are pushing for students to come back in Sep is so they don't lose any federal funds (e.g. maintenance of school). Anyone know if this is true?

If true, this seems very short sighted for public schools.

TEA is basically playing this game of chicken with the school districts about that here in Texas. They only gave the option of temporary online waivers about a month ago and that was after posturing that everyone needed to be in school in August before cases started their post-Memorial Day explosion in the state.

SI

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Edward64

so they don't lose any federal funds

It is never a bad idea to follow the money if you're hoping to get to the truth about just about anything.

That tends to make for a solid lead in most scenarios.

[miked]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Then those districts are ineptly run,and those teachers don't seem to have much interest in remaining viable. Even as a fairly vigorous opponent of shifting to online in most circumstances I recognized the significant chance it was going to come into play this fall.

But I've long understood the usefulness of acquiring skills that would come into play professionally, at least at a basic level.

It's Dekalb county, so yes. They did not have a superintendent until late July and no plans as of early August. You have to pay the thousands of teachers to do the training (they are only on 9 or 10 month contracts) and the state (and likely county) budgets are slashed due to the pandemic. They should have just delayed until Labor day or something but gotten those teachers in there for a month of training. Or let them come to school and teach on camera so there are no bandwidth issues.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Edward64

My wife hypothesized (not confirmed) the reason why schools in her district are pushing for students to come back in Sep is so they don't lose any federal funds (e.g. maintenance of school). Anyone know if this is true?

If true, this seems very short sighted for public schools.

The school board agreed to open with the first four weeks online before opening back up brick and mortars. The state objected. Here was the threat.

The state has said that for just the first four weeks, Hillsborough would have lost $23 million because students learning virtually would not receive full per-pupil funding under the state’s system.

That’s $23 million per month.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

My wife’s school district is transitioning from Edsby to Canvas.

Allow me to borrow this to make something clear (in case it wasn't)

Get down into the nitty gritty of specialized software, a certain amount of training (and moreso really, time hands-on) is going to be necessary to become truly proficient. I get that.

I've been through multiple changes in music scheduling software, commercial scheduling software, accounting software (including two instances where systems ran parallel for 9-12 months, requiring double the normal amount of work), ratings & media buying software. A couple of those were custom builds too, just adding to the fun. You get to be end-user, customer, AND unpaid beta tester all at the same time. All of which had their own unique quirks, etc and so forth.

But that's not the level of issues that set me off earlier.

That was about not knowing ass from hole in ground about fucking Zoom, which has been at the forefront of discussion since the planet first lost its mind.

[sterlingice]

On the technology front, this time last year, no one was using Microsoft Teams and Zoom was an easy to use conference app that no company would let within 10' of their support base because of all of their awful security holes. That said, Zoom is basically WebEx so if you've done video conferencing, it's not new. But teachers would have had to learn it on their own over the summer without any support (certainly doable but not guaranteed) because it's not like they had a lot of time last school year to learn or adjust on the fly.

EDIT: Looks like JiMGA was posting as I did so this is a bit redundant.

SI

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Allow me to borrow this to make something clear (in case it wasn't)

Get down into the nitty gritty of specialized software, a certain amount of training (and moreso really, time hands-on) is going to be necessary to become truly proficient. I get that.

I've been through multiple changes in music scheduling software, commercial scheduling software, accounting software (including two instances where systems ran parallel for 9-12 months, requiring double the normal amount of work), ratings & media buying software. A couple of those were custom builds too, just adding to the fun. You get to be end-user, customer, AND unpaid beta tester all at the same time. All of which had their own unique quirks, etc and so forth.

But that's not the level of issues that set me off earlier.

That was about not knowing ass from hole in ground about fucking Zoom, which has been at the forefront of discussion since the planet first lost its mind.

I hear you, I was just giving you an example of the level of ineptness. I agree teachers should be semi experts with Zoom by now. I have to also acknowledge that based on surveys and polls in July, half of the community did not believe we would be doing any online schooling at all. So I could see teachers if they were a part of that half not giving Zoom a second thought since logging off in May.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

EDIT: Looks like JiMGA was posting as I did so this is a bit redundant.

You're good (afaic anyway).

There were multiple posts with their own specifics going at the same time, was easy to get posts/replies/comments crossed, tangled, threaded & unthreaded.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I've mentioned previously (in some thread or another) that I've got an unusually high number of K-12 educators among my social media friends/follows. (a function of having a crazy high percentage of my HS peers end up in that line of work). So I see stuff just in the normal flow of living my digital life.

I've watched a cousin who is a ... wtfever his job description is. He's basically what I'd call a digital training lead or similar, for a top-ten sized school system in Georgia. He's not their IT lead, he's kind of the go-between for policy/implementation side and the boots on the ground employees. (in addition to teaching a full class load himself)

All summer he cranked out specific short videos about one topic or another, offering practical daily use level info about multiple softwares and other tech stuff. Numerous times he did those based on specific requests about some topic. I don't know how many horses showed up to drink but there was water for 'em regardless.

I grew up in a relative backwater (that still hasn't exactly soared above that) but spent July watching a whole batch of K-12 teachers get dragged into engagement with their digital setup after some basic human behavior manipulation.

The way they got them engaged in significant numbers? They got a couple of people gung-ho about decorating their "digital classroom" ... and like moths to flames a sizable portion of the rest followed suit. Basic human behavior.

I dare say the vast majority of the FOFC understands the value of getting people to be hands on with any sort of new tech, getting people past the fear of "I'm afraid I'll break it" or "I don't have the slightest clue what to do". It frankly impressed the hell outta me that anybody back home thought about how to encourage that, especially since the majority of instruction there is taking place in person not online.

[Izulde]

We're 2 days in-person, 3 days virtual here with the students split into two cohorts to halve the student population. Teachers are in-classroom all five days (one day is a virtual-only day), which I'm perfectly fine with. It'll help students to see the normalcy of the classroom, I think. Of course, the politics of this area mean that's only in place until mid-September, after which the school board will reassess. I have a hunch we'll be switching to five days in-person at that point, unless something happens.

Side note: I have my very own classroom, it turns out. I nearly cried when my mentor (who is an awesome, helpful, skilled person) informed me that no, it wasn't a shared room, but all my own. Years of sharing a desk with multiple people (if that much at all) and going to that... It was incredible, and I wished I could call Mom and tell her all about it (and get classroom makeover ideas).

Oddly, I'm not as nervous about it as I otherwise would be. This is a rural community that hasn't been majorly affected by it. The last time I saw any numbers drilled down to that level was 13 active cases, and that was a few weeks ago.

Masks and social distancing will be required, and all of the staff I've seen has strictly adhered to those policies. So I'm cautiously hopeful we'll be able to ride out the storm.

[sterlingice]

Congrats!

SI

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Izulde

So I'm cautiously hopeful we'll be able to ride out the storm.

QAnon already. Good to see the rural life having its effect.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Purely anecdotal -- kid got his second test results back in time to be able to attend class on Thursday. The school administered test results back within 24h. The state health administered one still no results back after six days.

edit to update -- Orrrrr, not. HE'S fine but tomorrow's class is online only now, thanks to a university crackdown on a large chunk of his section classmates (freshman law cohort is divided into three sections, who then all have classes with the same subgroup of people).

Last week he missed a socially distanced restaurant/bar outing because he had to be home for his landlord to come by and check a couple of minor repairs. The following day about half those who attended went to a private bbq function they'd planned the night before. Somebody ratted the group out to the university and they've all been placed on quarantine, meaning there weren't enough available to justify the in-person class. So all the extra rigamarole he went through to get the test stuff done turned out to be pointless.

Which, frankly, is how I'm starting to feel about him bothering to go to Miami

[ColtCrazy]

We have had 3 schools switch to completely Virtual due to outbreaks in the building. Our district had its first teacher test positive on Friday. We have several kids out now who are getting tested. If we switch to virtual, I suspect it will be due to lack of staff. Subs simply have no desire to come into the building. I am the most rural school in the district, so I've got some local, loyal subs keeping me afloat, but even then I've had to go out and cover recess a few times.
It's coming. It's just a matter of time I'm afraid.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

I hear you, I was just giving you an example of the level of ineptness. I agree teachers should be semi experts with Zoom by now. I have to also acknowledge that based on surveys and polls in July, half of the community did not believe we would be doing any online schooling at all. So I could see teachers if they were a part of that half not giving Zoom a second thought since logging off in May.

Also to your and JIMG's point, there are a lot of oldest teachers who simply have no interest or desire to know technology. And generally they could get away with it, but not now. However it isn't like people are breaking down the doors to be teachers, so it isn't easy enough to say they should be replaced.

Though for my wife's school the main problem teacher, re: technology, is the PE teacher. Who basically needs others to hold his hand to do the simplest of things and he's in his 30s!!!

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by ColtCrazy

We have had 3 schools switch to completely Virtual due to outbreaks in the building. Our district had its first teacher test positive on Friday. We have several kids out now who are getting tested. If we switch to virtual, I suspect it will be due to lack of staff. Subs simply have no desire to come into the building. I am the most rural school in the district, so I've got some local, loyal subs keeping me afloat, but even then I've had to go out and cover recess a few times.

It's coming. It's just a matter of time I'm afraid.

Every district just has to learn this the hard way, I guess

SI

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

However it isn't like people are breaking down the doors to be teachers, so it isn't easy enough to say they should be replaced.

Truth!

[Alan T]

Got my covid test back at my university within 12 hours yesterday. So far they are turning them around fast. Next week more students are added so will see how that goes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[miami_fan]

I am participating in our school's Zoom intro session. I am pretty confident that those kids that are going to back to brick and mortar will be properly socially distant. The principal said the split has been 65-35 in favor of e-learning. Evidently, many of the local churches are setting up areas for the students to "go to class".