Any other teachers?

Is anyone else struggling with teaching in the pandemic?

this is so incredibly hard.

and I find it has changed my feelings about my coworkers - some of whom are in the “not a big deal” camp and have to be forced to take precautions for the sake of others (or in one case banned from campus)

Remember lock down drills? I work with people who would take a bullet for our kids - and I believe they would - but have refused to come back to the classroom. I on the other hand, would probably dive out of the way but am desperate to have my classes back and agonizing over their mental health.

I begged an exception to get a handful of kids back for two hours next week. I may have stretched the truth a little. I had administrative assistance on that.

I look into the office sometimes and the director looks like somebody waiting outside an operating room for news on wether the patient is going to live.

I am saddened and depressed by the reports coming out on what kids across the country are not learning.

These are the kids that will be physicians treating me when I’m very old and frail. Oy vey. Will they even know anything having skipped basic building blocks in the sciences? Will the bridges I drive on fall down because the engineers missed basic principles in physics?


Yes, it is all about me.:~)

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

I am saddened and depressed by the reports coming out on what kids across the country are not learning.

These are the kids that will be physicians treating me when I’m very old and frail. Oy vey. Will they even know anything having skipped basic building blocks in the sciences? Will the bridges I drive on fall down because the engineers missed basic principles in physics?

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I believe that the kids who had very disrupted lives for a couple of years after Katrina demolished schools and homes were tested some years later and the conclusion was that the kids had recovered both knowledge and mental health up to their peers in unaffected areas.
Kids are resilient and will recover if given full support and opportunity.

It’s really a no win situation. If I was a teacher over 50 I probably wouldn’t want to be in the classroom. Although younger teachers have died. Yet distance learning isn’t working. I probably would strangle the ones not taking it seriously. What a mess!

I am a teacher over 50.

For the most part, I feel safe in my classroom. There are a couple of little ones I wish were not there because they simply cannot keep their masks in place and they touch their faces a lot. I avoid them, and honestly, they are getting less help and instruction from me. But I am not worried about them. They mostly want to be with their friends, and they will catch up on anything they miss.

I trust my older kids. They wear their masks, they keep their distance, and they worry about us old people.

my classroom is well ventilated, frequently sanitized, and has an air purifier three feet from my desk. I have control over my classroom.

I refuse to go in the office or into other people’s classrooms. Droplets hang in the air. I don’t know how long, but I can’t believe that if you have been eating lunch or working at your desk during your planning period with no mask it is ok for me to come in and talk with you as long as you pull your mask up. If you were smoking outside and you crush out your cigarette as I approach - I’m still breathing smoke. Less smoke, but still smoke. I avoid my coworkers in the hall.

I have a very good mask. several actually. My Dd made them for me with two layers of heavy cotton fabric and a central filter. They fit snuggly. I cannot go up the stairs quickly wearing one because they restrict airflow too much. Someone at school asked if my child was trying to protect me or smother me. I laughed and said I was not sure, and that she must have spent most of her teens wondering the same thing about me.

This is what you're up against, apparently. These jerks couldn't even manage a couple of symbolic minutes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...2fda0efbbef8d4

I am becoming more proactive about getting my kids back. Grades 1-12. we do serve a population that probably has a higher percentage of “at risk” but 2% of our student body is currently in inpatient psychiatric care. 2%. Inpatient. Bars are open. I told my admin today - I understand that you have to have policies. Now tell me how to get around them - if there is a loophole, I’m in it. I will say whatever words I need to say. If they delay in person again next week I’m ready to start meeting kids in the parking lot after school.

The ones i “snuck in” yesterday - were laughing. They don’t laugh online. I had a 16 year old boy say “it is really good to actually see you.” To his old lady teacher. They should be treating me like furniture - taken for granted and mostly ignored.

I made a mistake last week because I am so out of touch with them. Today I found out about the mistake and apologized. Interesting expression “out of touch” I feel like I just saw it for the first time.

my attendance today was awful. They come late, their cameras are “broken” their internet “logs them off” their sound “breaks up.” They don’t answer my emails.

I cannot imagine how difficult and frustrating it must be for teachers right now. Your post made me wonder about the School to Work program at my former employer. The company has a longstanding partnership with a local inner-city HS and provides good student intern job opportunities. I always had HS interns and that was one of the most gratifying parts of my job. I imagine the program has been put on hold since everyone is working from home.

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Originally Posted by Chicken lady

I am becoming more proactive about getting my kids back. Grades 1-12. we do serve a population that probably has a higher percentage of “at risk” but 2% of our student body is currently in inpatient psychiatric care. 2%. Inpatient. Bars are open. I told my admin today - I understand that you have to have policies. Now tell me how to get around them - if there is a loophole, I’m in it. I will say whatever words I need to say. If they delay in person again next week I’m ready to start meeting kids in the parking lot after school.

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I am not following. Is your school in remote mode, and you want them back in the classroom? What is the policy now where you are teaching?

My granddaughter in Maine goes two days a week, in a small pod of six children. There is another pod that meets a different two days, and they all get together online each day.

That is the policy they are following at that school district.

My grandson in Indiana goes every day, in person. They wear masks, and have some social distancing rules, but it is a very different policy between the two schools.

Grades 1—4 are in person three days a week. We have always had very small classes and capped them lower this year, so physical distancing is not a problem - all my desks are 6 feet apart - tape on the floor. We wear masks and have good ventilation. Grades 5-6 have 4 subjects (math, science, language arts, history) that meet in person 2x a week. One PE class meets outside (yesterday in the snow) after school 1x a week. Everything else is remote.

yes, I want them back! I am not worried that a teenager that respects my space and keeps his mask on is going to make me sick while I stand at the front of my room literally feeling the air move across my body from the doorway, past the air purifier, and out the windows (the heat is turned up so high I’m still teaching in short sleeves!) I have a good mask. We send kids home if they seem “off” or cough more than once in a class. We were fully open until thanksgiving break and had ZERO cases of possible transmission in school.

If get sick it will be far more likely because my Dh gets sick because he insists on picking up pizza at the place where they leave the take-out on the bar next to the unmasked people drinking and talking to the bar tender over the music, and the bartender who is wearing a bandit style bandanna takes your money and goes to get your receipt while you stand there at the bar! He goes into his office where the tech guy doesn’t even pull up his mask when you come in to pick up your whatever because you aren’t going to be there for 15 minutes.

we have promised the older kids a return to in person classes twice, and backed out twice. They are losing trust in us.

How is your private school coming up with its policy? I know in Chicago, the Catholic schools have been open all year. I don't know what their rate of infection has been vs the public schools there.

Here in Maine, its a county by county thing, and the schools follows what is going on with the infection rate, and will close if things get up to a certain rate---that is what is happening at my parents' nursing home. So now there is only compassionate care visits allowed, and there is a strict protocol, only 20 minutes, one visitor a day, one visitor at a time. The compassionate care part is if they deem a person is dying or in serious, serious crisis. In the summer, people could visit outdoors, but the county rate skyrocketed in November. Now only compassionate care patients can have visitors. No one else.

On the other hand, they all got vaccinated in January, but they are still on the shutdown mode.

Maybe whoever is making this policy plans to wait until everyone is vaccinated to go full classroom mode? I am assuming you are not administrator, but I could be wrong about that? Who is making the policy that you must follow, since you are a private school?

I am not admin. The on site administrative staff makes day to day small scale decisions - which is how I got an exception to bring in a few kids from one group this week. We have a non-coercive, consensus driven philosophy. What that means in practice is that the administrators survey parents, teachers, and students and look at the numbers in the community, then they make a presentation and recommendations to our board. The board is made up of general members and at least one parent and one teacher. I don’t know who those people are. The board makes the final decision. Last time they called a special session on the weekend and cancelled in person classes with an email that went out at 11:00 at night. Virtual is always an option for students, and we will not force teachers to return to their classrooms.

We have classroom aides to facilitate in person instruction for those students who are in the classroom while their teacher is teaching on a large screen. One problem we have right now is that we don’t have enough aides to cover all the teachers who won’t come back and the aides are expensive - we still pay the teachers.

So, if I want my 1:00 class, they can drive in during lunch, but I have to figure out where they are going to go at 2:15 and who is going to supervise them. (Which is what I did for the kids I brought in - they took class basically in the lobby where the receptionist could see them with noise cancelling headphones.)

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Originally Posted by Chicken lady

I am not admin. The on site administrative staff makes day to day small scale decisions - which is how I got an exception to bring in a few kids from one group this week. We have a non-coercive, consensus driven philosophy. What that means in practice is that the administrators survey parents, teachers, and students and look at the numbers in the community, then they make a presentation and recommendations to our board. The board is made up of general members and at least one parent and one teacher. I don’t know who those people are. The board makes the final decision. Last time they called a special session on the weekend and cancelled in person classes with an email that went out at 11:00 at night. Virtual is always an option for students, and we will not force teachers to return to their classrooms.

We have classroom aides to facilitate in person instruction for those students who are in the classroom while their teacher is teaching on a large screen. One problem we have right now is that we don’t have enough aides to cover all the teachers who won’t come back and the aides are expensive - we still pay the teachers.

So, if I want my 1:00 class, they can drive in during lunch, but I have to figure out where they are going to go at 2:15 and who is going to supervise them. (Which is what I did for the kids I brought in - they took class basically in the lobby where the receptionist could see them with noise cancelling headphones.)

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Wow, that does sound like an incredibly difficult environment in which to plan and teach. I mean it also sounds democratic and flexible, so I am not knocking it, but it must be very hard to get anything done, and to cope with that kind of last minute change, and still try to actually teach and engage the students, who are obviously not thriving with the schedule and set up that is happening now.

What do your fellow teachers think? Do you guys all get together and talk about what you want to do?

At first glance, it would seem like better, more transparent communication with the board might help the teachers?

The board is deliberately insulated from parents and teachers to avoid lobbying and favoritism. (If the admin says “15 teachers won’t come back” we don’t want the board asking “which ones?” We have annual contracts and at will employment.) They also make scholarship decisions on data stripped of names, addresses, and specific ages. We had a dark stretch in our history where a couple of families with money were effectively making a lot of decisions.

I barely see, let alone speak to my fellow teachers. We have core departments, but also crossover teachers - of which I am one. In normal years I would meet regularly with teachers for every age group and every department but math. I am friends with two math teachers. This year - I speak with one math teacher, two humanities, and one elementary. Briefly, rarely. I have requested that admin set up virtual staff sessions - crickets. Covid caused so much disruption in my core department that we are now three new teachers - one of whom I know on sight, one I have spoken to twice but wouldn’t recognize out of context, and one who I think I have actually never seen, three old teachers who have been fully virtual all year, and me. The way planning for my department is being done for next year is pissing me off, but on the list of things I want fixed - that is a distraction.

also, I used to have casual conversations with parents, and now I have emails. Which my administration has access to “for student and teacher protection.”

Tuesday!

4 pages of new processes and procedures, including schedule changes, but I get them back Tuesday!

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Originally Posted by Chicken lady

Tuesday!

4 pages of new processes and procedures, including schedule changes, but I get them back Tuesday!

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Great news!

So, I just finished my first week with all my kids (allowed) back in class. It was really nice. I do have a few who opted to continue virtual learning, but not too many. Zero today! It was so nice not to teach with a headset on. It makes me feel like surveillance.

as I posted elsewhere - our staff (including yours truly) gets vaccinated next Friday. I feel like we are over the worst.