The School Question

"f86sabre" (f86sabre) 07/07/2020 at 21:47 • Filed to: Kids, schools

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To all the Oppo teachers, parents and students out there struggling with what to do this fall, I just want to give you a big internet hug. Our county is allowing us to either have our kids digital learn or return to school. We were going back and forth on our stance, but today they pushed the start of school back a week. With that we’ve decided to have them learn from home. With the way things are going in GA I have my doubts that it will matter. The kids will be home fairly quickly anyway as numbers continue to rise . It is frustrating though. There are good reasons for the kids to be in school, but the risks are too high and the system is not ready to address them.

Sovande > f86sabre 07/07/2020 at 22:03

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My son's school has the option to either go on a hybrid schedule of two day on and three distance learning days or all distance. My guess is there will be no in school learning once this all shakes out. Virginia does not have rising cases now, but we'll join the rest of the country soon enough. I feel terrible for my son. 

TheRealBicycleBuck > f86sabre 07/07/2020 at 22:06

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I wish it were that easy for us. My daughter is heading to college. Technically, she’s already started with two online summer courses right now. What we learned in the spring is that our son really struggles with online-only classes. He does much better when he’s sitting in a classroom under the purview of a teacher. His school is offering both options, but we’re going to take the riskier route and send him to school. I’m certain he will end up catching COVID before the end of the fall semester. It’s just something we’ll have to deal with.

I feel sorry for all the families who really don’t have a choice. They have to have two parents working in order to make ends meet. They really can’t have a child learn from home. I think this is going to lead to an explosion of cases this fall and they’ll take the biggest hit.

For Sweden > f86sabre 07/07/2020 at 22:06

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People ran on opposing school choice, and now no one has the choice to go to school. Makes you think.

Under_Score > f86sabre 07/07/2020 at 22:07

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Younger kids not only have an extremely low coronavirus sickness & death rate, but they also don’t spread it easily. I understand pre-existing conditions (if your kids have those, I understand your stance), but otherwise, there shouldn’t be much of an issue.

I didn’t like school much and wasn’t super social, but having in-person school is nice. USG issued a mask mandate... At least I’m out!

koawaft1 > f86sabre 07/07/2020 at 22:07

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Ours will go if they are given the opportunity. They go to a charter school that delt well last semester with the switch to online learning. However we just believe the social learning and what they get in person is a very high priority. I won’t judge anyone for keeping their kids at home I feel it is a personal decision and so many circumstances factor in.

I will laugh at you a little and yell “that’s not how viruses work!” If you are driving by your self wearing a mask. I’m concerned that some people sleep with them on.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > f86sabre 07/07/2020 at 22:14

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I’m a teacher and my wife is a para educator and believe me, we want our students back in school about as badly as anyone does, if it’s safe . On NPR this evening, the president of the NEA was interviewed and she sounded like a raving lunatic, but she was spot-on. The president is talking a bunch of s**t, but I think there may be some writing on the wall that even he can read, and now he and his ilk are lighting matches on their way out.

Anyhow, I think you and Mrs. Sabre are making the wisest choice.

f86sabre > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/07/2020 at 22:19

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I understand. We have friends who’s kids did not do well with digital learning and being away from people. You make the best choices that you can.

I agree that for a lot of people the decisions around school will be based on economics and not what they think is best.  It’s the reality of our education system.

f86sabre > koawaft1 07/07/2020 at 22:22

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Yeah, you see some odd stuff.  My wife is a molecular biologist by trade and has spent a lot of time in the kid’s schools.  From what she is seeing she isn’t comfortable. The district is allowing re-evaluation after each 9 weeks, so if things look good then maybe we will change our plans. 

f86sabre > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 07/07/2020 at 22:25

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Appreciated.  I hope your district is looking out for you.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/07/2020 at 22:33

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I am currently taking two online classes at Georgia Tech before I begin freshman year this fall. It will be in person but, given my fragile immune system, I’m not going without some reticence. I just gave suc h a hard time with online classes. I can't for the life of me do as well as I could in a classroom setting. It's the concentration that just never comes.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Under_Score 07/07/2020 at 22:35

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Thank God they did. I'll be in person on campus soon.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > f86sabre 07/07/2020 at 22:36

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Pro tip: toothpaste and a scrub brush will take that fog right out of your Mini’s headlamps.

I am currently taking two online classes at Georgia Tech before I begin freshman year this fall. It will be in person but, given my fragile immune system, I’m not going without some reticence. I just gave such a hard time with online classes. I can’t for the life of me do as well as I could in a classroom setting. It’s the concentration that just never comes.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 07/07/2020 at 22:54

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You may have a mild form of ADHD. It’s one of the challenges my son faces. It makes learning outside of a very structured environment very difficult. 

shop-teacher > f86sabre 07/07/2020 at 23:03

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We’re exactly 6 weeks to the start of school, and I don’t have the first friggin clue what the district I work in or the district my children attend are planning to do. I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to plan for some kids being in the building and some not, if that’s what happens. I also don't know how I'm supposed to have kids share tools. Or safety glasses.

If we can send our kids to school, we will. If I can be in school, I will. 

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > f86sabre 07/07/2020 at 23:24

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But Trump said we are in a good place! And he knows many many things! He has bigly brain! I have a dog so I can’t really say, but my mother is the director of a private school and they are splitting every class area into two sides, their classrooms have four doors so they will have separate sides/hallways for each and kids will have to stay in their bubble group etc... They are doing video summer class stuff now I guess. My cousin is a contractor and he and someone else are going to build partitions. This is in Hawaii. 

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/07/2020 at 23:31

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I don't think so. At least no more than the next guy. I just strongly prefer structured environments but it's really been more of an emotional thing recently. I've never been diagnosed and have seen lots of specialists for some other stuff that would have recognized it. 

TheRealBicycleBuck > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 07/07/2020 at 23:43

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We’ve found that if you can’t get in a structured environment, you have to create it for yourself. My daughter is the queen of calendars and is really good at tracking her tasks. My son isn’t. He tends to procrastinate and ends up in panic mode right before things are due. 

WRXforScience > f86sabre 07/08/2020 at 00:31

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I’m a high school Physics teacher in Texas and our 11th and 12th grade campus serves 1300-1600 students each year. My physics classes are typically 30 students. Our district is still sending out surveys and punted their decisions to the district meeting at the beginning of August, which will give us 2 whole weeks to prepare for whatever we get.

2 weeks ago it looked like we were going back; however, they were having summer workouts for the student athletes and multiple students came down with Covid. The current outlook is remote learning, but at least this time they aren’t starting out by telling the students that it’ll be pass/fail (great way to motivate teens to do anything is to make it optional). We’ve had no additional remote teaching training (didn’t have any to start with), and the only technology training we were provided was some generic corporate internet online security training.

I’m the youngest science teacher at 35 and the median age of our teachers is about 60. There have been no provisions or planning for things like: increased need for substitutes if we reopen (if more than 10% of the teachers are out sick at once we run out); social distancing in the classroom (currently the plan is to get the CDC to say 3ft of separation is fine for schools as long as everyone wears masks, because there is no physical way to get 6ft of separation since we struggle with the 3ft that’s required for some of our standardized testing); or what to do about busing, the cafeteria, or attendance requirements for funding.

Everyone just hoped that by the time the school year started everything would be back to normal. Now that it looks like we’ll have a minimum of another year to deal with this, no one wants to admit that they have no idea how to deal with any of the underlying issues with our school system. “Remote learning” is less than ideal under the best circumstances and downright awful most of the time. If my students could learn physics from watching a lecture online and doing problems on their own, my job would be a lot easier.

Imagine, a student walks into a classroom, sits down, and watches a pre-recorded video of a lecture, then goes home and does some online homework. If that was how your kids’ classes were, you’d complain like hell. The very best we’ll get is something like that but at home, you know so that you still need to supervise smaller children and where the older ones will be more likely to play Animal Crossing than read Animal F arm.

I’m relatively young and single, so I’m not overly worried about the virus (if I get sick it’s just me); however, most of our teachers are older, have families, and/or are in other high risk categories. Sure, your kids aren’t very likely to suffer from the virus (some do though) but there are plenty of teachers who are in categories that put them at higher risk. During “normal” times I interact with over 100 students every day (only 2-5 other teachers though). In a “normal” classroom setting with typical teaching methodology, even if only 1-2% of the students get sick, nearly every teacher would end up getting the virus (we’d have 3-5 close interactions with an infected student every school day).

Classrooms are somewhere between movie theaters and dine-in restaurants for proximity to large numbers of people. If you’re uncomfortable going to a movie theater, you should be uncomfortable being in a classroom.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/08/2020 at 00:42

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I have a desk in a quiet place that I only use for school right now. I have a planner where I can wright EVERYTHING down. It works, but I really have to make myself. That is, I can make it work when I am not somewhat exasperated about something and the deadline is still pretty far away. It's not the duration but the instigation.

f86sabre > WRXforScience 07/08/2020 at 09:15

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First, big hug to you and what you have to figure out here.

I am disappointed, but not surprised that institutions didn’t take a plan for the worst and hope for the best outlook on all of this. There were a couple of months that could have been used to shore up digital learning tools, set standards and try to make it as good as they could. I’m sure that some work was done, but across the board it sounds like it wasn’t enough. That’s a shame. You can’t build new buildings, but maybe other solutions can be found for the spacing issue such as renting available office and warehouse space, but that takes funding, creativity and a will to make it happen.

What  we face is that we have full faith in our elementary school principal to do what she can to protect everyone. There is still the issue of the staff with high risk concerns. Also, who knows where subs will come from. We have not heard a peep out of my son’s middle school about how they are going to handle classes or any of that. That is partly what tipped us over to stay at home.

f86sabre > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 07/08/2020 at 09:17

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Yeah, I need to get after the lights. It hasn’t been driven much since March and it hasn’t liked that. My Evo has spent most of its time under a car cover.

I hope GT takes good care of you.  They tend to be sensible, but they are also a big institution.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > f86sabre 07/08/2020 at 09:21

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Thank you. GT is a big institution but it also has some smart people running around. Some of those people know what we’re dealing with.

Dealing with those lights would be a fun weekend project that wouldn’t take very long. You could go the toothpaste route or buy something to sand it down with and cover it in UV protecte nt. 

TheRealBicycleBuck > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 07/08/2020 at 09:23

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We really are creatures of habit, so once a habit is created, it’s much easier to follow. The tricky part is creating the habit in the first place.

Some people do better when they can take on a task in small chunks. This is what works well for me. I d ivide the bigger task into small pieces which can be accomplished in 15 minutes or so. At the end of each 15 minute task, I give my self a small reward. Typically, that’s spending a few minutes on Oppo, reading or doling out advice to folks who didn’t really ask for it. :)

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/08/2020 at 09:26

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I really prefer slightly larger segments but I concentrate best when I know there is someone around to notice me not doing something. I need people around to give feedback.

Sovande > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/08/2020 at 09:28

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I would say that 85% of the households in my area are two income homes. Median home pricing in my area is in the $400 a square foot range so it would be difficult to get by otherwise . My ex works at the public high school and hopefully her schedule will match up with my son’s schedule somehow, or I don’t know what he will do.  I work from home, but when I am working it’s a full time operation.  I don’t have time to teach and work.  

TheRealBicycleBuck > Sovande 07/08/2020 at 09:35

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Exactly what I’m talking about. My situation is pretty rare in that I can afford for my wife not to work. We don’t know many other people in the same position we are. We know many more who need both incomes to stay afloat.

Sovande > WRXforScience 07/08/2020 at 09:35

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This is the exact reason this school year, or the first half of the year, needs to be viewed as a trial run.  You, as a teacher, did not sign up for the new normal.  You haven’t taught like this and kids haven’t learned like this either. It’s a shit show.  

TheRealBicycleBuck > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 07/08/2020 at 09:40

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Now my imagination is going wild. Maybe one of the time-tracking apps would help. Maybe a camera pointed at your desk with a direct feed to your parents with a built-in speaker so they can remind you to stay on task and a remote head slapper so they can push a button and knock some sense into you when you’re spending too much time goofing off ....

Perhaps that’s a little too far. Would a picture of your parents on your desk serve as an adequate reminder?

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/08/2020 at 09:46

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Remote head slapper and live spy-o-vision seems a bit far hahaha . A commemorative family photo might work.

XJDano > f86sabre 07/09/2020 at 09:07

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I have to discuss this with my wife tonight. They sent a survey for sending kids to school or distance learning 6 hours a day.

Now, my wife is a stay at home mom, so for us it may be feasible, but at home there are many more distractions for 3rd & 5th graders. Also they are at the age where they go from love/hate every so often. This will be interesting.