“Elective” doesn’t mean “unnecessary”; it means courses that aren’t required for graduation but that may be required or recommended for college admission. For some students who are not college-bound, their passion for elective courses (band, for instance) is what motivates them to come to school.
Perhaps elective courses could be offered online only, though there would have to be exceptions for certain courses.
The logistics of all this for high schools are mind-boggling. You have students whose parents refuse to send them back to school and have to take classes online; students taking some courses in school and some online; students who can’t take online classes because they lack computer technology, internet access, or the ability to work independently and nobody at home to supervise. I have no idea how teachers’ and students’ schedules would be built out of that mess.
Its not just electives like wood shop. It is things like having AP and on-level choices. If you want to cohort, you end up tracking: you can’t have all the different possible combinations of advanced and non-advanced classes.
One huge issue we are grappling with is the idea of reducing rigor. I absolutely think we should. For example, our sophomores almost all rake:
AP Calc
AP Physics 1
Pre-AP Chem
Ap Seminar (writing and research class)
AP World History
AP Computer Science
Elective, usually foreign language
Now, out of those, the only ones they need to graduate are the foreign language and one of the 2 sciences. It’s a very tough year, the heart of our program, and usually our kids are very successful. But can you imagine taking those 7 classes, simultaneously, perhaps intermittently at home for weeks at a time, already with skill deficits from last spring? And it’s not at all clear that we will be able to see kids before or after school. We may be doing temp checks etc. So no tutoring.
So I have made a couple suggestions about moderately stepping that back. This is a Nixon goes to China situation, because I am usually the crazy no lowering of standards lady. But all the sudden, everyone is paranoid. We can’t do that. Scores may go down. Everyone is intensely worried that we are going to get slammed if we soften the academics at all. But I feel like either we pick a few plates to put down, or some random ones will spin out of control . . .and they may not be the ones we would have picked.
I can see why! I’ve been wondering about making up the deficits from last year. What happened to AP classes last spring? Were kids still able to take the AP test, or did it have to be postponed?
College Board reconfigured all of them into 45 minute free response open note open book at home exams. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good, considering. Kids could hand write answers and submit pictures on their phone, in a pinch, which many did. Chromebooks, laptops.
. .pretty much anything worked. They had like 25+ versions of each test, and the whole world took the exam at the same time. They did a good job controlling for cheating, I think.
I score AP Lang, and the virtual reading was interesting, but we got through it.
Don’t most schools have one or two really large rooms designed to accommodate hundreds if not thousands of cheering fans? If not every building, at least in the district?
ETA: May need to negotiate with the governor or other PTB
I was thinking more along the lines of an auditorium or basketball arena type room. Heck my lunchroom at work had seating for about 100 and we still hold meetings of 10-15 people of one or two per table. Basketball stands should easily handle several score with plenty of isolation space.
State orders all Florida schools to reopen in August
All schools are required to open for every child 5 days a week. Distance learning will only be approved on a case by case basis with plan needing to be approved.
The Harvard situation needs to be clarified. Classes will be on line, but the school will not be 100% distance learning. 40% of undergrads, including all freshmen, will be on campus, in single occupancy dorm rooms. They will have access to libraries and labs and professors. If things are still bad second semester, they will rotate some kids out and make sure all the seniors rotate back in for their last semester, for interviews and such. It’s not perfect, but it’s not going “all on line”, as many seem to be assuming.
Yesterday I sent out a survey to educators in my district to gather feedback specifically about our concerns: our district sent something in mid-June, general for parents and staff. Since then, they’ve announced that no matter what, staff will be expected to be at work. I think I mentioned earlier how crazy-difficult this will be for teachers if we do a hybrid or a virtual model. I’m also hearing from a lot of teachers who are terrified to go back either because of their own health complications, or because of the complications of someone they care for (an elderly parent, an asthmatic child, a diabetic spouse, etc.)
And there are a lot of concerns about what subs will look like. If someone gets sick at the school, who needs to quarantine, and how many adults will that take out of the building? Given how hard it is already to find subs, what’s going to happen?
Texas came out with guidelines yesterday. They say we have to have an in-person option 5 days a week for all students, so hybrid is off the table. They also seem to want it to be set up so that kids can seamlessly switch between at home and on-line, if kids are exposed or if parents’ comfort levels change. And parents don’t have to commit to which option they want to start with until 2 weeks before school opens. This just seems impossible: we can’t plan anything because we have no idea what the % will be. In Dallas, a month ago, about 25% wanted on-line, in a non-binding survey. Now it’s up to 50%, as the local situation deteriorates.
And the on-line just can’t be in lock-step with in person, unless every teacher is going to manage the on-line version of their own class on the side, after teaching the in-person version. Which isn’t possible, and wouldn’t even get the best outcomes: distance learning is its own thing, and needs its own ration of creativity and structure, not just an imperfect stripped down version of “real class”.
Every thing else in the guidelines was optional. “Try to keep 6 ft of distance; if you can’t, consider opening the windows” (we don’t have windows). Try to wash hands twice daily. Almost every guideline says to “consider” this or that. There’s nothing in here that you could take to an administrator and say “You can’t put 30 kids in my small classroom”.
So we still literally have no idea what is going to happen come August.
God, what a clusterfuck. Two things I’ve seen teachers talking about:
Anyone making these laws should be strongly encouraged to spend a day in a mock-up of what school would look like under their proposal. People who aren’t teachers are missing some key details (as one teacher just described it on the call I was on, “I love kids, but they’re disgusting, they got no problem with picking their nose and touching things, or pulling out a wedgie then giving you a hug.”)
You know who really decides how school is going to reopen? The workers at the school. This may be the thing that makes teachers throw down en masse.
Right. They should also sit in the front office one busy morning and see how many weird, non-predictable things happen every day. And how many adults come through. Our guidelines specifically say that parents and other adults are allowed to visit, as per district policies. What does a clerk make? $14k? $20k? That will be the riskiest position in the building.
They seem to be designing these things in such a Polyanna way, with very little understanding of how chaotic schools are in the best of circumstances. I had a friend do the math on the hand sanitizer recommendations: they are allocating 8 gallons per teachers. At 2 squirts a period per student, that’s 45 days worth. Then what? They want us to have supervised handwashing twice a day. We have like 1 sink for every 25 students, maybe?
One idea I have seen is for schools to go all on-line, but let students come in and work in supervised capacities with technology, safety, and food provided. This seems like a really good compromise to me, but the state guidelines insist that there has to be a normal bell schedule at school .
This is now even more confusing. The president of the AAP seems to be saying local conditions (like a surge in infections) should be taken into account before opening schools . . . Along with the ability to fund the safety guidelines they recommended. But the report doesn’t make any distinctions like that, and this interview gives no insights about how local authorities might make a decision when they have partial funding and/ or a surge.
They want to kill some of the students, and all of the teachers. Or at least they don’t care if they all get killed.
My wife, the teacher, will refuse to go back until she thinks it’s safe. Even at the cost of her job. Better to be alive with no money than dead with money.
I’m really liking this Medium post. I think she has some good ideas for problems that I’m seeing people talking about. Educators have so many roles that they play–daycare, babysitter, food provider, socialization instruction and somewhere in all of that, academic instructor. She contends that if some of those roles could be decoupled, it might make things easier to take some of the pressure off the decision to reopen or not. She says that there could be socialization alternatives like clubs and other activities in smaller groups closer to people’s homes. And there could be food cards for those children who need it that can be redeemed in other places besides school.
I don’t know if any of the ideas are feasible, but they sound interesting.
Another thing she pointed out about the AAP guidelines that I haven’t seen stressed in the articles I’ve read.
The AAP notes that schools should not attempt to catch up academically during this time, putting further stress on students, teachers and parents.
Thanks for the clarification. I found an article on it. The 40% is the max capacity the school can safely hold. So the freshman in the fall and seniors in the spring have priority for the 40% of students who can safely have an in-person experience. The rest of the students beyond the 40% are uninvited except for online learning.