Well, in Texas they delayed all sports at 5A and 6A HS for 6 weeks, but smaller high-schools start on time, volleyball as well as football. Smaller schools in big counties where the county gov has blocked practices are upset because now they won’t get as much conditioning time as schools they will play against. I have no words.
Reopening plans (the pdf) for one of the school districts I drive through on the way to work every day.
Well, after a wonderful month off and being far away from this issue, I’m back at it. I’d like to say all the problems were solved while I was off, but the fact is that the administration and teachers are still trying to hash out a learning plan for the new school year, and that supposedly begins in 4 weeks.
We (tech dept) have successfully created a process through Powerschool that allows parents to create their own parent accounts, link their kids to their accounts, and track all of their learning. “All they have to do is follow the directions.” Well, that has turned into a complete disaster. On line parent registration began Monday and, as of today, I have over 100 tech requests from parents who, despite the “how to” video and specifics, have no clue how to do this.
I am all alone so, somehow, I am supposed to render tech support for all the people here now and still straighten out the tangled mess that we have with parent registration. It takes about ten minutes or so for each case. Multiply that by 125, and you have many days of constant effort necessary to get this done.
We have to have our temperature taken when we arrive every morning in order to be admitted. Maybe I should put my forehead in front of my car heater for 3 minutes before I walk in. 
FWIW the CDC weighs in.
Big on why opening schools is a good idea if local rates allow for it. Not big on the specifics @MandaJo rightly is desperate for.
Thank you!
Roght. Still absolutely no sense of what “substantial, uncontrolled community spread” looks like.
Our school board voted last night to delay the start of school till Sept 8. There is reason to hope that by then things will be better in TX: the mask ordinance went into effect 3 weeks ago, and 3 days ago, the daily new case count in our county dropped dramatically. Now, only time will tell if is stays down or declines even further. Delaying also gives us a lot more time to work put options. The state guidance changed significantly in the last two weeks, including allowing schools to close at all and allowing a hybrid model for high school. A lot of us like that model for the riskier big kids. But we can’t figure it out in less than a month.
Also, frankly, a Sept start gives us time to see what happens in other districts.
Agreed. That’s why the ISBE (Illinois State Board of Ed) is leaving it up to each school district to produce a learning model best fitted to their situation.
The board of education invited us to present teacher concerns to them in a remote meeting, held yesterday. Normally, a dozen viewers is a high audience for such a meeting. We publicized it heavily, and there were over 250 people viewing it for most of the meeting.
After our presentation to the board, they talked for over an hour about other matters, to the audience’s increasing (and, in the comment box, pretty vocal) dismay.
At the end, the superintendent abruptly changed the subject, acknowledged teacher and parent concerns, and switched our district to all-remote learning for the first nine weeks.
This is definitely a victory for organized school staff; but it’s only the first step. Now we figure out several tasks simultaneously:
- How to ensure that future decisions are made with staff input throughout, rather than through a near-revolt at the end (part of the presentation was a letter signed by about 20% of our total staff expressing a refusal to return under the district’s current plan).
- How to ensure that the community as a whole is involved in future decisionmaking (although the school board had put up an enormous “BLACK STUDENTS MATTER” banner over their table, there are no community parents or students involved in the decision-making process, black or white, and the meeting audience was NOT pleased)
- How to hold the county health department accountable for clear metrics in reducing community spread and increasing community testing and tracing (our interim health director just this week eliminated free community testing until early August, claiming it’s part of an effort to revamp testing protocols. We’ve already organized a meeting between her and school staff for next week, where we can ask her questions).
- Most importantly, how to ensure that we do remote learning correctly–how do we push out heavily into the community to be sure that all kids have what they need, that all families are connected with us, and that remote learning doesn’t exacerbate racial segregation in education.
Busy times ahead; but I’m so relieved that the decision was made.
That’s great news.
Our leadership got raked over the coals last night for the same reason last night . . .people were very upset that the decisions were all being made entirely top-down. While it was important feedback and they need to do better, I do sorta get it, in this case. There is just no firm place, nothing you can say "ok, this is non-negotiable ". Contradictory, shifting mandates are coming at us from the county and state levels. The actual COVID situation is rapidly developing. Then there are 250 schools in the district, so soliciting input is complicated. So I kinda get how you almost would forget to do that, when you are just trying to figure out what’s going on. But they need to do better. The plans they have are ridiculous and inconsistent.
The part that made me shout was when they said they couldn’t ask teachers because we are off contract. Like, they didn’t want to impose on our summer.
Good lord. They can always ask.
And yeah, getting input is difficult. But when a handful of teachers on summer break are getting hundreds of responses to questionnaires, we’re doing a lot better with a lot fewer resources than central office is. If the district would have weekly questionnaires and ask a PR flunky to summarize responses, they could find out how folks were feeling a lot earlier–and they could incorporate the knowledge and expertise of the community in their plans.
I’m not confident that they’ll do so, going forward, but at least I hope they had a “Holy shit, people are paying attention!” moment.
Agree on all counts. I was on a zoom training for principals (invited by my principal) and it did not escape my notice that the person giving the training was sitting in her dining room, while talking about how everyone needs to work from campus if possible.
About twelve countries have opened up their schools. Sweden did not close them and despite a high rate of deaths have not found a big effect on schoolchildren. Denmark opened up in April and are reportedly doing well. Israel opened up but has had some outbreaks. A few of these might be inevitable.
The government needs to balance education with reassurance when things are improving. I hope that they open all schools up in Canada in September, 5 days a week. If they can do it without masks and social distancing, so much the better, but this may not be possible. I would guess 20-30% of parents are sufficiently unnerved that opening up will be controversial. A certain percentage of teachers will also be unhappy. One needs to be realistic, learn from other countries and put in only the measures that actually improve safety, whatever those are at that time.
But you can’t forget that in person school is more than education in our society. It’s socialization and child care too.
Yes it is. Canada has done a reasonable job with the pandemic and needs to fully open up its schools if able. Families can’t easily handle the complexity of a 3 day school week, balancing work and care. The government needs to think big and be courageous while planning as best as possible. There are many reasons experts believe school is more important than the virus in this cohort.
Dr Paprica is reporting on what is happening in most places that have better control and testing available. Regarding the USA as noted before, your points were already considered, schools are not going to open in many places in the US when the infection numbers are not going down in their communities.
So far, nine of the top 15 school systems by enrollment plan to start the fall semester online, with two more currently planning a hybrid of in-person and online classes, according to Education Week magazine’s reopening tracker. Other top districts shifted school schedules later, hoping for cases to decline or for teachers and administrators to have more time to plan for the school year.
As back-to-school season approaches, it’s highly likely the majority of big districts will start learning remotely while they work out plans for socially distant reopenings, said Annette Anderson, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools.
The biggest factor: whether the community where the school is located is seeing infection rates decrease, said Kristi Wilson, superintendent of the Buckeye Elementary School District in Arizona, who is president of the American Association of School Administrators.
New guidance from the CDC released Thursday gave additional guidelines for opening schools in person, at the request of President Donald Trump. “It is critically important for our public health to open schools this fall,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in a statement.
But Anderson doesn’t think the guidelines are going to change the trend of schools’ moving toward online-only reopenings.
I too am in Canada (Alberta) and I am a teacher. While I am looking forward to seeing students again, I have serious concerns about class size and the lack of PPE being supplied or paid for by the government. Calgary had success with summer school, but class sizes were also capped at 15 students. I’m looking at 35 or more come September. In my room I’d be lucky to have one or two feet between people let alone the recommended six feet of space. I really don’t think Jason Kenney and the UCP have thought this one through.
I know. Me and him are in the same country.
Yes, you and he are in the same country, but so is Biffster, the person who posted just before you. Hopefully you’ve read his post.
Alberta had a bit of an unexplained uptick in cases, so I am not surprised Biffster might be on the nervous side. But realistically, it’s nothing compared to any US state’s situation.
True dat. I watch the news and see what’s happening in the US and think there’s no way most of these places are anywhere near ready to return to normal. Especially with all kinds of people crowding the beaches with no masks as though there’s nothing wrong. The virus will catch up with them in due time. Masks are going to be standard for the foreseeable future in 2020 and probably beyond.
A school in Tennessee reopened on Wednesday and had their first reported case on Friday.