Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Nick Carraway is speaking:
If you read my introductory piece, you know I ply my craft as a teacher. I am what is called a case manager and support facilitator. That means I have a case load of special education students I am responsible for and I also support other students in their general education classes (primarily English).
As you might suspect, our particular campus has about 50 percent of the student body learning virtually. That might be coming to an end. If you are failing and working from home, the TEA is allowing districts to force you to return.
This is the proverbial double edged sword. On the one hand, contacting parents and trying to get virtual students to do their work takes up a good part of my day. We have to keep a parent contact log along with every other teacher in the building. I am happy to report that I have more entries than any other teacher in our group. I don’t know if that means I have actually done more contacts. I’ve just reported more than anyone else.
So, I more than anyone else see the value of forcing these kiddos to come to school. We also had our first faculty member test positive this week. We have also had five students test positive up until now. So, any significant change by the state and local districts have to be taken in context with the national and local trends of the virus. Any gains in academic performance have to be leveraged against the probability that a return of more students would likely mean an increase in positive tests.
I think what is more maddening than the decision itself is the way it is worded. It does not tell districts that they have to bring those students back. It does not tell them to bring all students back. It says that they MAY bring those students back. In other words, they are passing the buck. Leadership has a way of filtering down. Lack of leadership does the same thing.
The State office holders don’t want to be blamed for anything, therefore by shifting decisions, they are shifting blame. I have two grands in school and they continued online mainly because the oldest grand who is home has Type 1 diabetes; not bringing the virus home to her is very important.
1Grandma Ada, I too have a teenage grandson with type one diabetes. He is working online from home, thriving and getting excellent grades. My daughter would agree with you that she doesn’t want any virus near him. She is able to work from home as well and is in no hurry to return to the office. She gets her work done in fewer hours than when she had to drive to work, take coffee and lunch breaks, as well as all the other interruptions in a work day. My town, even in a red state, has implemented some pretty strict shutdown guidelines. We sure don’t have any complaints there even though our Trump loving governor won’t take responsibility for any mandatory measures. He definitely doesn’t want to be blamed for anything, but personally I blame him for not taking charge of this pandemic in Alaska.
2First of all I think teachers, whether in person or on line, are heroes during this pandemic. There is so much pressure on both sides (live or on line) for school districts. States have to have clear guidance to school districts as to when and how live classes can be held considering the current surge. Not having those guidelines is a dereliction of duty.
3My grandkids split time between their grandparents (me and my wife and the other grandparents) and are currently on line only. Our son and daughter in-law are lucky we can do what we’re doing. The day they mandate in-person classes before a vaccine and treatment, we have to stop what we’re doing for obvious reasons, age and some underlying conditions. Then it becomes another problem for the family. I’m sure we’re not alone. Here in Oregon I at least feel like the governor is doing the best she can. But the pressure is there to cut corners for in person learning and I can understand why.
Hope we can get past this by next summer with a new president.
Nick, thank you.
I’m a reformed teacher myself (aged out, as they say), and I can’t imagine teaching in your environment before Covid-19, much less now.
Just thank you.
4Former teacher here. Became “former” because of a family move to another state that claimed they had an overflow of teachers on the waiting list. I was good at what i did and the kids thrived.I can’t image teaching now under a cloud of contagion. Those who are still sticking with it, my hat is off to them.
5Our situation is as with Steve in Oregon. We are my daughter’s child care and if we had to isolate from the grandchildren she would probably have to quit work.
In this cherry red county the Republicans are waging a war of insults against teachers (but really they just don’t want anyone to become educated).
Over 300 teachers have resigned (I presume underlying conditions) or taken early retirement. That ended the Republicans’ attempt to force all children back into school.
The 10-year-old seems to be taking online instruction in stride, the 8-year-old not quite so well and the 6-year-old is not doing well at all.
But killing off the grandparents is not the correct approach.
6I’m hearing that one of the members of the new Biden taskforce is recommending that we shut down again for four to six weeks. I imagine that will go over like a pregnant pole vaulter, but it is probably the wisest course of action. The problem locally is that they cancelled the STAAR (statewide standardized test) last year due to the pandemic. TEA announced early on that they weren’t going to do that this time around.
If you shut down school for six weeks in the spring (because it would have to happen after inauguration) then I don’t know how you turn around in April and conduct that test. They’ve tied everything to the test. School and district accountability scores are tied to it. Students are told they have to pass all versions to graduate (although that’s not entirely true legally), and in some cases teacher’s contracts can be tied to success or failure on that test.
Yet, the prospect of having well over 100,000 Americans (maybe 200,000) test positive daily with upwards of 2,000 a day die that just doesn’t seem sustainable. Gee, I wish we had someone that would have taken this seriously before.
7Nick, not to point out the obvious, but with whatever artificial date on which your school year ends, the calendar year does not end in April. Seriously. This is too freaking simple. When it is safe for students to return, and/or if it’s not, if that “test” is so damn important, do it. Do it safely in small groups over a period of time, Chicken Little.
8Sure wish we’d never started down the “standardized testing for all, judging everything by that” road. The dream, of course, like the dream of “trickle-down economics” was that it would equalize education so some entire states wouldn’t fall so far behind others, but like trickle-down economics it never worked that way because the individual states had their own ideas about what education should be, jealously guarded and very subject to political manipulation.
9I think you misunderstand me Jane. It isn’t my problem. As many of us are fond of saying, that’s above my pay grade. In terms of SPED paperwork and execution I would say nearly half of what I do involves that test. As Elizabeth points out, it really doesn’t do what it was intended to do.
Of course, the test is only a byproduct of the pandemic and not the major issue. If anyone wants to throw down on testing itself I’d love to do that. Suffice it to say, they were designed to solve one major problem (determine where a school is in terms of instruction) and ended up causing more by attaching accountability to it for schools and students.
I’ve had students take the thing ten times and wouldn’t pass it if you gave it to them 100 times. It gets to be child abuse after awhile. The whole question is whether it measures anything that has to do with them being productive members of society. Our campus teaches trades and gives students opportunities to be certified in something before they graduate. Almost all of them have been including the ones that couldn’t pass that state test. So, what exactly is it measuring?
10Tonight the Carroll County Board of Education is expected to scrap reopening. Maryland has metrics (cases per capita per day and positivity rate) and those are being exceeded by a lot and rising.
The Republicans who run local governmet saw the virus as a chance to break the teachers’ union. The moms are not having it.
11Wish I had grandkids to homeschool right now. I’d retire in a nanosecond.
Locally we’ve gone to a 2 + 2 schedule…half the students in class 2 days, Wednesday to sanitize, the other half of the class the last 2 days every week. The teachers have to be going nuts. A friend of mine took immediate retirement because of health/immune system issues, and others did the same because they’d just flat out had enough. All of them could actually TEACH if there weren’t all this da** testing. I totally agree with all of the above, especially Harry Eager#6.
12Nick, “above your paygrade” is as weak as the old “just following orders.” Update to “if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem” take a freaking stand man. Be counted or be stepped on.
13Elizabeth Moon, I found a copy of a Molly Ivins book about Shrub that had a lot about his “no child left behind policy” that was gut-wrenching.
Seems the ‘rents had real good buddies at McMillan Publishing who were itching for a new income stream, so setting up “standardized testing” with all of its attendant tests, teaching materials, etc., was a real slick way to do that.
Shrub was gov then, and Texas pays more than everybody else for books so….When Shrub graduated to pres, he got the paperwork through Congress with Ted Kennedy’s carefully designed program to work with kids who didn’t “make the grade,” but Shrub blacklined that just before he signed the law.
I think Ivins and her coauthor were just about to start working on that when she died. Damn! We lost a good one there!
14Wow, someone has it in for me. 🙂 I certainly respect your passion though Jane. We are a right to work state here, so there are no demonstrations. We can choose to play along or take our ball and go home. Obviously, we can voice our opinions on some level, but eventually our districts are going to make their own decisions. At the beginning of the year they sent us a survey with one question. ONE QUESTION! Are you comfortable coming back to work? Yes or no. They obviously weren’t all that interested in our input.
Speaking of, TEA would not fund a partial return to school like mentioned in #12. That actually would be preferable to what we’re doing. If we could actually see every kid at least two days a week we could make some headway with some of them.
What I’ve learned over the course of 20+ years is that administration is interested in the appearance of a democracy. Years ago they went through this whole ordeal asking us if we wanted rotating block, accelerated block, or trimester scheduling. A majority of the staff chose trimesters. They ended up going with rotating block. I won’t bore you with the details but the whole point is why ask us if you are just going to do what you want to do anyway?
There are obviously some decisions that can change on the local level and we have had more than a few of us speak up at campus meetings about our displeasure of how things are going. Administration did what they wanted anyway. So, your choice is to stay and deal with it or leave and find somewhere else to work.
15I’m just guessing that we’re all on the same side here. As a long time visitor and occasional customer of the Beauty Salon, it has been my experience that with the exception of the occasional Troll, pretty much everyone here has the best interests of the county and certainly of kids, at heart. Heck, el Jeffe and I frequently disagree but I have nothing but respect for the man & I absolutely look forward to his posts. Just thought I should point that out.
So, granddaughter, daughter and mother of teachers (if not dragons), here. As a former teacher myself, I’d like to weigh in here.
Allow me to assure all of you that no teacher or staff member thinks all virtual instruction is a great idea. Even when done correctly, and please trust me when I tell you almost no one is doing it correctly, virtual instruction is simply not as good as in person instruction. Hybrid models can and do work but we really aren’t even in a position to do that much.
Here in lies the problem, virtually every state is currently in the red zone, that is to say that their positivity rates are escalating well past the capacity of health care services to be able to assist individuals who contract Covid.
There is absolutely no study, no evidence, and honestly no one with half a brain saying that we can keep schools open when cases are escalating. Furthermore there is ample evidence that shutting schools down does in fact decrease the spread. https://t.co/KunT5IVoBD
Along with hospitals, schools are at the breaking point. Teachers are being asked to do in person instruction, virtual instruction, and track kids progress individually with parents – as Nick pointed out. They are exhausted. There are no subs to fill positions, because who would want to come into a petri dish that has inadequate air ventilation and PPE for less than $100 and no insurance? Districts no longer have adequate subs for teachers much less the bus drivers, custodians, or cafeteria workers.
Germany made the determination that opening schools was an important thing to do. As a result, they budgeted €500 million to improve the air circulation in public offices, their biggest target for the funds – schools.
I can show you point by point exactly why opening schools in the United States isn’t feasible. Just as I can explain to you exactly what we would need to do in order to open schools effectively. I can distill it very simply for you, if you want to have nice things, like schools, you have to behave appropriately and you have to budget for them. The Trump Aministration, along with Republican governors have done none of those things. It is teachers, kids and the public who are paying the price for their hubris.
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