Teacher here, ready to throw in the towel...
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Anonymous
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I was so looking forward to just having a regular school year.
This fall for elementary school looks like it is going to be complete chaos. Our back to school staff messaging contains nothing about how we are going to deal with instructional ramifications of the many absences and quarantines that are bound to occur. From the school district's perspective it seems like we are just plunging forward expecting things to be perfectly normal. Absolutely no discussion of virtual or hybrid instruction for kids who are quarantined or what we will do if teachers are out. No discussion of how we will handle all the as yet unfilled teacher positions. So whatever happens is going to be reactive, not proactive. They will tell teachers we need to come up with "alternative assignments" for students out of school for 10-15 days each time. Then parents will complain and they will flip us to providing hybrid instruction as we did last year. I DON'T WANT TO TEACH HYBRID again. I just can't do it. I just can't do this whole thing. I just want it to all go away. |
Anonymous
| I am so sorry. I am not teaching first quarter this year so I don’t share your pain right now. I would encourage you to look on Teachers Pay Teachers. There are freebies, but even a $120 purchased unit could be a sanity saver. |
Anonymous
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Is this real?
My school district has lots of plans in place. Teachers got to go packs this week in case the class needs to go virtual. I just don’t feel this way and wonder if you are a troll. Apologies if you are not but where do you teach? |
Anonymous
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Someone's experience is different from yours and they are a troll?
NP and we've made seating arrangements to facilitate contact tracing, but there has been no conversation about what will happen if/when students are out for a long time or classes get pushed virtual. We luckily have lots of mitigation strategies in place (mandated masking and distancing). But it feels like "well, let's see what happens with Delta because all this worked well last year." |
Anonymous
this sounds incredibly real. I'm a HS teacher in APS and we don't even know the schedule for the first week of school, let alone what happens when we or our students need to be absent/quarantine. just because your one school has things in place doesn't mean every other school does, especially during a pandemic |
Anonymous
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Of course it’s real.
No public school district in DC, MD and VA is adequately prepared. Why? Because no one knows what the heck is going to happen, and apparently schools are too lethargic to contingency plan for events they really, really don’t want to happen. So central offices may pay lip service to a few concepts, but nothing has been organized, and nothing will be until events catch up with us. Buckle up, teacher. You’re in for a ride. |
Anonymous
| Schools have been operating in person all around the country for quite some time now. My kids went back in person in FCPS elementary for 4th quarter last school year. They did not have a single case of covid. I think it's going to be fine. And I think they will roll with whatever happens. I know in FCPS, the health department is responsible for handling contact tracing and determining quarantine. Anecdotally, they seem to rarely to quarantining a whole classroom. I just don't think it's going to be that difficult to figure things out as they come. |
Anonymous
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I’m with you, teacher. All three of mine will be in elementary this year, and I have little faith that our district will handle things in even a reasonable manner.
If we had been in-person for all or even most of last year, there would probably be more willingness to get creative and do some kind of hybrid model. But too many people were too insistent on indefinite remote instruction, so here we are. Hang in there. I won’t be one of the ones demanding concurrent or assignments from you—I want my kids there as much as possible, provided they’re COVID-negative. |
Anonymous
| It sounds real to me too, as an APS parent. We listened to the SB town hall and left with concerns. Everything but the big items, like masking and what they did with filtration, seems left to individual schools. And it has been hard to get concrete answers to questions from schools. Also, maybe I’m wrong, but the case tracing/notification seems designed to not find cases — I really was expecting more details by this point, and I’m not someone who was complaining all last year. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Was it a full class last year? Did they eat crammed into the cafeteria? Was community spread high then? Was Delta around then? Things have changed since the spring. |
Anonymous
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You know NOW that you will need to have work for kids who will be out sick and quarantining. That is not a maybe. It is a fact.
Frankly perhaps one good thing to come from this will be teachers and schools figuring out that it needs to be possible to miss school for a few days for illness without falling impossibly behind. In my view that means we actually do need textbooks and workbooks since saying read pages x to Y and do pages a to b in the workbook is much more doable than teachers inventing things on their own. But maybe someone else has a different solution… |
Anonymous
| Talking is overrated. All teachers need to shut up about how to deal with stuff, and actually DEAL with stuff! |
Anonymous
DP. For much of my family: Yes, full class. Yes, crammed into the cafeteria. Yes, community spread was high No, Delta was no around, but rates of infection were nuts in their area They played sports too! And had in-person graduation. Not a single kid, teacher, or staff is dead. People might have died from something else though. |
Anonymous
| ^*textbooks would help!!! |