My kids had a four day weekend (SFUSD takes off for Luna New Year). I worked Friday, but I get this coming week off. I know most schools don’t get a February break, but I like it. I always prefer more breaks during the year (and a shorter summer). Always.
{I think I would prefer year round school, honestly, but it will never happen so I don’t think too much about it.}
Of course it won’t be much of a “break” when my kids are in school and I’m with them all day, trying to make sure they learn something (or at least log into their zoom calls). It won’t be much of a break when so much of every day is the same as it would be if I weren’t on a break. But I was able to completely unplug from work for the long weekend and that felt lovely. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t open my work computer, or even think about work, for three whole days. It was so, so nice to have that. And so when I’m feeling frustrate that my break doesn’t feel like much of a break I’ll remember the work hiatus was this weekend and I’ll be grateful for that.
I honestly didn’t realize it had been two weeks since my last post. Things have been busy. My school district’s union agreed to return K-5 two mornings a week starting February 22nd. The middle schools will be returning when our county is in the red tier, as recommended by state guidelines (they are guessing that till happen in mid-March). There is absolutely no timeline for teachers to be vaccinated (we can be vaccinated but there aren’t enough vaccines so they are NOT vaccinated us). Right now they are hoping we’ll be vaccinated by early summer. Meanwhile SFUSD has been in the national news a lot because of it’s monumental failure to even come up with a plan. In fact, the city DA is suing the district over its lack of a plan. It’s crazy how much progress they’ve made since the law suit. It won’t be enough to actually open schools this year, but if they had been putting this recent energy toward returning at the beginning of the school year, it might have actually happened.
I had to submit my daughter’s middle school application on February 5th, and I have to admit, I feel like I fool for returning to SFUSD next year. This district is a disgrace and it’s clear that is not going to change in my children’s lifetimes. Families are leaving the city in droves, and even more are leaving the public school system for private and parochial schools (SF already has the highest rate of private school attendance in the nation). When California starts funding districts by their actual enrollment numbers (they are using 2019-20 enrollment numbers to fund the 2020-21 school year), SFUSD will be out so many MILLIONS of dollars. It’s going to be a shit show. I have never considered taking her to my district as much as I have this year.
I have been so busy with work lately; the amount of prep I’ve had has been overwhelming. I’m hoping I can get a couple weeks ahead in my planning this week, but I have giant assessments to score so that might not happen. The assessments need to be scored because second trimester ends two weeks after the break. Shelter in place started the second week of the third trimester last year which means it has almost been an entire academic year spent in distance learning. I used to think back to when we heard that we were not coming to school for two weeks (plus the spring break made it three weeks), and remember how insane it would have felt back then to know we wouldn’t be back for a whole year. But I can’t summon that mindset anymore. It’s been so long that I can’t really approximate how nuts it wouldn’t have seemed. I can remember how shocked I was that we would be out of school for two weeks, but I only remember it because I’ve thought about it so many times. I remember the story of feeling shocked, not the feeling of shock itself. Does that make sense? I guess a year of living through something you never fathomed could be a possibility will do that to you.
It’s late and I need to get to sleep because tomorrow I have some reluctant distance learners to get ready. I don’t think I’ve had a day off that my kids were in school for since all of this started. It will be a weird week indeed.
VERY GLAD to hear from you. I now worry when those blogs I read stop posting for longer than I expect that the virus has struck and that is the drought causation. I do remind myself that writers have other priorities but the concern is real.
My SF family members say the next school board elections should be … interesting in outcomes as what has gone on will have repercussions. I want to believe and do hope that out of the increased awareness of school for children’s importance and the skills involved in controlling student behavior and actually achieving learning that salaries will be vastly improved. As a nation we seem to be having increasing teacher shortages and education is clearly essential.
Hope you get some time for you beyond grading and working with your children during this week out of the class room.
AND, AGAIN, thank you for all the posting always but this past 12 months you have particularly been such a support. You make my world bigger and richer, and prevent isolation and tiny shrinking views of what is really happening to families in this time.
Support!