It was Friday, March 13th 2020 when my district (and my kids’ district) announced two weeks of distance learning, followed by a week of spring break, to deter the spread of the novel coronavirus.
On March 15th 2021, almost exactly one year from our first real day of shelter-in-place, our school will be welcoming half of the 6th grader class for in-person orientation. Tuesday the second half of the 6th grade class will come for in-person orientation and Thursday and Friday the 7th and 8th graders will come as well. The following three weeks we will see students in two groups (AM and PM) on Mondays. In mid-April, if our county has not re-entered the purple, we will begin true hybrid learning (mornings at school and afternoons on zoom).
After so many months of everything being exactly the same, the idea of such stark changes are more than I can wrap my head around. I’m excited to see my students again, even if it’s just my Advisory class once a week for a few weeks. I understand the desire to start slow and I think it’s a good idea at the middle school level. Our elementary schools will return to hybrid much sooner than we will, and that makes sense too (our district does not include high schools so we don’t have to figure that out, but I haven’t heard that the high school district we feed into is going back in any capacity).
We don’t really know what hybrid will look like, but I am certain I won’t be teaching my classes in person because I’m an elective teacher and they won’t mix the cohorts for elective classes. Also I teach three grades on two campuses, so I’m DEFINITELY not seeing my students in my classroom. So my actual teaching won’t change much, but I’m happy the students are coming back in some capacity.
And of course they aren’t all coming back. About on fourth to one third of them have opted to stay entirely online, and once our hybrid schedule kicks in this will be very hard to manage. Our MOU states that we will not teach students in person and online simultaneously, so I’m really not sure how they are going to pull it off. I’m really glad it’s not my job to put those puzzle pieces together.
My own kids will not be returning to the classroom this year. SFUSD might manage to bring K-2 back at the “Wave 1” schools but my kids’ school is not a Wave 1 school so my first grade son won’t be included. My daughter is in 5th grade and there are no plans to bring them back. If we’re being totally honest, there aren’t really plans to bring back students at the Wave 1 schools – they haven’t even reached an agreement with the union, so I’m really not holding my breath.
I consider myself (and my kids) very lucky that they are experiencing less learning loss than most, and no serious mental health issues. My son is struggling, but he is young and resilient and I believe he will ultimately be okay. He’s angry all the time, and it’s not pleasant to spend so much time with him, but I do think he’ll come out of this relatively unscathed. My daughter is doing as well as any parent could hope for. Yes, I want them back in classrooms, but I would also support any proposal that brings back students who need to be back more than they do. I wish SFUSD wasn’t failing all the kids that really need to be in schools, because there are A LOT of them (and the majority have indicated they would go back if given the chance).
In late March we find out if our son got the Spanish Immersion school we want to move him to. If he doesn’t get that transfer we will very seriously consider moving him to my district. We may even consider it for our daughter if she doesn’t get one of the schools on our list. It would suck for them to have to commute with me, and for all their friends to be 30-45 minutes away. I hope it doesn’t come to that.
I got my first shot this week. My second will be in late March. It’s a relief not to think about it anymore. I’m very grateful to have an opportunity to be vaccinated. I’m relieved that everyone will have a chance by late May (or so promises Biden) so my husband can be vaccinated too.
Our second trimester ends this Friday, so I’ll be up even later than usually scoring work and updating our leaning management system next week. The next week I have to be on campus every afternoon, which means my poor husband, who has already been taking off two days a week, will have to take more time off. By the week of the 22nd I think things will be settling down.
This weekend we are showing Raya and the Last Dragon in our backyard for my daughter’s friend. I’m excited to see a new movie. And it’s coming out ($30 on Disney+ while it’s also in theaters) just in time because once we spring forward it gets dark too late (and it’s too windy and cold) to watch movies in the backyard.
San Francisco is opening up in a lot of ways – they will even allow indoor dining at 25% capacity soon (maybe already?), but nothing in our personal lives will change. Obviously seeing students in my classroom (or hopefully outside when the weather permits), will be a massive change for me, but nothing will change for our family. We’re still living the quarantine life, and we probably will be for a while still.
Is anything in your life changing as case numbers go down and states open up?
SO GLAD you have first shot and will get second.
I am fully vaccinated due to ancient and also good luck in getting signed up when eligible in my county.
What has changed? I will see my child and the grandchild who live 3 hrs away. Means 6 hrs round trip, 2-3 hrs outdoors, masked and all distance precautions followed. It has been a LONG time, child is also fully vaccinated as qualified in that county. I think this is a brief window where one such visit will be possible and then. … Well, I think there is strong reason to expect another difficult surge and have no interest in participating. The only other change is decreased fear when I have to go to a public place, I still work hard to control timing to avoid ANY crowds.
Thank you for writing with your vaccination news and report on the two school district re-openings to in-person learning that are connected to you and your family. Glad to know you and yours are still hanging in and getting through.
The SF families I have known who have done ‘public school process’ are clear that continuing to appeal and appeal decisions has gotten them into schools without diagonal cross city 45 min plus commutes each way….. But it is hard.
I’m really glad you got your shot!
We just received a proposal to vote for online or a kind of hybrid but it wouldn’t affect us until maybe May. When we’re so close to the end of the school year, that feels more disruptive than it’s worth to go with the hybrid option even if we felt it was safe. They didn’t say what will happen as a result of the voting – if they’re going to enact both options simultaneously or go with a majority vote or … I don’t know what else. We will likely stick with the distance only version to keep things steady here, we’re just managing right now the way things are with the new baby and online school. Having to build in a school commute somewhere in there too is too much when our kid is actually doing ok with their current setup.
I am three weeks past my 2nd shot. Last week the high school I teach at returned full in person after starting hybrid in August, going full remote in November, and then returning hybrid in February. I am hopeful that I will get to see my brother and sister and their families this spring after my parents are fully vaccinated. I know my mom really wants to see her other 2 grandsons and I would love to see my nephews. I live close to my parents and in laws and we have been a pod, we needed their help with childcare this school year. Much stays the same for us, we will not eat at restaurants even though they are open, limit our trips to the grocery store, I said no to a friends birthday invitation for her daughter, and decided against spring soccer for my boys.
I know every time I comment on these posts I open myself up to some critical response, but it continues to amaze me how different our experiences are at this point in the pandemic, and I feel a need to highlight it because I think it’s hard for any of us to truly understand how differently this is being handled depending on where you live. For example, our kids have been in-person schooling full time since last August (with ZERO cases of in-school transmission) and now nearly 30% of our county is vaccinated, but even before that, life has felt decently normal here for months.
Although we still have a mask mandate in the state, nearly the entire state of Colorado is in yellow or blue level, which means that restaurants/shops/offices/gyms/etc are open at 50% capacity, outdoor gatherings allow 175 people-250 ppl, and life feels fairly normal here (albeit masked).
Our cases continue to drop here (14 of the last 15 weeks in Colorado since Nov 15, with the week after NYE being our only spike), and to be in the level we are at, you have to have less than a 5% positivity rate in the past two weeks, declining or stable hospitalizations, and your case rate incidence has to be below specified parameters. All of those things continue to happen. I’m just flabbergasted that somewhere like California (which it seems has had some of the strictest restrictions throughout this pandemic) continues to have such high case rates and issues. I honestly wonder how many people just resorted to the riskier indoor house gatherings with friends over the past year to get their social interaction because so many of your regular activities (schools, restaurants, gyms, etc) were shut down for so long.
I dunno, I guess there’s no good answer, but I’m sure as heck happy I don’t live in California right now. I can’t imagine still “living the quarantine life” and my heart breaks for you that it’s still your reality in your area!
But the question is, now that you’ve gotten shot #1, do you feel safer?
Yay for shot #1! I got shot #2 on Monday and I’m excited to be fully vaccinated soon.
Restaurant dining at 25% is open in my area in IL but we won’t be eating indoors soon. My husband is fully vaccinated but the kids aren’t and we don’t have a babysitter so no date nights any time soon.
My son’s preschool has been open full time since July with 0 cases. My daughter has been either full time remote or hybrid since the start of school and she will be going full time in person next month.
Nicer weather means the opportunity to see friends outside instead of over zoom which will be really nice. Otherwise, we don’t belong to a gym and I work from home (my husband will start going back into his office next month).