Yesterday morning, my son stepped foot on his campus for the first time in over 400 days. He was excited. He was ready. He was so relieved to be back in school.
He had a great day. He loves school again! He’s so excited to go back today.
I’m worried what Monday will bring when he’s back on zoom, or having a meltdown because he doesn’t want to be back on zoom.
It’s bittersweet. I’m happy that he’s back and angry that it took so long for him to get there, and that he doesn’t get to be there more. I’m frustrated by the needless delay in returning in person and the failure to return in the ways that were promised. I’m furious that no one is being held accountable.
I know I’m a broken record on this, and that lots of people don’t share my belief that returning in person is important. I know a lot of people are keeping their children in distance learning because they are doing fine, or community spread is out of control in their areas. I’m glad distance learning works for some kids; my daughter is doing fine in distance learning, even if I know it’s not ideal for her. I hope that families continue to have choices about how and where their children will learn moving forward. It’s the lack of choice here that makes me so angry. It’s everyone telling us it’s been fine, when it hasn’t, that makes my blood boil.
I hear my colleagues say we shouldn’t have come back, that they can cover their curriculum online, that they can teach the essentials just fine. That may be true – I think I’m covering material well, though I can’t get through nearly as much of it – but it’s not the point. School is about so much more than the curriculum that is being covered. Even for the kids who don’t depend on school for social services, the classroom is about so much more than what is taught. It’s about friends, and mentors, and independence, and figuring out who you are away from home. For a lot of kids, it’s about being happy.
I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve gone to where parents describe happy, out going students who, after a year of distance learning, can’t get out of bed in the morning. I can’t tell you how many students tell me they are trying to get work done, but they just can’t. These are the kids that distance learning should work well for – the kids with highly educated parents, stable incomes, and reliable technology at home.
At the beginning of the pandemic, when we knew less and the virus was raging out of control, it made sense when we said that distance learning was good enough. It had to be because the alternative was death. That is just not the case anymore (not in places like the Bay Area where community spread is incredibly low and vaccinate rates are high). Now, for the great majority of students, continuing in distance learning because it’s what we’ve done, and it’s been good enough for this long, is dishonest and dangerous. I know that isn’t going to be a popular opinion, but it’s mine. We need to figure out how to return students and teachers to the classroom when conditions warrant it. No, it won’t be zero risk, but nothing in life is zero risk. We do things all the time that carry some amount of risk because we have decided, independently and as a society, that the risk is worth it.
It didn’t need to be this way. Mistakes were made. I know I’m lucky to have lived in a place where the virus did not decimate communities like it did elsewhere, but that doesn’t negate the damage that was done by our school district in our specific situation.
I’m not asking for things to go back to normal. I’m not spurning public health guidelines. I’m just asking our society to value the importance of students being in schools (which public health experts say can be done safely). Distance learning is no longer good enough for most students, and we can’t keep pretending that it is.
Yup, agreed. I’m so thankful to live in an area that brought kids back full time in person last fall. My kids wear masks all day (with dedicated breaks thanks to recesses and lunch), but that’s a small price to pay for them to have been in person with their friends and teachers all year. I hope your kids get to experience the same sooner than later.
100 percent agree. Congratulations to those people for whom the virtual situation was fine. I’m tired from screaming all winter about how incredibly not fine it was for my family and being met with complete indifference. It’s better now that we have some in person school but kids still can’t have any balls or toys or ANYTHING and there are the virtual days for intensive cleaning every week despite no evidence of significant surface transmission. I wish we could just skip that day if it’s really to give the teachers planning time (it’s a much shorter day).
I think the other one that I’m really struggling with is lack of in person therapy for little kids. I guess zoom therapy must work for some preschool and early elementary school age kids but not any I know. We are set a date at which we give up on our child’s long term provider and go somewhere else because it’s been over a year. Over a year!!!! I feel like we have been so unfair to kids in all of this.
The importance of voting cannot be stressed enough. School districts elect their boards. I absolutely do not understand the magnitude of SF teachers who refused to return to the classroom given the availability now of vaccinations here. But I also understand that the choices about teacher compensation have reduced the teacher applicant pool who can afford to teach and live locally enough to teach in SF. You have mentioned that you cannot afford to change school districts because of the decreased pay implications. Districts set these rules…..
The damage of isolation to children is giant. The rich could afford to provide more help in learning to their children and private schools could manage to re-open earlier with smaller and sometimes more out-door classes. SOME children actually did better at home learning when the parentals could afford the time/money for education and/or where the child faced social problems/pressures being at school. For the majority of children/people the isolation was damaging and will be hard to correct.
People are social beings normally; learning to interact with others, be part of teams and seeing the humanity of other people is very important. It is all grim as we are looking at a world where seeing the ‘commonality of humanity’ rather than a ‘us versus other’ approach will be critical for the survival of humans.
Please hold on, you are not alone. In SF the numbers are hopeful right now and vaccination numbers are doing well. Sharing support, you are not alone.
Distance learning did not work well for our kids and we fall under the highly educated, stable household. We kept one of our kids in distance learning when we could’ve gone back simply because his teacher gets him and was being accommodating beyond his typical accommodations. In that regard it worked, but he’s missed out on socialization and that’s a big loss. Our youngest is in kindergarten and we couldn’t get him back in person fast enough. He totally checked out during the distance learning he had.
It’s all been a learning experience. There are things we learned about our oldest that we may have kept missing so it actually helped that he’s been stuck with us 24/7 the past several months. It’s put us in a position of now knowing what his needs are and the types of accommodations he needs.
I for one, am looking forward to in-person summer camps, which thankfully are open and running full time.
Our 2nd grader has been in school since the fall. Our government made it clear they will close everything else before schools. So even with our second wave and everything is shut down schools are open. It is better for her (she loves her teacher this year) and us. She is an active kid who doesn’t sit in front of screens. Her Dad is a teacher but not cut out to teach his daughter. I work long but flexible hours. I wish all essential workers were prioritized before the rest. I want our children to be a priority too.
Where do you live? I want that government!!!