We had a long weekend in these parts. San Francisco has always recognized Indigenous Peoples Day but my district only started taking it off last year. I was SO HAPPY for the break today.
This past Thursday our board voted to approve Phase 1 of our Return to School Plan, which requires teachers return to their classrooms to teach (via zoom) by November 13. This directly disregards the MOU in place with our union, which allows us to work from home during distance learning if we choose. Our union will start negotiating with the district tomorrow. To say I’m frustrated that I might have to commute to my campus to teach from an empty room is an understatement. If I have to start working from my classroom the delicate balance we’ve created at home will totally fall apart and everything will be worse than it is now (which is really not very good). I’m disappointed with our board for asking us to do something that their employers are surely not asking them (and/or their spouses) to do. It feels unfair and unnecessary.
There are parents in our district who are very organized, and vocal, about bringing back students as soon as possible, and I am assuming we’ll be back at some point around the New Year. It’s going to be a shit show and I’m not looking forward to it. I really do think people are trying to return to a reality that is just not possible yet, or maybe they think that once we go back this virus will really have gone away. But going back won’t change anything except our chances of getting sick. And some hybrid schedule that only has kids on campus certain days of the week is not going to return anyone to the school experience they so desperately crave. Thinking about how bad this is going to get makes it hard to focus on all the work I have to do now. And truly it’s so, so much work. Having another massive stress hanging over my head is not helping.
We also got a testy email from our principal announcing tomorrow’s staff meeting, and explaining that we have to be there and if we’re not we have to put in the hours in our management system and personally write her explaining why we aren’t there. This is a noticeable change in tone from her, so I’m assuming that it’s coming from higher up. Shit is definitely about to get ugly.
In happier news… My parents took our kids for an overnight this weekend. They came late Saturday afternoon to pick them up. I did some work on the elliptical and then my husband and I ordered sushi to pick up. I haven’t had sushi in SO LONG and it was amazing. We watched a movie with some cocktails and passed out. The next morning we slept in, then ordered brunch from one of our favorite Mexican places nearby. We don’t normally eat out and we want to do more to support our favorite local restaurants so every once in a while we splurge.
After brunch I drove down to work to pick up some materials from my classroom and then went for a run before I picked up the kids. I even got my car washed at my parents’ house! (We don’t have a hose that reaches to the front of our house so we can’t really wash it at home and I hate to pay to have it washed.) It has been a long time and it really needed it, especially after all the ash that had been in the air.
Sunday night we watched Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s my son’s second Marvel movie (we watched Thor Ragnarok last weekend) and he loved it. It’s fun watching the Marvel movies with them.
Today I had my daughter’s friends over for the second part of our book club project. It fell pretty flat but the girls enjoyed being together. In the future I’m going to stick to the discussion sessions and avoid the projects. It’s just too hard to engage them in academic pursuits on the weekends.
Oh, and a friend of mine found my blog. She was googling SFUSD because she’s so disappointed in our options for middle school next year, and found a post I wrote about the PTA being a part of the problem in our district. I had actually written the post as a letter to the PTA presidents listserv so the first paragraph is pretty specific about the school and its situation (without naming it directly). Still, I was a little rattled that she recognized it was me. There is nothing on my blog I wouldn’t want my friends to read, but I’ve learned the hard way that I usually regret when people I know start reading it. I NEVER mention my blog to my friends – they have no idea I write it – so it was startling to have her find it by randomly googling something and then so quickly recognizing I was the author. She was very nice about how weird I was initially about it, and I doubt I’ll have issues with my current friends reading it moving forward, but it made me rethink how much identifying information I share here.
I have been working on and off all weekend and I’m so tired. I keep trying to bring down the amount of work I’m assigning, hoping it will translate to less work for me but it doesn’t seem to be working. I still have so, so much work to do. I wonder if taking the extra class was a mistake. I thought that since the content was the same as for two other classes it wouldn’t be that much more work, but scoring the work of 32 more students, and communicating with them when they are missing that work, takes a lot of time. I just feel like I’m working constantly.
I can’t believe our board is trying to make us work from our classrooms – on top of all the bullshit we are dealing with. It makes me so mad.
I think it’s time to sign off, or this rant will never end.
Oh that sucks. I share your concerns with the push to open bc people think it will magically be over if we do. And yes on the dystopian hybrid schedule not returning things to normal. It will be a logistical nightmare and I will basically not sleep worrying about other kids’ hand hygiene and mask wearing (we have a few maga parents). My school district has given the option-not required-teachers to teach from the classroom, and many at our school are doing that. And the school is allowed to have a cohort of mostly teacher’s kids on campus doing distance learning from there even though we are purple and schools can’t open. I would be like “(hell) no thanks”. (And seeing a kid with his mask below his nose 😖 when we went to pick up materials in the drive thru one day did not inspire confidence.) I hope your union can stop this—how can they go against your mou?
Why do they want teachers without students present teaching only from inside the classroom? Seriously curious.
I have heard some districts open gradually by grade level starting from K and ensuring each grade level has done this successfully rather than all grades in one step. Have also heard some districts taking students back to in person by need… the disadvantaged or lower performing or special needs students back first in order to halp overcome deficiency in performance levels while keeping class sizes small to lower risks. Are either of these being considered in either of the districts (yours or children’s) you are connected to?
I also know of school districts that are saying 100% of students, 100% of time and missing school will mean removal from school enrollment…. Talk about pressure to knowingly send sick children to school……
Will there be mandated testing on a regular basis for teachers and 100% all students …. so 100% are tested over a rolling 10 school day schedule?
Our district has been trying to bring back “urgent learners” but they need to negotiate with our union first. They need to negotiate with the union for all possible plans and I think it’s going to get very, very ugly. I’m not looking forward to it.
Wow, that’s ridiculous to force you to commute to the school to teach remotely from an empty classroom. My sister’s school tried forcing that when they were discussing hybrid before school started and the teachers rose up against it. They ended up opening to full in person instead, but what a pain!
I think that a lot of your fears and anxieties about going back to school in person full time are hopefully worse than the reality (just like your feelings last summer before all of the remote stuff started). Sometimes the anticipation is worse than the reality! My kids’ school started full time in person in August, and so far it’s been pretty darn smooth. They test all teachers/staff every other week (elementary one week and HS the next, so every week but alternating campuses). So far 2 staff members tested positive out of everyone (only 1 was patient facing). They had to send 22 kids home to quarantine from that person’s pod (none of the kids actually got it but sent home as a precaution, even though kids and teacher all had masks on), but everyone else got to continue with in person learning. My kids have absolutely LOVED being back in school, as have the teachers. Hopefully your experience will be similar!
I’m glad your kids have been having a positive experience at school. I think at the elementary school level it’s a lot easier to make it work. It’s virtually impossible at the middle school level where teachers have 120-150 contacts and can’t teach all subjects (because of the laws surrounding credentials at the state level). It’s just going to be WAY more complicated for us to pull it off at the middle school level.
Also, we have 1500 students on our campus, where there are 3 schools (one is K-8, one is 4-5 and one is 6-8). It’s going to be a total disaster.
But my biggest concern is that my own kids will not be going back to school at all this year (their district has said that outright), and my husband is already struggling with depression, so the idea of him being home with the kids all day, trying to do his job and help them do their school work, while he’s already managing to just keep his shit together, is very alarming. I can bring my kids to my classroom (where I guess they will sit with headphones and doing stuff while I’m teaching live on zoom), but that won’t work every day. And then once we have kids in the classroom, I can’t bring them at all.
So for me, this is more of a personal crisis than a professional crisis. I have nowhere to leave my kids and my husband is struggling with his mental health and having to teach from my classroom, and then actually teaching on campus while my kids stay home indefinitely) makes an already difficult situation feel impossible.
Yes, this sounds very difficult. Maybe you can pod with another family and the kids can go back and forth between houses. Or maybe your parents can help? There is really no reason to work in your classroom now! I don’t understand it! Why create these difficulties for teachers who have their own kids to think about?
Uff da, adding in your husband’s mental health issues adds another level for sure. In our district, Pre-k through 12 are all in full time school in person. I have no idea what they’re doing at the older levels to make it work, but they’re doing it!
Your kids being home the entire year really isn’t tenable when you and your hubby both have to work full time. It’s insane what parents are having to manage nowdays!
Working from an empty classroom is ridiculous. I don’t get the benefit at all. As a parent I actually think a hybrid schedule sounds really nice. It won’t be anywhere near normal, but at least they will get some more socialization. But bringing kids back to campus is really only possible under certain circumstances. And, unless numbers are low where the school is located (like fewer than 2 new cases per 100,000 people), I don’t think middle school or high school kids should go back until there is a vaccine.
On the lightest note possible, the Marvel movies are best when seen in order!! They are awesome for kids and adults and follow a very specific timeline. This is my soapbox 😂 I can give you my order if you want, which is obviously the correct one, or you can just google it. I’m always so excited when people start on their Marvel journey, the storytelling is astounding!! ❤️
Oh I agree wholeheartedly. My son is just turning 7 so I’m not sure he has even some of the earlier movies in him (as far as pacing – the Iron Man movies are kinda slow, and Infinity War and End Game are LONG). At this point we may watch Ant Man and Ant Man and the Wasp (because they take place in San Francisco and he would recognize a lot of the scenery) but then we’d stop until we could start from the beginning (rewatching these ones we started with). But yeah, I really want to rewatch them in order again myself, so we’ll definitely do that eventually.
Yikes — I remember the panic I felt when a distant cousin found my blog, about 10 years ago — and then (she didn’t realize it was mine, but she recognized a story that I told about my grandparents — which included a photo of them) posted it to our family Facebook group (“look at what I found!”). Luckily, I’m an administrator of the group and I saw her post within a few minutes after it went up — I took it down before too many people had seen it and messaged her privately to explain why I’d done so. I actually took my blog offline for about two weeks while I waited for it all to blow over. I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if someone I knew found my blog — but I’m not about to start handing out the URL either…!