Thank you for your insights and comments on my last post. It helps to know that people are hearing me, and understand.
{Full disclosure, I did not intend to write another super bummer post, but it is what happened so, feel free to skip this one if you’re sick of my woe-is-me diatribes.}
I want to clarify that I am not gazing lustfully at those who are not following public health guidelines. I believe that everyone should make as many choices as they can to protect the health of the surrounding community and I am still okay making those choices. It’s hard, and yes it feels harder when I witness others flouting the guidelines by traveling (for fun) or meeting indoors with people outside their households. Luckily none of my friends are doing things like that, and I’m not on social media so I don’t see it much either.
But I am really frustrating that my kids won’t see the inside of a classroom all year. San Francisco and the Bay Area locked down fast and hard and that was supposed to make it possible for us to open back up later. But that never happened. Our numbers are crazier than they have ever been and we wasted the fall talking about how we’d return to classroom when numbers were better, even as all the experts warned the winter would be brutal. And then it came and it was brutal and now there is no going back. It feels like all the initial hurt was for nothing.
(And I know is wasn’t for nothing, and that fewer people have died in San Francisco than any other major urban center in the United States, but it does feel didn’t take advantage of our low numbers to make the right decisions – like returning kids to school, and instead opened restaurants and malls). And yes I know that all kids are in the same boat, except that actually, they are not. The private schools, and many charter schools, in the Bay Area have been open since September and tons of other districts across the country have been too. Only 1/4 of districts in the US have been teaching entirely online this school year (about 1/4 opened completely and around 1/2 returned with a hybrid set up in the fall). So actually, everyone is NOT in the same boat, not even in our neighborhood).
I don’t miss eating at restaurants or going to movie theaters. I don’t want to do most things that still aren’t allowed (except let my kids hang out inside with my parents and in-laws – that is really the only thing). Of the possible public offerings, I just want my kids in school. And I want to be in school teaching my own students.
I know this isn’t the popular opinion to have, but it’s mine. I’m tired. I’m tired of people picking and choosing the data that supports their point of view. I’m tired of people moving the goal posts. I’m tired of the union meeting where the one teacher talks about how it will never be safe to return to classroom until EVERYONE has been vaccinated, and talks shit about the families that travel, when she flew to the Midwest for the holidays herself (I guess she assumes she can do it safely, while others cannot?!). I am tired of another teacher talking shit about the district his wife works in, where they did go back (he thinks it is unconscionable) when he just admitted that he pulled his own middle schooler from our district and put him in his wife’s district so he could attend school in person. Sometimes it feels like everyone is a hypocrite and I just to go crawl in a hole.
Of course everyone is not a hypocrite but it’s easy to feel like they are when you can latch on to specific examples, especially when you have to sit in hours of union meetings with said examples listening to them spout their hypocrisy shamelessly.
I know my kids are, and will be, better off than the vast majority of students in their district. I know my own students will be fine in the long run too (and please don’t think I’m speaking about their learning Spanish online – of course I am upset that 15 months of their schooling will happen online). But that doesn’t negate how awful this year has been for them socially, emotionally, and academically, and how much they’ve lost while the people who were supposed to be making the hard decisions in their best interest sat around doing a whole lot of nothing.
Yes, this is ultimately about how tired I am of trying to make my students, and my own kids, not hate school and therefore the majority of most days. I’m tired of hearing how I’m supposed to let go of academic expectations for my students, to meet them where they are and help them feel better, even when those same voices admit there is really nothing I can do. I’m tired of telling my son to please go back to sit in front of his iPad when doing that makes him miserable. I’m tired of telling my daughter I know how hard it is to lose the entire last year at her elementary school to distance learning when I have no idea how hard that must be. I also don’t know how I’m going to tell her it will be okay to start middle school online next year.
I’m tired of helping my kids during every free moment of the day and then working until 1 or 2am every night so I can make up for the time I lost during the day. I’m tired of managing my son’s tantrums literally dozens of times a day (every time a zoom class starts, every time he has to do an assignment, every time he has to eat a “real” meal, every time he can’t do what he wants right that minute). I’m tired of counting how much screen time they get every day and freaking out about what it’s doing to them. I’m tired of participating in my son’s entire marital arts zoom because otherwise he won’t do it (we took three months off but we had to start again). I’m tired of fighting over every single meal and every single snack (yes we have created simple, very generous guidelines but they still fight them every. single day). I’m just tired.
I’m tired of staring at a screen all day. I didn’t choose that kind of job, and I get paid way worse than people who do those kinds of jobs! I’m tired of trying to find new and novel ways to engage my students over zoom when there just aren’t any. I’m tired of making making all my teaching materials distance learning accessible when it takes forever and the results are never what I want them to be. I’m tired of not being able to take a day off, because there are no subs so I still have to create videos and independent work and grade it so what is the point? I’m tired of not sleeping well (getting to wake up at 7:30a, doesn’t matter much if I got to bed at 2am and can’t fall asleep until 3 or 4am). I’m tired of showing up to one paltry martial arts zoom a week and hating it, which is what I told myself I had to do if I didn’t quit (I took a 7 month break from martial arts because I hate the zoom classes, but at this point it feels like I have to go to them or just leave it entirely). I’m tired of watching my husband be so sad every single day.
I’m tired of people telling me vaccines are going to make things better by spring when my FIL (75yo) got an email from Kaiser Northern California just yesterday saying he wouldn’t be offered a vaccine for months, and SF has no vaccination sites for people over 65 that my FIL can access (but people from outside the city can! Yay?!) Or when the Country Office of Education emailed us this week to tell us they don’t anticipating having vaccines for teachers until the summer.
I’m tired. I’m tired of sitting in this holding pattern waiting for something to change when nothing seems to. I’m tired. I’m so very, very tired.
And yes, I know opening schools is not going to fix all of this. I know this. But schools are my whole life. School is the job I’m paid to do as a teacher and the job I’m entrusted to do right now as a parent. And I’m unhappy and my kids are unhappy and my students are unhappy and it’s hard not to think that going back to school, even with masks on and far away from each other, wouldn’t alleviate a lot of that unhappiness.
I don’t know. Maybe I can’t even see the forest for the trees anymore. I just wish we had options and right now there just aren’t any.
I didn’t realize that 1/4 of schools never opened this year. Honestly sometimes I feel like the only one whose kid has been virtual this whole time. Our teachers haven’t gotten vaccinated either, and I can’t understand why it isn’t a priority. They will not go back until they do, and I worry that with all the new variants circulating in six months there may be another reason we can’t go back next year too. Then what? At least my daughter is doing ok academically, but she misses her friends. At least she has online games and zoom to connect with all her friends back in Philadelphia and some kids to play with outside here, but holy lord there is so much screen time. All of this is to say that I’m trying not to think about it. That is the only thing that really helps.
Yeah, I think I was doing that well enough (not thinking about it) for a while, but now it’s harder. SFUSD’s failure to even come up with a plan has them very much in the hot seat (our city actually just sued them this morning for not having a plan!) so it’s been harder to not think about it when it’s everywhere in our local news lately.
Our school district has never opened this year, we’ve been online only. Because my health is questionable, we have an infant at home, and CA is moving so slowly with vaccines, we’re in no hurry to get our kid back into the classroom. We can wait until more people are vaccinated, thanks, and I need to know our teachers will be vaccinated or that’s a non starter.
Well I’m glad your district is doing what makes you comfortable. I know I was a lot happier when that was the case.
I’m so sorry. It’s awful isn’t it? We also live in an area where there has been no school yet despite some of the best numbers in the country all fall. All fall, essentially until thanksgiving, the metrics the unions proposed *a month ago * were met. There previously were no metrics because ???, and it’s hard to feel like they are being put forward now that there is no hope of meeting them this spring. It’s infuriating. There appears to be some plan to have some teachers vaccinated now (other nearby counties are doing much better on this) but it is not clear they have identified or prioritized those teachers who will be back in school first according to the published metrics. There is NO transparency about any of it. I recently learned I may be in a priority group based on my work but I 100 percent would prefer for my kids teacher to be vaccinated first (I can work remotely so, unsure why we are getting this status). I just don’t understand how school doesn’t seem to be a priority even for really young kids, despite virtually every parent I know being devastated how their kids are struggling. I am also very worried about the fall. We also get the mixed messages about prioritizing mental health but also kids must go to 4.5 hours of zoom school every day. Insane for 5 year olds despite the amazing teachers. I don’t know if this is possible for your son but we worked out some significant compromises with my daughters school to allow her to skip some classes. We make sure she is there for attendance checks (which are at the same time every day) to prevent the teachers from being in an uncomfortable position with the school or county. But she leaves early in the afternoon and we do the work in less than 10 minutes later. Because the kids actually don’t learn anything in the afternoon- they are toast by that point. I highly recommend seeing if you can cut back on school work if your son is struggling that badly. He absolutely is not alone but you guys have to stay sane. I think a couple years makes a big difference in kids ability to handle virtual school- 3rd grade seems to be the cut off based on my discussions with friends with kids of various ages. Good luck and I’m so sorry this is so awful.
Our son actually has very few zoom classes and assignments, which is the only thing making in “manageable” at this point. Most days he only has two 30 minute zoom classes (just one day he has three and two are dance/PE). He isn’t really learning anything and while I cared less about that before because he was ahead (he was a TK student because of his birthday so he pretty much had K twice), I’m more concerned now because I do think he is falling behind. He’s doing extra writing to earn a video game that comes out in mid-Febrary, because every time he was asked to write for school he had a MASSIVE meltdown. He feels MUCH more confident in his writing now, so that is good. He also likes Prodigy well enough to keep up on his math skills. And we read together every day. I’m hoping that is enough right now.
Oh wow! That is…much more reasonable. Fascinating to hear how differently things are being done in different districts. I think preparing for 4.5 hours of virtual kindergarten is crazy hard for my daughters teacher too. She is clearly struggling too and when I read your thoughts I wish I knew more how to support her. It’s just BAD.
My daughter is very advanced academically so I’m not worried but is supposed to be receiving special social and behavioral support which is not happening. I don’t know a single person who thinks their kid under the age of 8 is doing remotely ok in virtual school.
OMG, yes. The lack of in-person school is AWFUL. infuriating that so many things are open, but we’re stuck in virtual school. endlessly. Hard not to be depressed about schools being so low on the priority scale. Kids have been home since March and things aren’t looking hopeful for in-person school. ever. Most neighboring communities (and private schools) are open. If i think too much about that I feel rage. so I’m just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to maintain a zen attitude. More successful some days than others 🙂
I feel you 1000%. All of this. Every word.
Just finished an article in SFChron that said in Long Beach all medical staff and nursing homes were covered for vaccine, 75 & up were easy access to sign up and public school teachers had all been offered opportunity so now Cal State Long Beach staff was being offered vaccine along with other essential workers like grocery stores. BUT SFUSDistrict and your district do not have enough vaccine to have done medical staff and nursing homes so access is limited for the 75+. MAKES NO SENSE that Some counties in the same state have so much more supply per capita than others. And Long Beach is not the only area where this is true.
I do understand that the state actually is not dispensing the vaccine to counties…. it is still being done through some sort of health agencies direct to Feds by some state allocation number……. but it begins to look to me like perhaps what I will call red counties in this state are getting higher allocations per capita than blue ones…… which would fit the prior federal government’s priorities and perhaps the change in Federal administration has not yet altered the allocations to counties….. or some such?
Maybe calling elected officials at federal and county levels and asking some questions would help? I do not know. Am certain, YOU do not have that time but maybe your husband could and perhaps he would feel better if he had such a concrete action to undertake. I am certain his job must be super nasty and difficult and discouraging these days…….
Clearly things are out of whack but why is not clear…….
Keep on sharing here. Venting helps and it makes it clear that there are major discrepancies happening across states as well as within states.
Wow, I wish I lived in Long Beach? That is really frustrating to hear.
I was also surprised that your FIL couldn’t get vaccinated. It isn’t easy to get a slot in LA but it certainly isn’t impossible. Basically you need internet access or a child who can help. I know this eliminated large swaths of people but not your FIL! In LA a number of private schools opened for K-2 pursuant to a waiver as well as some small districts. But very very few charters. I heard that the charters that are in LAUSD are afraid that the union will target them if they applied for waivers. Yikes! This is such a thorny issue. I’m wary of blaming the union but I think no one is doing all they can to open schools (state, counties, school systems, federal government, and teachers)
Evidently SF has more health care workers than any of the surrounding counties (we have three big hospitals – SF General, UCSF and Kaiser) so they are saying that is why it’s so much harder for people in SF to get vaccinated. They do have a vaccination site open for anyone over 65 in the Bayview (a historically black, under-served neighborhood), but you need an address with certain area codes to go there and my FIL does not have that. My parents were able to make a vaccination appointment for early March but they are in San Mateo County and the program they used is only open to San Mateo, Santa Clara and ALameda County residents 65+. Not sure why SF isn’t participating, as we are between San Mateo and Alameda Counties. It’s really frustrating.
That’s partly an allocation decision too. LA county decided to start vaccinating people 75+ before they had finished- or even started for some groups- vaccinating health care workers. Personally I’m a physician whose job cannot be done remotely and I was not “eligible” to make an appointment here until a day or so after appointments were open for elders. And tbh I probably would have had to wait another week for an appointment if I hadn’t fairly shamelessly used connections to get the one I did. (Not intending to say the county should not have started age-based vaccinations since I certainly don’t know what the best strategy is, just there’s variation in how distribution and allocation decisions are being made.)
This is so interesting to me because I kept on hearing stories about healthcare workers who were offered vaccines and rejected them and people who were tangentially in healthcare (like clinic fundraisers) getting vaccines. I’ve also heard from physicians that some of the hospitals had a ton of vaccines in their freezers and no one else to give it to. Obviously there is more to the story because you couldn’t get one! How come you weren’t eligible until more recently? What do you think went so wrong?
The issue is that the initial distribution for healthcare workers in LA was employer-based rather than job-based. The first shipments of vaccines went to hospitals and the Dept of Public Health. Hospitals started vaccinating employees within their systems (and each hospital set its own prioritization list) but none were vaccinating non-employees. So if you are employed somewhere affiliated with a hospital you could be vaccinated (including administrators, people working remotely, etc). If your employer did not have a hospital system affiliation you were supposed to be vaccinated by DPH. But DPH was very very slow to open vaccine sites, and when they did only employees of urgent cares, primary care clinics, and FQHCs were eligible. Then they added promotoras/community health workers, then mental health and substance abuse facility and corrections facility employees. People like me working in “specialty clinics” were last in the DPH healthcare worker priority list and appts were not available to us until the same time/just after they were available to people 75+. Other systems simultaneously opened appointments to non-employees. I would guess that in developing the priority list they assumed “specialty care” translated to “elective/postpone-able care” and should not be happening with the high case burden. But my specific job was also included in pretty much every list of “emergent/cases that cannot and should not be delayed for pandemic reasons.” I don’t think people making prioritization decisions entirely thought things through- dentists for example were in the same position I was.
This is clarifying! Thank you!
I also don’t like to blame unions but there are so many cases in which their demands go far, far, FAR beyond public health guidelines. In some cases they know they are asking for the impossible. I understand that there is a lot of distrust between unions and their districts, and that much, if not all, of that distrust is warranted, but there has to be ways around it. Hire an independent contractor to come in and see if public health guidelines are being met. But I don’t think asking for the impossible is the right move at this point.
I agree with you. The pandemic has just made obvious how broken our systems are so they collapse under additional strain (eg, the demands of teaching through a pandemic). It’s really too bad about SF. For several weeks LA County was saying they wanted to vaccinate all healthcare workers before moving on to seniors. I followed the reporting carefully and the estimate of the number of healthcare workers in the county kept on growing – from 500K to 600K to nearly 700K. Hard to understand why the county needed to vaccinate all 600K of these people (which included people who were working remotely) before seniors. Since surrounding counties and cities within the county were opening it up to seniors, people were getting furious and eventually the supervisors stepped in and ordered public health to open it up to seniors. Since that happened the county is vaccinating far more people per day than before. At some point, it doesn’t seem fair to prioritize healthcare workers before everyone else. I hope for your sake SF opens it up since not all healthcare workers under the priority guidelines are particularly vulnerable
I live in the Bay Area too. My employer is in another (red) state and I received invitation (!) for vaccination via email. (I’m in higher ed.) All of my colleagues are vaccinated at this point.
I am so frustrated. I was a bit ahead of the curve and have been at home since even before the sheltering order. My kids go to public school and have been online all this time.
My family is in another country and my 78 years old mom made an appointment online in 3 minutes, chose the date and time and place (!) she wanted to be vaccinated and got it.
At one point I thought about hopping into a plane, get the vaccine and come back the same day. I didn’t and I won’t, of course.
The situation we are in, here in CA and specifically in the BA is ridiculous.
It wasn’t like this when I was your age….. Interesting and fast to see:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUujjBqpxOg