Not a Wasted Word

I can imagine yesterday’s post came of as me begrudging others their pandemic realities. While yes, I am envious of those who have moved into a pandemic reality that looks a lot more like normal life, I don’t mean to begrudge anyone that. How can I begrudge someone something that I would absolutely take advantage of if I had the opportunity?

I’m just tired and it’s still so hard and I don’t really understand why it’s still so hard for us where we live, and it’s so much easier for other people where they live. I don’t believe there is only one right answer, especially not anymore, and it’s hard to see the world opening up for others in ways that it seems it never will for us. (It’s also hard to learn just how open it’s been for others since the fall – I really did not realize how much more shut down we were than most areas).

I suppose the fact that I’m not interested in any of the experiences that are now allowed in my area because of recently eased restrictions probably doesn’t help. I’m not interested in eating at a restaurant – take out is fine for me. I don’t want to go shopping in malls (those have actually been open here but I’ve yet to step foot in one). I used to love the movie theater, but not anymore. I don’t care about any of that. All I care about is having the time and space to do my job without also managing my children. I just want to be able to ask for real, substantive help when I need it. And that does not exist for me and it won’t for a while.

I feel like I made so many mistakes when it came to getting through this year. My husband and I decry the lack of imagination from local, state and federal officials, but we weren’t exactly imaginative ourselves. We just hunkered down and kept giving parts of ourselves away to our day to day lives until there was nothing left.

I keep reminding myself of how terrible everything was last year, that on top of the coronavirus and ever mounting cases and deaths, we were dealing with Trump and the Republican party officials that supported him no matter how great the attack he waged against our democracy. I forget we weren’t sure who would win the election and then we weren’t sure if the liar who’d lost would leave. Everything felt so fraught last year; we were in a constant fight or flight loop and creative thinking doesn’t happen in our amygdala. It’s hard to see the big picture, and anticipate the real effects of living a certain way for an entire year, especially when the message is that you have no safe and responsible options. I had a panic attack in a zoom class on Inauguration Day, clearly I have not been putting my best mental effort towards anything lately. Clearly we didn’t have any options.

But now it feels like the dust has settled and people are getting on with their lives and we’re stuck in the same shelter-in-place mentality. And a lot of people I read have had child care and in person school for a while, and honestly it didn’t bother me because that wasn’t happening at public schools in our area at all (the private schools have been open but I think I just realized this in the new year). But now it is – slowly but surely students are stepping foot back on campus in public districts all over the Bay Area – and yet my children’s situation remains in a holding pattern. Even when I felt we were “all in this together” and I recognized that “in this” looked different in every area (and for every person), I didn’t feel like the outlier I feel like now. I honestly think I’m hitting the wall because of what is changing in our immediate area, and how it feels like the wrong things are changing…

Because what if SFUSD does finalize their agreement with the union and then before schools can even reopen our numbers go up because restaurants and gyms and theaters have been open in the interim (their agreement to go back is predicated on numbers staying in the red.)

What then?

I’ve hit the wall. So hard. I’ve hit it as a public school teacher who has to read about how unreasonable our unions are, and as I’ve had to manage the mixed emotions those articles bring up for me. I have never worked so hard and yet I know that everything I do is ineffectual at best, harmful at worst (if a student is dealing with mental health issues and my work is causing them more distress). I’ve been teaching to an array of black boxes for a full academic year and it’s horrible. And I am in the best possible position as a middle school elective teacher in an affluent district where most kids have the technology and parental support they need.

Have I mentioned I will almost certainly be teaching this way again next year, as a middle school electives teacher? And my kids’ district will absolutely not be in person anything close to full time in the fall… The light at the end of this tunnel is only an idea for me…

This is so, so hard. And yes I’m envious of those who don’t have to juggle their children’s education with their own job and general mental health. That doesn’t mean I begrudge them what they have, because I would accept it, if offered, in a second. And the last thing I ever want to be is a hypocrite (but of course I am! and that was the point of yesterday’s post! I have almost everything and yet I bitch about the two things I don’t have!)

I guess the real point of all the words written in this post, and the last, is I DON’T KNOW HOW TO KEEP DOING THIS WHEN IT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE IT’S GOING TO GET BETTER.

Yes I know it is getting better. And vaccinations will keep improving the situation. But states are opening up in reckless ways (or so say federal public health officials), and a full FOURTH of Americans say they won’t get vaccinated and variants threaten the effectiveness of vaccines people do get and we’ll be wearing masks into 2022 and the areas that have always been quick to close and slow to reopen will continue to operate that way, and without a miracle my life will look a lot like this in the fall.

And I don’t know how to get through the next three months of the school year, let alone the summer, let alone the fall knowing that it’s not going to get much better.

And I’m sorry if I lashed out at others for putting words to my jealously. I know we’re all dealing with our own struggles and the last thing I want to do is add to anyone’s.

Do you think your life will look different in the fall?

I’m finding it hard to write here these days. I’m not loving most of the blogs that I read, mostly because it’s hard to hear about full time (or even consistent) child care and kids in school (or going back to school) or BOTH! I know when I start to chafe at what others have, it’s because I’m feeling a lot of guilt about what I have. And as far as the pandemic goes, I have so, so much. We both have jobs we can do from home, and we haven’t had to take cuts in our hours (or pay) despite our lack of child care (my husband has taken copious amounts of time off, but that was either pandemic-specific time or accrued sick leave and PTO). I have been able to create a schedule that allows me to support my kids a fair amount during the school days as well (I work most nights from 9pm to 1am).

We also have our health. No one in our immediate families has a preexisting condition that puts them at increased risk for serious illness or death due to covid-19. We haven’t had to be more afraid of this virus than anyone else who is our age, and the possibility of contracting covid-19 hasn’t caused a lot of anxiety for either of us (though I definitely leave the house more than my husband does). None of our great-grandparents are still alive so we haven’t had to worry about a loved one dying alone in a long term care facility, and our parents are young enough (late 60s) and in good health, and able to isolate so that we haven’t had to be overly worried about them.

We don’t even know anyone in our personal circles who has tested positive for covid-19, let alone been sick or died from it. Not even one of my friends who works in health care (several of them on the front lines) has contracted it.

We are lucky that we live in an area where local and state officials took the virus seriously and the general public has been willing to follow social distancing and masking guidelines. I have never dealt with an anti-masker, nor do I know of anyone who has (though I’ve seen a fair number of white dudes walking around without masks. And it’s almost ALWAYS white dudes – even if their whole family has masks, not them. Not them.)

My kids are also handling it all well enough. They are certainly suffering academically, but nothing like so many kids are. And their mental health is as good as could be expected – again they are negatively affected but not in the way so many young people are.

I live in a state that never gets very cold, allowing for outdoor social distancing throughout the winter. Meeting friends at parks and playgrounds has done so much to maintain our mental health.

Heck, we even got rid our tenant right before this all happened. Sure it cost us $20K, but no amount of money would have gotten him out of there during the pandemic. Not only are we not dealing with his recurring bed bug issues, but we have that 400 square feet to live and work in!

I’m sure there are other ways I’m supremely lucky right now, and my privilege blinds me to them. Privilege is so good at warping our perceptions of reality.

Really the only things I don’t have, that others have, are child care and in person schooling options for my kids. That is it. So I know when I read about people who have those things, and seemingly take them for granted, I only care because I know I have so much that I routinely take for granted. I’m that person for other people. So many other people.

It feels like I have two options right now. I can come here and talk about how things are not that bad, and we’re getting through it, and I can make people who have it worse than me feel shitty. Or I can come here and bitch about how it’s hard, and maybe put words to the struggles that some of us are facing, knowing I still might make other people who have it worse than me feel shitty (I remember reading a letter in Carolyn Hax about how there had been snow days and this woman had to work from home WITH HER KIDS for three whole days and I wanted to throw my phone across the room. Does she not realize that some of us have been working from home WITH OUR KIDS… FOR A STRAIGHT YEAR?!)

But that’s the thing… maybe she doesn’t. Because evidently a full 50% of students in the US have had the option to attend school full time. A little over 25% have been doing hybrid learning for the year and less than 25% have been fully remote this entire time. I did not realize that my kids were in the minority for learning from home since March. I had no idea that so many kids in this country have been going to school full time since the fall. Maybe they have no idea what a quarter of kids still have no option for any kind of in person learning at all.

So yeah. Not really sure how to show up here. I’m not doing great, but most people are doing way worse than me. The vast majority of the worlds inhabitants are suffering and struggling so much more than I am. It’s a humbling thought, and it makes it hard to show up here and bitch about how my kids will never see the inside of classroom this entire school year.

It all just feels so futile. I should probably go back to worrying about whether or not my kids will go back in the fall and leave those worries in my own head.

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?

Thank you for your perspectives on my vaccination conundrum. I’m so confused as to why teachers from other counties around us can be vaccinated at the new FEMA site, but we teachers residing in SF cannot. Some have said it’s because SF has not started vaccinating people in the 1b tier, but I know for a fact that San Mateo County hasn’t started yet either. They start vaccinating the 1b tier on February 22nd (or 24th depending on where you look) and SF is also starting on the 24th so why are they allowed to get vaccinated there and we are not?

I’m so f*cking tired of living in San Francisco. I have never disliked my city as much as I do after this past year. I wish I were smart enough to move away (like the 100,000 people who already have) and cut my loses. I wish.

This morning was spent with me trying to leave a text chain in which all my colleagues successfully made vaccination appointments and then let us all know how easy it was. Our principal had texted us all about the site, and to let us know that she had an appointment. She shared the information and then everyone started texting back with their vaccination appointment success stories. One person mentioned that those of us in SF couldn’t get vaccinated but no one cared. I couldn’t just “leave the conversation” because not everyone had an iPhone (so that feature just disappeared?). Finally I figured out how to “hide” it, thank god.

It’s so frustrating to know that my colleagues can get vaccinated this week, but I can’t just because of where I live. How is that fair?

I really did not want to lose two days of productivity to this but it’s already happened. I’m trying to leave it behind me and get on with it, but it’s hard when I keep emails from my district about how I should definitely take advantage of the FEMA site because I’ll definitely get vaccinated there a lot quicker than through the county.

I didn’t even care that much about when I would be getting vaccinated before any of this happened! Now it’s like it hijacked my mind!

Anyway, moving on… I stayed up until 1am last night getting my last class’s assessments scored. That feels good because they are long and there were 95 of them. I’ve spent a lot of time prepping for the next two weeks and beyond. I haven’t gotten much done at home, which is disappointing because my house is a shit show and the state of is causes me a ton of stress. We really need to do a massive purge but I don’t know if I have that in me. I should probably try to find a house cleaner, but that also feels like an incredibly daunting task during a pandemic. Maybe I’ll attempt both over the spring break.

It’s crazy to think the spring break is our last break of the school year. It’s crazy to think my kids will spend 13 months in distance learning and 18 total months away from their schools. It’s crazy to think my daughter will leave her school as a rising 6th grader and never set foot on the campus again as a student. I can only imagine how hard that must be for seniors in high school… what a loss for them.

As we come to the end of February, I’m only just registering what a traumatic month January was for my mental health. The panic attack in the zoom class was definitely the culmination of three really bad weeks. And shit did not really get better until last week, after I finally submitted my daughter’s middle school application (we had a really hard, anxiety-inducing time deciding on the best of a multitude of very bad options – San Francisco’s middle schools are notoriously awful and it was hard to get an idea of what they will be like next year since the buildings have been closed for a year). A week ago I weighed myself and realized I had lost 10 pounds. I was only 7 pounds away from my lowest weight since adolescence, which was the result of a year of VERY disordered eating in Spain, where I dabbled in anorexia and bulimia. I looked gaunt, in my opinion, and have been trying to gain back some of the weight. I know that is not a popular problem to have, especially as a woman during the pandemic, but as someone who has happily lived eating-disorder-free for 15 years it was really upsetting to have to think about my weight again. Really upsetting (if you ever suffered from an eating disorder you know what I mean.) I’ve gained back half of the weight I lost, so I’m not as worried about it anymore, but I’m keeping an eye on it (which in and of itself is stressful).

I should probably be seeking out mental health services, but Kaiser doesn’t have many to offer and the idea of finding a good therapist during a pandemic is so daunting as to feel impossible. (I’ve heard they are super overwhelmed with new clients too because… pandemic! This article contends that’s true.) Finding a therapist just feels like another REALLY hard thing to try to accomplish, when everything else feels hard. And when would I have time to meet with anyone? And where could I do it privately? Ugh, it’s just not worth it.

I will, ultimately, be fine. Everyone is suffering, most more than me, and I can work through my issues well enough. If I drop weight again I will more seriously look into it.

Well this post ended up being longer than I expected so I will sign off. I hope you’re all managing okay as we collectively hit this wall together. One head palm to the wall at a time I suppose.

Here is a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, to thank you for reading this whole post.

Yesterday I woke up to a text from a teacher friend that the Oakland Coliseum site was opening for 1b tier appointments. As educators, we are in the 1b tier, which is just opening in California, so I was excited to see that a site was vaccinating teachers. She sent me all the important information, including a special code to use when I registered for an appointment.

When I first went to the site to see if I was eligible, I did not put in the code and the site told me I was not yet eligible. When I tried again with the code, I was allowed to look for an appointment. Of course there were none, so I didn’t have to think about whether or not I should actually try to book an appointment.

I texted my friend back and asked where she had gotten the code. Evidently it was making the rounds in the East Bay, where the vaccination site was. A friend had shared it, then the administration at her school, then it was on Facebook. There was conflicting information about which teachers could access the site. Some sources said only Alameda County teachers, others said anyone within 50 miles of the coliseum. Yet another source said anyone who works in education or child care in Alameda, San Mateo or Santa Clara counties could get vaccinated there, but it wasn’t clear if they had to LIVE in San Mateo County or WORK there. I live in San Francisco County but work in San Mateo County so that mattered for me. (I’m starting to wonder if it’s going to make getting vaccinated harder than it would have been.)

I decided not to use the code, since it wasn’t specifically sent to me, and I didn’t go back to try to book an appointment. I texted back and forth with my friend who very much wanted an appointment. She works in Alameda County, but won’t be going back to the classroom this year (she is a resource teacher who sees a lot of students in different classes so she can’t meet with them in person when they are in small cohorts). The state wants to prioritize teachers who are back in classrooms but I think it realizes it’s too hard to do that so it’s just not trying to. And ultimately we want everyone vaccinated, right?

I keep hearing that argument, that it’s okay if people are crossing state lines or fudging credentials to get vaccinated before there are supposed to, because ultimately we need to vaccinate everyone who is willing to get the shots. I don’t necessarily agree with that argument. If supplies weren’t so limited, and the roll out weren’t so delayed, I might think it made sense, but right now there are not nearly enough vaccines and some people should absolutely get them before others do. I don’t think jumping the line is the right thing to do, but I also don’t see the state or counties doing much to prevent those willing to flaunt eligibility guidelines either. Vaccination sites that are only supposed to serve certain zip codes don’t require proof of residency, and sites that are only supposed to vaccinate people over 65 don’t ask for proof of their age. I understand they don’t want to create barriers to vaccine access, but at some point it feels like they are inviting people to disregard the guidelines altogether, and just jump the line.

And with the disorganized and chaotic rollout, sometimes it’s hard to know when you’re jumping the line and when you’re just being shown where the line is. My friend who sent the code got vaccinated yesterday. The CTA (state-level teachers union) sent teachers in Alameda County a special link and she used it to make an appointment that same morning. She won’t be in the classroom until the fall, so technically she doesn’t need to be vaccinated now, but she was formally “invited.” I’m sure I would have done the same if I were her.

She keeps sending me information about sites in San Francisco where I can show up with my ID and a pay stub (showing I work for a school district) and get vaccinated, but when I try to find any information on these sites providing vaccines there is NOTHING. I’m not sure if the information is bogus or something I’m not supposed to know. I finally had to ask her to stop. I’m not going back to the classroom until mid-March, and that is only if we are back in the red tier, case-numbers wise. Even then it will only be two days a week for about two hours a day. I’m also 40 and in good health. A lot of teachers need to vaccinated before me, so I’m going to wait until the San Mateo County of Ed invites me to be vaccinated. I’m also registered with San Francisco to get updates on when I might be eligible here.

My husband absolutely does not think I should use a code a friend gave me to make an vaccination appointment. He doesn’t think the code was intended for me, since no one from my district, or county shared it with me. He doesn’t think I need to be vaccinated now, and I should wait my turn. We talked about it a lot on Tuesday, and I generally agreed with him. I know other teachers from my district made appointments at the coliseum (HR actually emailed us and told us that teachers from our district made appointments there, but did not share the code that actually allows you to make an appointment); that makes it even harder to not pursue it. “Just because other people do something, doesn’t make it okay to do,” my husband told me a million times yesterday. I don’t think he’s wrong. Still I wondered what he would do if he got the opportunity to be vaccinated before he felt he really should.

To both of our surprise, my husband got a call yesterday from a colleague saying she had vaccination access for him. Evidently 50 people in his department can be vaccinated, but there are more than 50 people so they are… I’m not quite sure what they are doing… Calling their friends in the department to see if they want to get vaccinated? My husband passed on the offer. He said he asked himself how he’d feel if it came out in the papers. Was it wrong for him to get the shot, when he’ll be working from home for the foreseeable, and it was offered by a friend on the phone? The answer, in his mind, was definitely yes, it would be wrong. He couldn’t defend himself to the public if he had to, so he didn’t do it.

My (other) friends think I should get the vaccine using whatever codes is being passed around by educators. They think I need to get it eventually so I might as well get it now. I don’t know, maybe they are right. If I could be certain that there will be doses left when it legitimately is my turn, I wouldn’t even be thinking about this (well, if my friend weren’t texting me all the time I wouldn’t be thinking about this). But I can’t be certain because all I hear from my district (via the county) is that there aren’t nearly enough to vaccinate all the educators, let alone all the food, agricultural, and grocery store workers, along with police and firefighters (also in the 1b tier that is just opening). They are saying it will be months before we can be vaccinated, and middle and high school teachers are their last priority (because the state guidelines say community spread has to be much lower to open classrooms for those age groups).

It’s so hard when the there are so few vaccines and the rollout is so disorganized and chaotic. Sometimes I wonder if by not using the code to get vaccinated now I’m missing my one good chance to get it at all. Nothing about how vaccine roll out has been going gives me faith that I will eventually be vaccinated if I just sit around a wait. I believe waiting is the morally correct choice, but I worry it’s not the prudent choice when the state is doing so little to ensure that vaccine roll out is happening in an ethically responsible way.

So, what would you do if you were offered access to the vaccine that maybe you technically qualified for, but that you couldn’t actually access without some information that was not formally shared with you? Would you use a friend’s tip and make yourself as appointment, knowing that everything else you put in the registration page was true, but that you wouldn’t be offered the vaccine without the code? Or would you wait until you were formally invited? I’d really love to hear your thoughts, because even though I told my friend to stop texting me tips on where I can get vaccinated right now, I’m sure these situations will keep occurring in the months while I wait to be formally invited. I’d really love some unbiased opinions on this, so I can navigate possible opportunities moving forward.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention (and I have now added it above) that the sites my friend says I can show up at with a pay stub are not official vaccinations sites for teachers. There is nothing online about them being available to teachers. And that is the case because… SF has not opened their vaccination sites to teachers yet. Teachers from my district can, and are (I’m on a text chain about it) making appointments because they live in San Mateo County and can do that. I cannot make an appointment there (without that code) because I live in San Francisco. I’m supposed to wait until 2/24 to try to get a vaccination appointment at the site that recently closed because of limited supply and now has an estimated back log of 24,000 appointments. So yeah, it’s all going to go great. Just another reason to love living in San Francisco.

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.

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.

Thanks for the support and kind words on my last post. The issue was resolved to my satisfaction and I am not longer super stressed when I meet with that class. I did end up talking with them about the panic attack, briefly, and we also talked about how quickly you can lose control of a video once you’ve sent it to someone else.

The last few weeks have been… okay. Some days I feel almost good and others I feel I’m staring down a long tunnel with no light at the end of it. I know there is a light at the end of it, but I can’t see it yet. (On the days when I feel almost good, I’m not bothered by the lack of light at the end of the tunnel – I’m pretty sure hormone fluctuations are the only difference).

As far as living my life, I’m still hitting that wall. Everything feels harder than it used to. I’m struggling to stay on top of my planning, prepping and grading. I’m struggling to show up with the energy and enthusiasm required to keep students engaged enough to get the work done. I’m just… struggling. Even on the good days I am struggling.

And everyone else in my life is struggling too. My husband is miserable. My kids have more meltdowns every day. It’s harder and harder to get them to stay on a zoom call or finish an online assignment. My students at school are struggling too. Significantly more students are getting Fs this trimester, and their weekly emotional check ins show how distressed and unhappy they are. We’re coming up on a full year of this and everyone I know is struggling. Everyone is miserable, and they will be miserable until something changes. And right now, nothing will change for us for a long, long time.

I’m also realizing that my life, the locked down quarantine life, is not being lived by a LOT of people. I always knew different areas, and people in those areas, were handling this differently, but I don’t think I quite realized how differently, and for how long. I have to say, the more I hear about other people’s lives, where their kids go to school in person and they still have a cleaning service come, and they still play sports and attend organized activities… the harder it is for me look down the barrel of so many months more of this isolation and sadness. I don’t even have faith my kids will be back in their classrooms in the fall, and other people’s kids have been there this whole year.

It must be nice to have some semblance of the life you used to live. It must be nice to feel like things are getting better.

I have to say, when I thought everyone was sacrificing together it made it easier for me to make those sacrifices myself. But now, it’s not so easy anymore. I guess I just wish we had more options, but we don’t. California is still so locked down, even as we come out of the winter shelter-in-place orders. And now that we are coming out of the shelter-in-place orders our numbers will stay so high that school districts won’t go back and our kids will be stuck at home for the second half of the school year. It’s a fucking travesty and California should be ashamed. We have the FIFTH LARGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD and the vast majority of our public school students will not see the inside of a classroom this school year, they won’t see the inside of a classroom for FIFTEEN MONTHS. Maybe longer.

But what can we do except keep on keeping on. Every day we get through it and then we wake up to get through another day. While other people are living their lives, or some semblance of their lives, we’re still stuck in this groundhog day of isolation and sadness. And yes, with vaccinations things will get better, but it’s going to be a slow, slow march to better. So, so slow. It’s hard to remember there is a light at the end of the tunnel when you you’ve been in the dark so long you can’t even see a pinprick of its presence.

Do you feel like your still stuck in quarantine while other people are getting on with their lives? Are you hitting a wall?

On Wednesday I had a panic attack. During one of my zoom classes. Out of nowhere my heart rate spiked and I went pale. My vision was covered in spots and I couldn’t see. It happened so fast, and I was so disoriented that I didn’t think to turn off my video or just end the zoom call. A couple kids unmuted to ask how I felt and I told them not well and asked for a minute. I went off screen to sit down and I was so disoriented I thought maybe I was dreaming. Once my breathing calmed a little I went back to my computer and tried to keep teaching but my vision was still so bad that after 30 seconds I told them I didn’t feel well and had to go.

It took about 20 minutes for me to stop sweating and feeling so, so cold. It took about an hour for me to feel relatively sure I could teach my 11:50am class, though I was still exhausted and shaky.

I’m really not sure what triggered the panic attack. It was my 9am class and I was definitely nervous about the inauguration that was starting at noon on the other side of the country. But I wasn’t thinking about that at all during my class. It literally came out of nowhere.

Wednesday sucked. I kept thinking of how awful it all must have looked on the zoom and how bad I felt for my students, who were clearly freaked out. I kept wondering if it was going to happen when I logged on again at 11:50pm.

Then this morning in my advisory class the first thing out of one of my students mouth is, Ms. — are you okay? My friend said you were really sick in 1st period yesterday! Then he admitted that actually his friend had sent him a video that he took of me having a panic attack.

I was honestly so shocked I didn’t know what to say. I had worried briefly that a student might have recorded the incident but so many of them had been concerned that I put it out of my mind. I guess that was naive.

It sounds like the video was only shared via text message. But the student who received the video is at my normal middle school and the student who sent the video is at the other middle school (the one where I only have two classes) so probably a lot if kids saw it. Who knows if they just kept forwarding it to more people. At this point I’m just hoping it hasn’t been posted on social media.

The administration at the school of the student who sent it is looking into it. They already called the parents of the student who told me he received the video (evidently the mom had overheard him telling me about it on the zoom call and was mortified). Evidently both her 7th (in my advisory) and 8th grader (in one of my Spanish classes) were sent the video.

So yeah, it’s been a really shitty week and I kind of want to give the fuck up. I had a panic attack and a student recorded it and sent it to a bunch of students and maybe posted it on social media. I’m not quite sure how to bounce back from that.

I’m glad tomorrow is Friday. I just want to crawl into a hole.

In December I set up a surprise visit with my husband’s best friend. We met up at a playground in the East Bay and the kids played while the adults talked. My husband has not seen one friend in person since the pandemic started and his mental health has taken a toll. He was so happy to see his friend, and was very thankful that I set up the visit.

During that visit my husband’s friend invited us out on his boat. Since being outside with masks on is something we are doing, we accepted the invitation. We went out this past Sunday and it was amazing.

The weather up here has been warm. REALLY warm. Unseasonably warm. Actually it’s been warm by any-time-of-year standards in SF. We usually get a heatwave like this in February, but not in January. So while it has been amazing to have temperatures in the 70s, it’s also terrifying to think what it portends for the future.

Clear, warm days on the bay are a rarity so we really lucked out. There was so little wind (very rare here) that we had to motor all of the way there and some of the way back. We did put up the sails for a little bit, but mostly we motored. My daughter has been going to sailing camp for two summers now and she really had a great time.

I got a lot of photos. I have to say, I love San Francisco a lot more when I’m a little ways away, marveling at the skyline.