Whoa. This has been quite the journey. On Friday, March 13th we were told we were leaving school for two weeks and here were are, the sixth of July, and we don't know if we will return in the fall! My optimistic self has been assuming all this time that we will go back to school in the September, but it's looking like we're getting half and half of our kids back at best! Our governor is saying that if people keep going out and not wearing masks and the numbers keep rising we WON'T OPEN SCHOOLS IN THE FALL! I don't know that I can handle more distance learning, but I have no choice, my family depends on me. I can't stand the uncertainty.
For now, my school is assuming we will be taking on the hybrid cohorting strategy where Mondays are a teacher work day and cohort A comes to school Tuesday and Thursday and B comes to school Wednesday and Friday. Of course each kiddo must have the standard 35 square foot bubble (where did they come up with that number!? That's right they must have a 3.3377905866 radius of empty space around them at all times). Anywho, I'm on the reopening committee and we've been discussing things like contact tracing, how to get kids off the bus and into their classroom without touching or breathing on anyone else, how recess will look with each kid having a 35 square foot bubble, etc. All of these questions are baffling, and really, arbitrary, because the kids will not follow all of the rules and procedures we put in place, but as always, we will do our best!
So, as this planning continues I am working the most during the summer that I ever have preparing for what I'm assuming will be the most challenging year of my career. I am trying to research on the web, listen to podcasts, read blogs and books and anything else I can do to prepare. I'm having a hard time finding info because there just isn't much out there! I will share what I find with you, though! While I am doing this, here are the questions I am grappling with (maybe you have answers!):
- What online resources will I use? I don't want to use too many and overwhelm my students and families, so I feel pressure to narrow it down to the best ones.
- What will I do at school and what will be done at home? Time is precious in a normal school year, and now we have less than half of the time! I'm researching the flipped model, but I've had some resistance from my team about this idea.
- How will I organize student supplies? As the kids our supposed to have all of their own supplies and keep them in their backpacks, how will I make transitions seamless?
- How will I make the transition from school learning to home learning seamless and easy for parents?
- How will I maximize my time so I can best meet the needs of my students without spending every minute of my day at school? My team and I have talked about splitting subjects and each making videos for different subjects including read aloud. I'm also looking at time savers such as email templates, etc.
