Diary of
a Mad Teacher(Adventures in D.O.E. Land)
I. Late
September
PPE and the D.O.E. – Testing? Fuggedaboudit
A High School in Brooklyn
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| CSEW at "Safe Schools Rally" in Brooklyn COVID "hot zone," October 2. (Photo: WPIX-11) |
We also looked to see if there was PPE in our rooms and on
our floor. None was to be found. By the end of the day, the head custodian had
been around to point out where the vents were located (most are behind
classroom doors) and provide cleaning supplies and PPE. This calmed our nerves
somewhat.
Over the next couple of days, we completed professional
development activities and team planning via Zoom or Google Meets while all
being in the building except for those that were already granted the
accommodation to work remotely. Scheduling teachers for classes was an
impossible jigsaw given the many factors. Some departments had more fully
remote teachers than others, some teachers transferred to other schools or
retired over the summer, and the percentage of students requesting fully remote
was changing each day. Also, to create a blended class a second teacher needs
to be assigned to the same class to work with remote students on days they do
not attend in-person learning. But by the end of the first week back, teachers
had something that resembled a schedule.
On September 16, students were asked to attend a
school-wide online orientation. There were many issues in setting up this large
virtual meeting. During the orientation, students wrote inappropriate messages
in the chat, they were confused by all the information, many did not know what
group they were scheduled to be in on in-person days, and so on.
On the days leading up to the orientation, the chapter
leaders from the three high schools in the building began to express concern
about in-person learning. They decided that it would be more powerful and
effective if the schools unified to improve the conditions of the school and to
demand remote only. Beginning on September 17, teachers began to protest
outside the school. Morning protests were better attended than afternoons
because teachers do not have childcare.
We are now in week 2 of remote learning. Several students
are still not connected with their classes. Teachers and other school personnel
will be conducting outreach to get these students online. Meanwhile, if we look
at class rosters from today, there are numerous changes to teacher and student
schedules. Teachers don't know who their students are and students don't know
if they are in the correct class. These issues arise during the regular school
year but are tremendously more difficult to communicate and correct while
remote. I still do not have a complete teaching schedule and students are still
being added to my classes.
This week teachers are going to get into the curriculum
and the work being assigned will impact student grades. When all students are
finally in the right classes, there will be many students left behind.
Everything is chaotic and we have been given an impossible task. Teachers are
still being programmed for fully remote classes and blended classes without a
second teacher. What is going to happen when blended learning begins on October
1 if teachers are expected to cover both remote and in-person?
Hi-Tech, Lo-Tech … or No Tech
Another High School in Brooklyn
There was complete organizational mayhem in the school
when I arrived. Schools were set to open on September 21, but teachers had no
programs until the tail end of the prior week. There was a slew of PDs (professional
development sessions) and it was apparent that many teachers had significant
difficulty with technology. The D.O.E., apparently, wants to more closely monitor
communication between teachers and students, so all students had to access new
nycstudents.gov emails. School emails were no longer approved for usage and
teachers had to transfer massive numbers of online files from their school
accounts to the DOE accounts. Teachers were very nervous about this because
they and students were already comfortable with their school accounts, and now
students had to register for new email accounts to get notifications.
And the tech issues! Students who received devices from
the school in the Spring no longer had Internet on them, and were extremely
confused about the process to get it back. This is especially true for many immigrant
parents and students who could use in-person assistance with the devices, but
the school is not accepting in-person technology assistance meetings at the
time. (“Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn’t looking good either.”) Ironically,
parents and students need to go to a Google Meet link to ask for advice, but if
they have no Internet, well.… This has been a major issue. I have about 30
students in one class and only three of them showed up today online despite the
fact that I’d spoken with all their parents. The parents are not negligent.
They are worried and eager to speak with someone about getting Internet service
and working devices, but the bureaucracy you have to cut through!
The week before the 21st we were supposed to contact our period
3 students to ask about their tech and to get them on Google Classroom. This
didn’t really happen because either students were constantly getting changed in
and out of classes, or simply did not appear on Skedula. I didn’t know who my
students were for some periods until midweek. Student names for my other
periods slowly trickled in onto Skedula throughout the week. Today, student
schedules are still changing. You need to keep one eye on the ever-changing
roster: some students previously added to our Google Classroom need to be
removed and new names added.
And then there is “synchronous” and “asynchronous”
instruction. At first it was synchronous only, 20 minutes live instruction at
the beginning of the class. Then, of course, because of a lack of teachers,
asynchronous instruction was allowed. Because of this, substitutes are no
longer needed for remote subbing, only in-person subbing. Teachers must leave lessons
for students for the days they are asynchronous. And what can you do in 20
minutes? You certainly can’t teach a lesson and engage with students. Many
teachers are trying to cram a 45-minute lesson into that time slot, speeding through
the lessons.
There’s no real learning happening. The students know it.
The teachers know it. But it looks nice on paper (nice Google slides, nice
lesson plan, etc.). The students have complained incessantly that they are not
learning and they are right.
The week before the 21st, it was announced that for students in blended learning, their in-person instruction days would not be in the classroom but instead reporting to the auditorium, gyms, and cafeterias. Basically, students would learn remotely from inside the school building either on their phones, laptops, or iPads, which makes no sense. Teachers would be in the classrooms teaching their students in the auditoriums. In the classrooms, there are two and sometimes three teachers conducting class, and when teachers are speaking loudly it is extremely difficult to teach. I don’t know how the students would even do this from the gyms when a student on their left is in social studies and another on their right is in math. I can’t even imagine the feedback this would cause if students unmuted to speak.
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| Class Struggle Education Workers has called for unions to use their power, in areas where COVID-19 infection rates are low, to reopen schools safely with and fixing ventilation issues. (Photo: WPIX-11) |
II: Mid-October
Proof Is in the Podding:
A High School in Brooklyn
My high school agreed to a podding system as part of their
safety plan for the school reopening. Podding allows students to stay in the
same classroom all day with the same group of students in order to minimize
contact with others in the building and help with the tracing of positive COVID
cases. Having students remain in the same classroom, means that teachers need
to travel from class to class.
Since the start of in-person learning, teachers have not
observed a functional podding system. In fact, students are moving from class
to class and there is no evidence that there are any two students with
identical schedules. Some teachers believe that at this point in the school
year, we need to do away with the pod system to allow teachers to return to
their classrooms, allow student movement, to schedule programs properly.
The pod system does not work at the high school level. Most
students have unique needs and requirements to fulfill. The superintendent
doesn’t seem to understand this and has mandated the programmer to change
students’ schedules to get them in pods. This mandate has become the number one
priority at my school. Meanwhile, ELLs (English Language Learners) are in
sections where they are not getting the support they need. I fear that many
will go all year without the necessary support.
The return to school has been completely disastrous and
chaotic. There has been so much time and effort spent on creating a system that
could never work due to a number of foreseen factors. It seems that in every
conversation with my colleagues, the main issue is staffing. There are not
enough teachers to cover remote and in-person classes. I’ve heard of many
disturbing scenarios that reveal that education during the pandemic is a farce.
While there have been some positive stories, there is no justification for the
outrageous number of injustices our students, teachers, and communities are
facing.
Teachers are delivering lessons online from their
classrooms as their in-person students listen in on their computers. Students
are showing up to school expecting to get support from their teachers but are
put in the classroom where they are being looked after by a substitute teacher
while they are online with their teacher working from home. There are still a
substantial number of students in need of learning devices and Internet. One
service provider was offering free wi-fi to students in need since the start of
the pandemic but not all students live in areas where this service is provided.
Students were excited at the thought of returning to
school and being about to socialize with their peers after months of isolation.
Instead, they are returning to classrooms where sometimes the teachers
outnumber the students or a classroom without a teacher. Once students realized
that the return to school was anything but normal, many decided to fill out the
remote-only form. Still, there are a number of students that are scheduled for
in-person learning but never show up on their assigned day.
Parents and families debated whether or not to keep their
children home. They were informed that remote learning would mean that students
would still have many of the same benefits of attending in-person classes. This
included having a teacher meet with students at a regularly scheduled time. The
reality is far from what was promised. Students are getting regular assignments
on Google Classroom but do not meet with teachers because teachers have been
scheduled to conduct in-person classes. This means that a remote class of 34 or
more students misses out while a handful of in-person students get the “real” (or
not so “real”) deal.
We are now in the middle of October and students and
teacher schedules are still being worked out. Next week teachers are supposed
to input a progress grade. How are we grading students this school year? Last
year, administrators were not shy about being flexible and lenient. So far,
administrators are silent and teachers are inputting actual grades. The
beginning of a semester is always difficult. This school year presents so many
obstacles. How can we fail a student who doesn’t have access to a learning
device or whose family didn’t want to risk sending their child back to school?
Even if the child is in school for 1-2 days out of the week, the rest is
remote.
Staffing Snafu (Systems Normal, All F---ed Up)
A Middle School in the Bronx
Even before in person school started there were issues that
we knew where not going to be quickly resolved, particularly as staffing and
space. At first, many of the students were opting for hybrid but by late September
about half of our students were in remote. There are students that are living
in other states and countries doing remote classes. There are families that
have switched students from hybrid to remote back to hybrid in a matter of
days. Even before the pandemic my school had to hire a number of teachers for
either middle school grades. Now we need even more. Some staff members are
remote, raising issues of compliance in terms of students with IEPS.
The chaos is staggering. Before in-person classes started
there were teachers that had to teach their remote classes in the hallway. At
this point with more than half the students being remote, a number of the
classrooms are standing empty. You have remote special ed teachers working with
in-person content teachers. You have teachers giving classes out of their
teaching license area. English and math teachers are bridging two grades. Others
are teaching across grades as well, because we don’t have enough teachers. So
if someone were to get sick then the school would have to close and everyone
would have to quarantine themselves instead of the pod or cohort just
quarantining for two weeks because one teacher can come into contact with half
the school.
The UFT said that any student that refuses to do a COVID
test will have to go remote. Before school started, we had established that
sick children will not be allowed to come to school and will have to be sent
bac home or to the nurse’s office. Yet there were students that were visibly
sick in class after more than half the day has passed. Students that were
absent because they were sick were able to come back to school no questions
asked.
In addition, some of the remote classes exceed 40
students, when the limit is 30. Many hybrid students only get instruction on
their in-person days and are asynchronous (no teacher online) on their remote
days. Most of them are not doing any work and have no support on those
asynchronous days, and some are trying to sneak into the live instruction for
the completely remote classes. There is more: paras doing hallway duty and
secretarial work, out-of-compliance class sizes for in-person and remote. Yet despite
all the things that need to be resolved we had to do bulletin boards in the
hallway by the end of the week.
Today there was a fire drill, and we were notified by email
seven minutes before it would happen. So if you’re teaching a remote class, what
are you supposed to do? No answer. I just followed the fire drill procedure
while still talking to my students on my laptop. Other teachers had switched to
using their cellphones. One teacher said that when the alarm went off, students
in her remote class got scared and thought that there was an emergency
happening at the school.
A majority of the students are happy to be in school. Many
of them expressed that they are glad to be away from home and not have to take
care of their siblings and want the random testing to begin so that they can be
tested. Their favorite class as always is gym because they can go to the park
outside. With the weather getting colder and all the windows open, students are
visibly shivering in the classroom. We are considering getting blankets through
DonorsChoose, or just bulk-buying them, so students will not be cold in class.
Class Struggle Education Workers (CSEW) is part of the fight for a revitalization and transformation of the labor movement into an instrument for the emancipation of the working class and the oppressed. See the CSEW program here.