Respect for Teaching: One Person’s Tale | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Respect for Teaching: One Person’s Tale | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Respect for Teaching: One Person’s Tale

Most of my adult life I have been a teacher. And on this day of Thanksgiving, I give thanks for the six decades I have been with students.

As a teacher, however, I winced whenever someone disrespected what I and others did not only for a living but a calling. Sometimes I did more than wince by responding in words at the moment or wrote about it later. 

One incident occurred to me over 40 years ago when I worked in the Washington, D.C. schools that was an act of disrespect for teaching. Sure, four decades ago is ancient history so readers will have to judge whether the disrespect displayed in the incident continues today or is merely a historical curiosity.

I wrote the following piece for a Washington alternative journal in 1971.

********************************************************************

I have taught off and on for nearly fifteen years. When not teaching, I have been an administrator…. I directed an experimental teaching project called the Cardozo Project in Urban Teaching 1963-1967. [Afterwards] I taught half-time while writing a book. The following year, in the hope of working with others who shared my interest in [reform], I returned to administration as the Director of Staff Development in the D.C. schools. That lasted two years since the budget and program [were] gutted … by the D.C. Council….  At that point [1970] I decided to return to the classroom rather than occupy a desk [downtown].

It was an uncommon decision I discovered. To understand why, you have to appreciate the nagging guilt that haunts administrators about leaving the CONTINUE READING: Respect for Teaching: One Person’s Tale | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen – That is the fraught question for U.S. schools | The Mighty 790 KFGO | KFGO

Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen – That is the fraught question for U.S. schools | The Mighty 790 KFGO | KFGO

Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen – That is the fraught question for U.S. schools

By Kristina Cooke, Benjamin Lesser and M.B. Pell

(Reuters) - After a two-week deluge of calls and messages from parents - and at least one death threat - the school board in Chandler, Arizona, called a special meeting this fall.

The board would revisit its decision, prompted by the coronavirus, to temporarily close local campuses and offer all classes online.

Parents, teachers and others poured out their thoughts in 1,100 public comments posted online before the September meeting. “If our schools do not open in person I will yank both my boys OUT and take them to another school district!!!” one parent wrote.

Many teachers assailed the district, which serves about 44,000 students near Phoenix, for wavering. “You look weak to the public; you look unconcerned for safety to your employees,” wrote one instructor. Ultimately, the board backtracked, voting 3-2 to start reopening school buildings. Eight-six percent of students returned to campus.

Across the United States, district leaders face pressure from all sides as they grapple with how to educate children during the pandemic, a Reuters survey of 217 districts showed. Many parents are balking at online instruction, seeing it as inferior to classroom learning and disruptive to life at home and work. Other parents worry about sending kids back into classrooms prematurely amid a raging pandemic.

At the same time, many teachers, some backed by powerful unions, say they are not comfortable CONTINUE READING: Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen – That is the fraught question for U.S. schools | The Mighty 790 KFGO | KFGO

We let school buildings crumble for years - that neglect is locking kids out - Hechinger Report

We let school buildings crumble for years - that neglect is locking kids out

Rundown schools forced more students to go remote

Government refused to fund crumbling schools for years. Now the neglect has locked children out of learning.

Yvette Alston-Johnson was seething when she got the news. Children in Paterson, New Jersey would not be allowed to go to school in-person this fall, while many of their peers in predominantly white and affluent suburbs would return.

Alston-Johnson attended Paterson public schools, as did her five children, and she has watched the buildings fall steadily into disrepair over the years. She is now the primary caregiver for her grandson Rayahn, who is in eighth grade at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Educational Complex, where close to 90 percent of students are Black or Latino.

“I feel like we get the short end of the stick,” said Alston-Johnson, who is 54. “We’re always last in line when it comes to our schools and money.”

“It’s cold in those buildings in the winter and then the A.C. doesn’t work in the summer; there’s mice running around,” she added. “If they did more upkeep on the buildings, the teachers would have been able to teach them in the buildings.”

Paterson, which serves mostly low-income families, has struggled to find the money to repair its buildings. In 2016, New Jersey allowed historically underfunded districts to submit requests for health and safety improvements. Paterson asked for ventilation repairs in 11 buildings, but all their requests were denied. In fact, of the roughly 90 applications to fix unsafe heating or air conditioning and ventilation systems, just two were CONTINUE READING: We let school buildings crumble for years - that neglect is locking kids out

Teacher Tom: I'm Thankful to Have a Day Like This

Teacher Tom: I'm Thankful to Have a Day Like This

I'm Thankful to Have a Day Like This

I have so many things for which to be thankful. At the top of my list is our daughter (who, like many young people, is spending  Thanksgiving away from us today) and my wife to whom, as of two days ago, I've now been married for 34 years. I'm also thankful for my mother and father who I won't be seeing in a few hours, along with my brother and sister and their families and every dog who has ever been my companion. And then there are the children and families that make up, and have always made up, the Woodland Park Cooperative School community, people who, in a very real sense, created the man I am today. I would not trade my life for any other: if I could do it all again, I'd do it exactly the same way, mistakes and all. 

Not long ago, I read about a survey in which it was reported that the average American, no matter our socio-economic station, feels that they could be economically satisfied with about 10 percent more money. This was true of both billionaires and paupers. I suspect this is true about most of the good things in our lives. For instance, I know I could do with about 10 percent more sleep, 10 percent more free time, and 10 percent more sex, in addition to that 10 percent pay increase. So, as we don't gather today to reflect upon those CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: I'm Thankful to Have a Day Like This

Happy, Complicated Thanksgiving! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Happy, Complicated Thanksgiving! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Happy, Complicated Thanksgiving!

This is the first time that any of us has experienced Thanksgiving in the midst of a national pandemic. Many people will heed the advice of doctors and cancel their family get-togethers. Others will gather in small groups, hopefully with masks and social distancing. A strange holiday, as will be Christmas and New Year’s.

I want to wish you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving and wish you the strength and good health to persevere. The pandemic will not last forever.

On a personal note, I want to let you know that I am taking a weekend break. It’s something I have not done since I started the blog in April 2012. Right now, there are only a limited number of topics that seem relevant. Whether schools should be open or closed; the joy in seeing Betsy DeVos no longer in charge of the U.S. Department of Education; speculation about who might replace her; and intense concern about whether President-Elect Biden will resurrect the failed Race to the Top strategies or whether he will forge a new path that actually supports students, teachers, and schools instead of punishing them.

These are all important issues. I will turn to them again on November 30, when I resume blogging. If something important happens in the next few days, like Biden naming the new Secretary of Education, you will hear from me. Or if I want to share something. If not, silence.

Stay well. Protect your health and that of your loved ones.

Happy, Complicated Thanksgiving! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Should COVID vaccinations be required for students? For school staff members? | Ed In The Apple

Should COVID vaccinations be required for students? For school staff members? | Ed In The Apple

Should COVID vaccinations be required for students? For school staff members?

On Friday I stood on a COVID testing line for four hours, a lovely day, chatting with my line mates, their bosses had given them time off; they needed a negative COVID test in order to fly somewhere. The test, the nose swab, took minutes and my phone beeped with the results before I was home. (Negative). I’m staying at home for Thanksgiving.

Two vaccine developers, Pfizer and Moderna announced vaccines with 90 plus percent protection rates; at least five other companies are near competing trials and China and Russia report they’re already distributing vaccines.

The final hurtle is less than a month away, the CDC/FDA will probably approve the vaccines for use around December 10th.

The distribution procedures, called Operation Warp Speed (Read here) created a nationwide network, over 60 regions with distribution networks in each region, from hospitals down to pharmacies.

Warp Speed has been criticized by the scientific community as being too tied to big pharma and not transparent.

It will take months, perhaps many months to ramp up production, in the CONTINUE READING: Should COVID vaccinations be required for students? For school staff members? | Ed In The Apple

SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T SAY – Dad Gone Wild

SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T SAY – Dad Gone Wild

SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T SAY

“The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

Another Tuesday night and another board meeting has left me scratching my head – trying to decipher what I just witnessed.

One thing that is becoming more and more clear is that the MNPS’s leadership is growing increasingly disconnected from what’s actually taking place in schools. Presentation after presentation paints a picture of events unfolding uniformly across the district when the reality is entirely different from school to school – often even within buildings themselves.

Whether it is instruction during quarantine, small group instruction, usage of Florida Virtual School curriculum, or even the Navigator program, results and adoption are greatly varied across the district despite claims from district leadership. Lost in the whole conversation is the increasing level of stakeholder frustration, the declining level of student engagement, the number of students failing, or the actual impact that district initiatives are having on teachers and other building staff.

Take the Navigator program for example. Last night it was painted by Dr. Keri Randolph, Executive Officer – Strategic Federal, State, and Philanthropic Investments, as being highly successful and widely embraced by teachers across the district, Which just isn’t true. The requirements of the CONTINUE READING: SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T SAY – Dad Gone Wild

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The first thing Biden promised to do...

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The first thing Biden promised to do...

The first thing Biden promised to do...

Biden was at a candidates event in Houston with National Education Association members in July 2019 when he said: “First thing, as president of United States — not a joke — first thing I will do is make sure that the secretary of education is not Betsy DeVos. It is a teacher. A teacher. Promise.” -- WaPO

Biden's cabinet is filling up fast. So far, once you get past all the chatter about a "second Obama presidency"; or about slipping a disgraced Rahm Emanuel in through the back door (NO, NO, NO please), or even about appointing Trump Republicans as opposed to anyone from the left, the process has been pretty transparent and necessarily fast-moving. 

But we're still waiting for more than whispers about his pick for Secretary of Education. This may be the most important pick of all given that most school districts remain in limbo or possibly on the brink of collapse because of the pandemic and Trump/DeVos's disastrous response. But even under the new administration, plans for a necessary, safe reopening are CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: The first thing Biden promised to do...

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Big Brother Is Watching Your Child

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Big Brother Is Watching Your Child

FL: Big Brother Is Watching Your Child

Eyebrows shot up around the country this week as the Tampa Bay Times reported on how the Pasco County Sheriff's Office keeps a secret list of "at-risk" kids who could “fall into a life of crime." Creating the list involves the office collecting and factoring a whole bunch of different you-probably-thought-they-were-confidential records, including records from the school district and from the state's Department of Children and Families. 

"We have an agreement with the Sheriff's Office," the superintendent said in an interview with the Times. "The agreement requires them to use (the data) for official law enforcement purposes. I have to assume that's exactly what they are using it for."

Low grades? Absenteeism? Violence in the home? You may well be flagged as a possible future criminal. The Sheriff's Office has a whole manual. And a list, with 420 names on it. And none of the families connected to the names knows a thing about it. This is not a targeted search, where someone is concerned about Pat McStudent; this is a blanket sweep of the entire list of records from the various institutions.

Mark Lieberman at EdWeek did some checking to see if this practice is illegal (if you're old enough, you may remember when FERPA protected students from this kind of thing). The answer seems to be CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Big Brother Is Watching Your Child

Defenders of US Public Schools Call on Biden to Ditch Trump's Disastrous Education Policies—and Obama's Too | Common Dreams News

Defenders of US Public Schools Call on Biden to Ditch Trump's Disastrous Education Policies—and Obama's Too | Common Dreams News

Defenders of US Public Schools Call on Biden to Ditch Trump's Disastrous Education Policies—and Obama's Too

"50.8 million children who attend real public schools need a secretary of education who will be their advocate, not an advocate for privatization."

Demanding an end to the failed policies that have dominated the United States for more than two decades, a coalition of public education advocates has put forth what they consider to be the top five guiding principles the incoming Biden administration should adopt if the president-elect wants to fulfill his "promised commitment to our nation's public schools."

"We need a public education champion who rejects efforts to privatize public schools, whether those efforts be via private school vouchers or charter schools."
—Network for Public Education

"50.8 million children who attend real public schools need a secretary of education who will be their advocate, not an advocate for privatization," tweeted Carol Burris, a retired teacher and the executive director of the Network for Public Education (NPE), which led the effort to demand pro-public leadership in Biden's Department of Education. 

In order to build a stronger and more just public education system, NPE penned a letter—which readers may sign—urging the Biden administration to pursue the following objectives:

• Rebuild our nation's public schools, which have been battered by the pandemic, two decades of failed federal policy, and years of financial neglect;
• Reject efforts to privatize public schools, whether those efforts be via vouchers or charter schools;
• End the era of high-stakes standardized testing—in both the immediate future and beyond;
• Promote diversity, desegregation (both among and within schools), and commit to eliminating institutional racism in school policy and practices; and
• Promote educational practices that are child-centered, inquiry-based, intellectually challenging, culturally responsive, and respectful of all students' innate capacities and potential to thrive.

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic consequences, state CONTINUE READING: Defenders of US Public Schools Call on Biden to Ditch Trump's Disastrous Education Policies—and Obama's Too | Common Dreams News

Teacher Tom: To Know Life Intimately and Lovingly

Teacher Tom: To Know Life Intimately and Lovingly

To Know Life Intimately and Lovingly

Author and poet Diane Ackerman writes:

"(I)t probably doesn't matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, and enjoy nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly."

We live in a time of plague, and I don't mean Covid. The virus is called productivity and the disease it causes is an all-consuming sense of guilt or anxiousness whenever we take more than a few moments to remind ourselves that we're alive. Our busy, buzzing minds insist upon reminding us of the tasks undone and challenges ahead, making us perpetually feel as if we're just barely keeping up. It even visits us in our dreams, if we're ever able to go there amidst the tossing and turning. 

Some 2500 years ago, Buddha described our minds as being full of drunken monkeys and the loudest of all is fear, so it's clear that this plague isn't new. And it's a real pity because we've worked so hard over the centuries to protect ourselves from fear. It's unlikely, for instance, that anyone reading this will be eaten by a wild animal. You're probably not going to die in a war or from starvation. Present day challenges CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: To Know Life Intimately and Lovingly

Laura Chapman: Who Is Behind the “Read by Third Grade or Be Retained” Campaign? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Laura Chapman: Who Is Behind the “Read by Third Grade or Be Retained” Campaign? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Laura Chapman: Who Is Behind the “Read by Third Grade or Be Retained” Campaign? 

Laura Chapman recently wrote about the policy of holding third grade students back if they didn’t pass the third grade reading test. One result of this initiative is to raise fourth-grade reading scores on state tests and NAEP.

She writes:

There is a national read-by-grade three campaign. The practice of holding students back a grade is not new, but in the olden days it was never based on test scores alone and certainly not based on scores from national tests. I am no expert in reading, but I have learned to question how questionable policies proliferate.

Right now, The Annie E, Casey Foundation is a source of the national “Read by Grade 3” campaign. It is financed by about thirty other foundations and corporations. You can read about the investors here: http://gradelevelreading.net/about-us/campaign-investors

The Annie E. Casey Foundation is also the source of widely cited and dubious research about reading. For CONTINUE READING: Laura Chapman: Who Is Behind the “Read by Third Grade or Be Retained” Campaign? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Coronavirus means free school meals across the U.S. What if that stayed?

Coronavirus means free school meals across the U.S. What if that stayed?

Coronavirus means school food is free across the U.S. What if it stayed that way?

Free school meals, the gold standard for child nutrition advocates, may be one good thing to come out of the coronavirus’s effect on the future of education

YAKIMA, Wash. — Tracy Renecker has been working almost nonstop since the coronavirus pandemic set in. A kitchen manager with the 16,000-student school district serving this central Washington city,  Renecker has been ordering ingredients, packing entrees and sides, and filling grocery sacks to build the five-breakfast, five-lunch kits passed out at the drive-up distribution point outside Washington Middle School, where she works.

Renecker knows what the bags of cut vegetables, single-serve cereal boxes and heat-and-eat bowls mean to parents picking them up each week. They are a lifeline to families, including her own. The school meal program “helps to stretch our money,” said Renecker, a former nursing assistant raising a 6-year-old and a 13-year-old in Yakima.

“I was a hungry child at one point, and I would hate to see any child go hungry,” she said. “I know they can’t learn when they’re worried about when they’re going to be fed.”

Yakima, an agricultural hub surrounded by orchards amid dry hills, was hit hard by both the pandemic and the attendant economic collapse. Summer brought spikes in infections — at least three of which sent children to the hospital — and unemployment, which nearly doubled in the area.

Many Yakima families qualified for food stamps or other forms of federal assistance before the pandemic hit, and that softened the blow in one specific way: The city’s schools already offered meals to all students for free, year-round. That’s because they participate in several U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, including one allowing school CONTINUE READING: Coronavirus means free school meals across the U.S. What if that stayed?

NANCY BAILEY: 6 Critical Education Issues To Watch At Thanksgiving

6 Critical Education Issues To Watch At Thanksgiving

6 Critical Education Issues To Watch At Thanksgiving

This is a tough Thanksgiving, especially for those who are ill or have lost loved ones. I wish for everyone renewed hope and wellness and that you have family and loved ones to stay in touch with and enjoy. That even if you don’t, you’ll find love and comfort in your lives during these trying times.

The state of public schooling during Covid-19 is filled with confusion, anger, and also goodness. Here’s a summary of the issues as we go forward, marching through the holiday season into 2021.

1. The Loss of Teachers and School Staff Due to Covid-19

Covid-19 has hit teachers and school staff hard. As of November 18, 300 school employees have died of Covid-19.

Education Week shares some of their names and pictures. 

The goodness is that teachers rise above the critics who blame them when schools close, continuing to be strong, smart, compassionate, and caring. Teachers work online or in-person, in-person, then back online when their schools close.

The downside is that along with teacher deaths, those worried about returning to the classroom during a pandemic, have taken leaves or retired early. This is a huge loss for students.

If the nation wants what’s best for children, there will be an all-out effort to canvas the country to recruit teachers and bring them back to the classroom when the Covid-19 threat subsides.

2. Covid-19: Most Schools are Seeing a Surge

Covid-19 is causing problems for schools across the country. Search on Google for any state or city, “schools,” and “Covid-19” for November. Most are seeing an increase in CONTINUE READING: 6 Critical Education Issues To Watch At Thanksgiving

NYC Educator: NY Times--Worst Education Reporting Anywhere

NYC Educator: NY Times--Worst Education Reporting Anywhere

NY Times--Worst Education Reporting Anywhere

I should know not to be surprised when the NY Times runs opinion pieces posing as news stories. It's a hallowed tradition. The first time I noticed it was in the 1980s, when we got the February break that every other school statewide already had. The Times reported that this was detrimental to working parents. How would they take care of the children if school buildings closed? 

What the Times didn't know was that DOE didn't plan to open the schools that week. They were going to use the week for PD and have only UFT come in. So canceling the break wouldn't have helped these parents. Every working teacher in the city knew this, but the Times didn't.

We voted to authorize a strike sometime back in the early 90s. I remember being quite freaked out over it because I'd just gotten a mortgage and the Taylor Law would've placed me in fairly dire straits. Crossing a picket line wasn't in my DNA, so that would've been a big issue for me. I was pretty surprised to read, in the NY Times, that the strike vote was just for show and we wouldn't strike. That wasn't my feeling, and it wasn't what I was hearing from colleagues  This Times writer, evidently, had consulted a crystal ball rather than bothering to consult with those of us on the ground. And this ran, of course, in the news section.

Now, the tradition continues, I look at the Times analyzing the spot the mayor is in, and I see commentary posing as a news story. Of course de Blasio is in a tough spot, but it's not like that hasn't been the case ever since his  myopic and CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: NY Times--Worst Education Reporting Anywhere

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Belated Monday: Orff and Robots

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Belated Monday: Orff and Robots

Donors Choose Belated Monday

Orff and Robots

Okay, so I got caught up in the business of holiday stuff and pandemic surge, and I forgot to post Monday. But I am continuing with making a modest weekly contribution to some classroom somewhere in this country. As I've said before, Donors Chose shouldn't be a thing because schools should be fully funded, but in the meantime, individual teachers in individual classrooms can use a hand. This is doubly true in pandemic times, when pretty much no districts are investing the extra money needed to really pull this off.

So here's a simple way to help. I'll share with you my classroom of the week, and you can help with that one, or pick another one (last time somebody followed me onto the site and funded the entire project, which was cool). 

I'm doing two this week.

The first is from the school just right up the road where many of my friends teach. In this rural-ish area, robotics have really caught fire, but a lot of the emerging programs are operating on shoestring budgets. This particular elementary group needs some cases for transporting robots and equipment to competitions. I don't know this particular teacher, but I do know that these robot events are a huge amount of fun and have really allowed some students to find a niche that they might not otherwise have found. 

Meanwhile, out in Kansas, a teacher would like a set of Orff instruments for his K-5 elementary school. These are a great introduction to music for young students and a way for music learning to enrich their days even if they aren't destined to become future professionals.

It's a small thing, but I'm a big believer in doing small things to make the world slightly less sucky, so as always you are invited to join me in making a small contribution in a classroom somewhere.

CURMUDGUCATION: Donors Choose Belated Monday: Orff and Robots

Los Angeles: Charter School Games the System for More $$$ | Diane Ravitch's blog

Los Angeles: Charter School Games the System for More $$$ | Diane Ravitch's blog

Los Angeles Charter School Games the System for More $$$

Parent advocate Carl J. Peterson writes here about a charter school in Los Angeles that figured out to game the system for more money and space.

He writes that “Citizens of the World” collects signatures of parents who are not likely to apply for the school and uses them as expressions of intent to enroll.

A Facebook post by Jirusha Lopez, the principal of COW’s Hollywood campus, provides some insight into how this charter chain scams the system. While the estimate of attendance is supposed to be based on students who have expressed a “meaningful interest” in the program, Lopez took to social media to ask parents to sign a Prop 39 form even if they had no plans to attend the charter school. In fact, she promised that completing the form would “not impact your family’s plans for what school you would like to attend or currently attend.”

While Lopez seems to think that the collection of these signatures is a “fun game schools get to play each year”, it is actually part of a legal process. By submitting names of students who never expressed any interest in attending the school, COW committed fraud against the students of the LAUSD. The district needs to take this action seriously and hold the charter chain responsible, to whatever the greatest extent possible might be. Additionally, all data provided by COW to the LAUSD CONTINUE READING: Los Angeles: Charter School Games the System for More $$$ | Diane Ravitch's blog

CURMUDGUCATION: Internet Data Caps Are Coming

CURMUDGUCATION: Internet Data Caps Are Coming

Internet Data Caps Are Coming

If you are a Comcast customer in the Northeast US, changes are coming. 

2021 will bring caps for home internet customers in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont, West Virginia, and DC, as well as selected slices of North Carolina and Ohio.

There are reasons not to freak out. 

First, the cap is at 1.2 TB, which is a huge amount of data. Comcast says it's good for 21,600 hours of streaming music, 500 hours of streaming HD shows, 34,000 hours of online gaming, or 3,500 hours of video chatting. 

Second, for other parts of the country, this is not new. Comcast started capping accounts in other parts of the US way back in 2016. 

So, we're probably not looking at any sort of major issue right now.

However, as we contemplate the probable increased interest in internet-based schooling, it's a good time to remember that internet access is currently not free, not infinite, and not universal. 

If the Biden administration wants a goof internet policy project to tackle, let's look at pandemic schooling as a clear sign--again--that internet access should be a public utility, like water and electricity. It's way past time.

CURMUDGUCATION: Internet Data Caps Are Coming

As Louisiana Returns to Phase 2, Superintendents Want Shorter Quarantine | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

As Louisiana Returns to Phase 2, Superintendents Want Shorter Quarantine | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

As Louisiana Returns to Phase 2, Superintendents Want Shorter Quarantine

As Louisiana moves back into a modified Phase 2 due to “the aggressive third surge of COVID-19 across all regions of Louisiana,” several Louisiana school superintendents are calling for “looser quarantine rules” for students who come into contact with individuals testing positive for coronavirus.

When Louisiana moved into Phase 3 on September 09, 2020, my school system chose to delay full, in-person learning for our high schools (and retaining a “hybrid” attendance schedule) until the beginning of the second quarter, November 09, 2020. I was able to arrange my classroom so that I could maintain six feet from my students and my student desks so that at most, a student testing positive was within six feet of only two other students.

By day three, students began being called out for quarantine. The cause?

Adults deciding to rent a party bus and create an off-campus Homecoming party for students.

In the end, one in three of my seniors ended up in either a confirmed or suspected quarantine for two weeks.

So, in reality, I taught full classes for only three days and then ended up teaching a partially-quarantined, partially-in-person, “hybrid” arrangement likely brought about by some of the very adults who insist that These Kids Need to be in School.

The Louisiana district superintendents who want to reduce the quarantine period have asked the state health department to alter its guidance; however, the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) maintained that it would continue following guidance offered by the Centers CONTINUE READING: As Louisiana Returns to Phase 2, Superintendents Want Shorter Quarantine | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog