NYC Educator: My New Job

NYC Educator: My New Job

My New Job

My first year as a teacher was my worst. I did a lot of on-the-job learning. One thing I learned was that my supervisor was out of her freaking mind. I had no experience. She promised to help me with grading, failed to do so, and then managed to hate me and everything I stood for when I didn't get grades in on time. This resulted in things like not getting enough books when I needed them and having a kid named Frankie steal them out of the bookroom for me. 

I had students who made me crazy, but some who were helpful. One, after I told him I was going crazy keeping up with all the mail in my box, kindly arrived every morning before I did and tossed it all into the trash. While I missed meetings and such as a result, I could always say I was never notified, and no one was able to prove otherwise. During my second year, I was in a new school with a new supervisor who was actually supportive, and I started to grow into the job a little.

Every year was a little better, until this one. I'm doing the best I can, and I'm not getting into any particular trouble beyond that of being chapter leader. That's perpetual, and I've grown used to it. I'll go so far as to say helping people is very rewarding and despite my complaints, I ultimately love doing it.

But man, this year is my second worst.  Online learning thing is just not what I signed up for. I would never have lasted in a job that entailed sitting at a desk, and that's the job I have now. While we may open wider next year, I don't think we're going back to doing what we actually do. 

In our school, we had until March 8th to negotiate with students to resolve NX grades. I had a few on the borderline, pushed them a little, and managed to get them to pass CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: My New Job

More teachers are asked to double up, instructing kids at school and at home simultaneously - The Washington Post

More teachers are asked to double up, instructing kids at school and at home simultaneously - The Washington Post

More teachers are asked to double up, instructing kids at school and at home simultaneously

With third grade back in the building, Meghan Foster was teaching math one recent morning to two classes at once: 14 students who filled her classroom on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and another six children logging in from laptops at home.

To make it work, the veteran teacher from Caroline County used a desktop computer, a laptop and a document camera, adjusting for glitches as she went along. She strove to meld the in-person with the virtual, to strike a balance between children who are near and far.

During a pandemic school year when nothing in education has been perfect, the kind of double duty needed for simultaneous instruction is its own kind of lesson, Foster says.

“Sometimes, I want to teach them how to multiply, but I end up teaching them how to persevere when things get tough or how to problem solve,” said Foster, 41, who called it the greatest challenge she has faced in 20 years of teaching.

Parents and teachers: Tell The Post how you’re handling school during the pandemic

Simultaneous teaching — also called simulcast or concurrent — is what many districts across the country have settled on in an attempt to solve the logistical jigsaw puzzle involved in bringing back some students for in-person instruction while others continue learning from home.

And it’s about to get ramped up in dramatic fashion. Under pressure from President Biden and governors, and facing mounting evidence that schools can reopen if safety measures are followed, districts in the Washington region and nationwide are embarking on the difficult mission of returning hundreds of thousands of children to classrooms that have been shuttered for nearly a year. CONTINUE READING:  More teachers are asked to double up, instructing kids at school and at home simultaneously - The Washington Post

Open Letter Regarding Continued Hybrid Reopening Plan Failures – Parents United for Public Education

Open Letter Regarding Continued Hybrid Reopening Plan Failures – Parents United for Public Education

Open Letter Regarding Continued Hybrid Reopening Plan Failures

Dr. William Hite, Superintendent, School District of Philadelphia
Philadelphia Board of Education
Philadelphia City Council

2/18/2021

Dr. Hite, Board of Education members, and Council members:

We are glad to hear that the School District of Philadelphia has pushed back the date for return to school buildings. Like the majority of parents across the district, we were never excited about sending our children back into toxic, poorly ventilated buildings without a solid plan in place. We are very concerned about putting staff members who have not had the opportunity to get fully vaccinated at risk of illness and death, as well as the potential for children to get sick themselves and/or to spread the virus to their own family members at home.

We believe that delaying the reopening of buildings to ensure safety is the right choice, however we are disturbed with the district’s leadership’s insistence in saying that the delay is due to the ongoing mediation with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. 

In seeking to unfairly shift the blame to teachers via the union, the district continues to minimize the role and the voice of parents and caregivers across the district who have said “no” to this reopening plan. District leadership has also refused to take any responsibility for their failures in planning, collaboration, and CONTINUE READING: Open Letter Regarding Continued Hybrid Reopening Plan Failures – Parents United for Public Education

Teachers on Dilemmas of Remote and Hybrid Instruction | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teachers on Dilemmas of Remote and Hybrid Instruction | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teachers on Dilemmas of Remote and Hybrid Instruction

After I wrote a post on the dilemmas of hybrid teaching a few days ago, I heard from two teachers for whom I have the highest respect. In my judgment, their comments are worthwhile for readers of this blog.

Steve Davis teaches in the San Francisco Bay area. I met Steve 15 years ago when I observed his lessons for a study I was doing at the time. We have remained in touch all of these years through email and his comments on posts to this blog. He gave me permission to use his comment.

I have been teaching remotely for 100 days.

When we go back to the classroom it will likely be in the hybrid model (with responsibility for teaching both in-person and remote simultaneously). We already know which students have opted to continue to learn remotely and which students will return for in-person instruction.

The majority of students will still be remote.

You can’t just teach to the 5-10 students in front of you. It’s unrealistic to expect remote students to just follow along with the broadcast of in-person instruction. You need to closely monitor the remote students and frequently check for understanding, which mostly happens through text (many/most remote students are loath to have their cameras on or speak). That leads me to believe that the best practice may be to continue teaching the whole class (in person and remote) through video conferencing and other digital platforms. I will be in the room, and some students will be in the room, but we will still interact in the digital CONTINUE READING: Teachers on Dilemmas of Remote and Hybrid Instruction | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Hybrid Teaching: Classroom Dilemmas | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Hybrid Teaching: Classroom Dilemmas | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Hybrid Teaching: Classroom Dilemmas

With the pandemic, dilemmas have become legion. Is health and safety more or less important than the economy? Is wearing masks more or less important than personal liberty? When highly prized values conflict and the parent or teacher has to figure out compromises to manage the internal conflict, dilemmas pinch.

Individual rights, family pressures, and community imperatives clash. Most schools shifted immediately to distance learning. With 13,000 school districts and no national plan for closing or re-opening schools, superintendents, principals, and teachers faced one dilemma after another. Some districts stayed open since March, closed and reopened and then closed again. Ditto for schools. Concerned about their health and that of their families, many teachers chose remote instruction. Other teachers who could choose in-school instruction teach students they sorely missed. None of this, of course, is new to teachers who must figure out compromises that work when personal and professional values tug at one another.

Such difficult choices occurred around one of the ways that teaching and learning have been reconfigured due to the pandemic: hybrid schooling. Many districts blend in-person classroom lessons with remote instruction. Some students sit in the classrooms masked and physically distanced while the teacher also deals with those students on Teams or Zoom. Variation in how much of CONTINUE READING: Hybrid Teaching: Classroom Dilemmas | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Will Pandemic Changes in Schooling Be Temporary or Permanent? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Will Pandemic Changes in Schooling Be Temporary or Permanent? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Will Pandemic Changes in Schooling Be Temporary or Permanent?

“As Customers Move on Line, Shopping Is Forever Changed,” a New York Times article announced. For the holiday season, Macy’s department stores in a few states have closed their doors to in-person shopping and become fulfillment centers for online shoppers.

Jeff Gennette, Macy’s chief executive, said the dark stores are part of an experiment as the company responds to customers buying more online and demanding ever-faster shipping for free. But the conversion of a department store into a fulfillment center, even temporarily, reflects how retailers are succumbing to the dominance of e-commerce and scrambling to salvage increasingly irrelevant physical shopping space.

The U.S. continues in the throes of a three-decade school reform movement in which business and civic leaders have pressed schools to be more efficient in operations and more effective in raising test scores, high school graduation rates, and college admissions–the “bottom line” for tax-supported public schooling in the U.S. Will brick-and-mortar schools succumb to online instruction as the major form of schooling as Macy’s and other department stores shift to online shopping?

I don’t think so.

Let’s count the changes that have occurred in organization, curriculum, CONTINUE READING: Will Pandemic Changes in Schooling Be Temporary or Permanent? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Lessons From Pandemic Teaching | Blue Cereal Education

Lessons From Pandemic Teaching | Blue Cereal Education

Lessons From Pandemic Teaching

We’ll soon hit a full year of trying to figure out how public education works (or doesn’t) during a pandemic. Some of the experience gained may be specific to 2020 – the social and political dynamics of which have not been even remotely encouraging (see what I did there?). I’d respectfully suggest, however, that many of the “lessons” learned along the way apply to most forms of remote, virtual, or online “education,” whatever the surrounding climate.

I’ve numbered them in order to make my observations seem more carefully weighed and thoughtfully considered. Seriously, doesn’t even the illusion of someone having a coherent plan and consistent ideology seem insanely comforting these days?

#5: States and Some Districts Are REALLY Committed to Testing and Pointless Paperwork

One of the most crippling aspects of long-distance learning is what it does to our ability to “connect” with students, individually or en masse. The thing most of us signed on for – that idealistic, touch-lives-and-help-kids stuff – has been reduced to the point of near-extinction. What remains strong, however, is the bureaucracy and nonsense we’d mostly learned to tolerate. It’s always been annoying, but it’s traditionally been overshadowed by the meaningful bits.

Not this year.

Many districts are plowing ahead with “virtual PD” and hoping that if they simply CONTINUE READING: Lessons From Pandemic Teaching | Blue Cereal Education

Teacher Burnout in the Pandemic | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teacher Burnout in the Pandemic | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teacher Burnout in the Pandemic

The New York Times published an article recently by Natasha Singer–one of the best reporters on education issues in the Times–about the toll that the pandemic is taking on teachers. An extraordinary number say the burden of teaching remote classes and in-person classes is not sustainable. Large numbers of teachers are planning to retire, or have retired.

All this fall, as vehement debates have raged over whether to reopen schools for in-person instruction, teachers have been at the center — often vilified for challenging it, sometimes warmly praised for trying to make it work. But the debate has often missed just how thoroughly the coronavirus has upended learning in the country’s 130,000 schools, and glossed over how emotionally and physically draining pandemic teaching has become for the educators themselves.

In more than a dozen interviews, educators described the immense challenges, and exhaustion, they have faced trying to provide normal schooling for students in CONTINUE READING: Teacher Burnout in the Pandemic | Diane Ravitch's blog

5 Things We've Learned About Virtual School In 2020 | 89.3 KPCC

5 Things We've Learned About Virtual School In 2020 | 89.3 KPCC

5 Things We've Learned About Virtual School In 2020

Deborah Rosenthal starts her virtual kindergarten class on Zoom every morning with a song — today, it's the Spanish version of, "If You're Happy and You Know It." Her students clap along. There's a greeting from the class mascot (a dragon), yoga, meditation and then some practice with letter sounds: "Oso, oso, O, O, O".

Rosenthal teaches Spanish immersion in a public school in San Francisco's Mission District. Most of the families are low-income, and many are now affected by COVID-related job loss. She has taught kindergarten for 15 years, and she loves how "hands-on" "tactile," and "cozy" it is to work with 5-year-olds.

But this year, she's spending 10 or 12 hours a day on, basically, her own home production of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood En Español. "It's a very two-dimensional experience," she says.

Few people would tell you that online kindergarten was a good idea, or frankly even possible. That was, before 2020. The number has fluctuated as cases rise across the country, but throughout this fall pandemic semester, between 40 and 60 percent of students have been enrolled in districts that offer only remote learning, according to a tracker maintained by the company Burbio.

And even in hybrid districts, some students have been learning remotely, either part or full time. In short, online learning is the reality for a majority of students this fall.

We are still starved for data on what this all means. The earliest standardized test scores coming out show modest learning loss for students in math, but there are worries that the most at-risk students are not being tested at all.

For this story I talked to educators in six states, from California to South Carolina. For the most part they say things have improved since last spring. But they are close to burnout, with only a patchwork of support. They said the heart of the job right now is getting students connected with school and keeping them that way — both technologically and even more importantly, emotionally. Here are five lessons learned so far.

1. The digital divide is still big and complex.

Eight months after schools first shut down, how many students still can't sign on? We don't really know, and that's a problem, says Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. "We've not done a CONTINUE READING: 5 Things We've Learned About Virtual School In 2020 | 89.3 KPCC

CURMUDGUCATION: Back On The No-Longer-Trailing Pandemic Education Edge: Digging A Ditch

CURMUDGUCATION: Back On The No-Longer-Trailing Pandemic Education Edge: Digging A Ditch

Back On The No-Longer-Trailing Pandemic Education Edge: Digging A Ditch

I've been offering updates from my own small town/rural corner of the universe for just one more data point about how various school districts are dealing with pandemic education. We don't all need to write about New York City schools.

My region had a decent shot. In a county of 50,000 people, we had a total of 70 cases at the beginning of September. All schools opened for face-to-face instruction, with various precautions and protocols in place.

Things have gone south pretty rapidly. We just passed 1,000 cases. 

School districts had moved from face to face to hybrid elementary and distance high school. That lasted a few weeks, but there have been repeated multiple out breaks in schools. One district is still toggling between hybrid and distance--basically every time there's a confirmed case in the school, they go back to distance for a couple of weeks. Everyone else was in distance mode.

Last night several local boards (there are four districts in the county) met to decide what to do with the rest of December. The discussions were spirited but nuanced. Because we are so rural, there are some major issues with getting a wifi signal to some folks; there are a few hot spots set up, but (and this seems to escape some folks) a hot spot is basically a relay station, and you can't relay a signal you can't get. So folks who want to use the hot spots have to drive to them. Not everyone has vehicle access, and winter's moving in.

The local boards really struggling. Nobody thinks virtual school is best. Nobody. But now, really for the first time, people now people who have suffered or died from covid. Reliably Trumpy Facebook CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Back On The No-Longer-Trailing Pandemic Education Edge: Digging A Ditch

Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable’ - The New York Times

Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable’ - The New York Times

Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable’

Teacher burnout could erode instructional quality, stymie working parents and hinder the reopening of the economy.

At Farmington Central Junior High in rural Illinois, classes still start at 8 a.m. But that’s about the only part of the school day that has not changed for Caitlyn Clayton, an eighth-grade English teacher tirelessly toggling between in-person and remote students.

At the start of the school day, Ms. Clayton stands in front of the classroom, reminding her students to properly pull their masks over their noses. Then she delves into a writing lesson, all the while scanning the room for possible virus threats. She stops students from sharing supplies. She keeps her distance when answering their questions. She disinfects the desks between classes.

Then in the afternoon, just as her in-person students head home, Ms. Clayton begins her second day: remote teaching. Sitting in her classroom, she checks in one-on-one via video with eighth graders who have opted for distance learning. To make sure they are not missing out, she spends hours more recording instructional videos that replicate her in-person classroom lessons.

All this fall, as vehement debates have raged over whether to reopen schools for in-person instruction, teachers have been at the center — often vilified for challenging it, sometimes warmly praised for trying to make it work. But the debate has often missed just how thoroughly the coronavirus has upended learning in the country’s 130,000 schools, and glossed over how emotionally and physically draining pandemic teaching has become for the educators themselves.

In more than a dozen interviews, educators described the immense challenges, and exhaustion, they have faced trying to provide normal schooling for students in pandemic conditions that are anything but normal. Some recounted whiplash experiences of having their schools abruptly open and close, sometimes more than once, because of virus risks or quarantine-driven staff shortages, requiring them to repeatedly switch back and forth between in-person and online teaching.

Others described the stress of having to lead back-to-back group CONTINUE READING: Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable’ - The New York Times

America's teachers are running on empty - Axios

America's teachers are running on empty - Axios

America's teachers are running on empty

School districts nationwide are facing a worsening teacher shortage because of the coronavirus, further complicating the tough decisions about whether to have in-person classes.

Why it matters: When teachers test positive, fall seriously ill or are self-isolating from potential exposure, many districts don't have enough substitutes to keep up.

Where it stands: There's early evidence children and schools are not major vectors of the virus, especially with proper social distancing, ventilation and mask requirements, but the risk for adults at school is not zero.

• Districts in Tennessee, Michigan and Maine and many other parts of the country have dozens of teachers absent at a time and had to close classrooms.
• Since the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, at least 751 Arizona teachers have resigned or quit, according to the Arizona Schools Personnel Administrators Association.
• The risk of infection has also triggered some early retirements and sick-outs.

What they're saying: Teachers have demanded more personal protective equipment and better CONTINUE READING: America's teachers are running on empty - Axios

Should we talk about blended learning? Some in the UFT do not think so | JD2718

Should we talk about blended learning? Some in the UFT do not think so | JD2718

Should we talk about blended learning? Some in the UFT do not think so

I submitted a resolution to this month’s Delegate Assembly – to move away from Blended Learning. I am attaching the text at the bottom. I submitted as late as possible – five minutes before the deadline – assuming that I would be #14 on the list and it would not come up. I was a bit surprised – there were only two submissions. The Stop Blended Learning reso would come up.

However, with today’s closure, no one is teaching blended tomorrow. And the agenda included a dozen resolutions, and #1 and #12 I really want to vote on (#1, Black Lives Matter, has already passed).

So I was prepared to withdraw the resolution for today. I drafted what I would say:

Jonathan Halabi, Chapter Leader, High School of American Studies at Lehman College. – bear with me for a moment. We really do need to talk about blended learning. All of our members need to be part of that conversation. But we have a dozen important resolutions coming up; I want to get to them all. And, with today’s announcement, no one is teaching “blended” tomorrow. Michael, I’m not making a motion today. Let’s move the agenda.

But I didn’t get a chance to graciously withdraw the reso. The leadership of the United Federation of Teachers filibustered. Mulgrew dragged out the first motion, and added three minutes of commentary CONTINUE READING: Should we talk about blended learning? Some in the UFT do not think so | JD2718

Teachers Are On A Tightrope With No Safety Net - PopularResistance.Org

Teachers Are On A Tightrope With No Safety Net - PopularResistance.Org

TEACHERS ARE ON A TIGHTROPE WITH NO SAFETY NET

The Hybrid Model Teachers Are Being Thrust Into During The Pandemic Isn’t Sustainable Without More Resources And Support.

After more than a month into New York City’s experiment with reopening schools in a hybrid format that has students alternating between classrooms and their homes, teacher Sapphira Hendrix still finds herself working until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning, planning lessons and responding to students. One night, in particular, she recounts, when finishing up a lesson plan for one of her classes, she glanced at the clock and noticed it was 4:30 a.m. “I realized I had just finished my work for the night at about the same time I normally would be getting up to start my day.”

Hendrix says this was one of the moments she finally was struck with the absurdity of what educators in her community, and in many school districts across America, are doing to carry their work in a pandemic. “This isn’t healthy or sustainable,” she says.

When New York City schools opened their doors with a plan for students to cycle in and out of classrooms and learn remotely the rest of the time, many doubted this big city would pull it off. Educators, parents, and students had questions about the logistics of an undertaking so enormous by a Department of Education that has struggled for years, even without a pandemic.

Hudson High School of Learning Technologies in Manhattan, where Hendrix works, seems like a great example of a school that’s doing hybrid learning right. CONTINUE READING: Teachers Are On A Tightrope With No Safety Net - PopularResistance.Org

Minnesota teachers at 'breaking point' over pandemic stress - StarTribune.com

Minnesota teachers at 'breaking point' over pandemic stress - StarTribune.com

Minnesota teachers juggling online, in-person classes fight stress in pandemic

Erika Jagiella wakes up at night fretting about lesson plans she needs to create and deliver to kids in person and in a socially distanced way. Then, she remembers: There's online coursework to craft, too.

The crush of daily workload demands has been so great that Jagiella, a special education teacher for the White Bear Lake Area Schools, only recently finished rewriting the individual education plans required for her students. "My brain just can't slow down," she said. "I'm constantly thinking about my students, my work and the work ahead of me."

Teachers across Minnesota are frazzled trying to navigate pandemic-related combinations of in-person and online instruction — so much so that nearly one-third responding to a recent statewide survey said they were thinking of quitting. Many work extra hours on nights and weekends as they juggle students in multiple formats, forcing union leaders to press for relief from school and district administrators.

The hybrid model of learning is designed to give students and teachers at least a couple of days of face-to-face time each week and to give students access to in-person supports around mental health and other concerns. Still, there is the distance learning component to contend with, too, and in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, for example, that has pushed elementary teachers to the "breaking point," according to a petition signed by more than 1,350 people.

Teachers presented the petition to school board members on Sept. 28, imploring district leaders to let them focus on one set of students at a time. Looking in via Zoom were 183 district teachers.

Jim Skelly, a district spokesman, said last week that the state's largest district now is providing recorded video lessons in math and reading for CONTINUE READING: Minnesota teachers at 'breaking point' over pandemic stress - StarTribune.com

Why education technology can’t save remote learning - Axios

Why education technology can’t save remote learning - Axios

Why education technology can’t save remote learning

The coronavirus-sparked shift to widespread remote work has been generally smooth because most modern offices were already using a raft of communication, collaboration and administrative tools. Remote learning has faced a much rougher transition.

Why it matters: Even the best technology can't eliminate the inherent problems of virtual schooling. Several key technological stumbling blocks have persisted in keeping remote learning from meeting its full potential, experts tell Axios.

1. The needs of IT departments and students can be at odds. A university's chief information officer or a school's IT administrator judge software on how secure it is; how well it integrates with other systems; and how easy it is for an administrator to control. Student users just want a simple interface and features that make learning easier.

• "That gap is a source of a lot of issues and the continued success of legacy software in education," said Peter Reinhardt, CEO of Segment, which focused on education technology before pivoting to be a customer data platform.
• Ed tech has become a tough area for startups and capital investment because risk-averse school tech administrators tend to stick with software they, or their counterparts in other districts or institutions, are already using.

2. Existing tech can't just be grafted onto remote learning. "The variety of the tools we use in business... were designed for business and not students," said Eric Reicin, president and CEO of BBB National Programs, which oversees advertising and privacy practices for businesses.

• That means products like Zoom or Slack or Microsoft Teams that have been vital for keeping offices going during the pandemic may be ill-suited for young students, who may struggle with usability and their own attention spans.
• But it also means that these sorts of tools may not comply with existing guidelines and requirements schools and districts have for the tech they're able to use, which can vary considerably across different counties and states.

3. The digital divide looms over everything. Low-income students have less access to devices CONTINUE READING: Why education technology can’t save remote learning - Axios

Hybrid school might be worse than remote or all in-person school - Vox

Hybrid school might be worse than remote or all in-person school - Vox

Hybrid school might be the worst of both worlds

Part-time school during the pandemic might create as many problems as it solves.

Hybrid learning was supposed to be an improvement.

When school buildings closed in the spring due to the pandemic, students, teachers, and families all struggled with remote classes. But come fall, the virus was still raging across much of America. So many districts — including the nation’s largest, New York City — struck a compromise.

They would bring kids into buildings, but only for part of the day or week. That way, they’d reduce the number of students in schools at any one time, limiting viral spread, while still giving students crucial in-person time with their teachers and peers.

That was the idea, anyway. In practice, however, hybrid models could turn out to be the worst of both worlds, as David Zweig predicted at Wired in July.

To begin with, hybrid schedules don’t really solve one of the pandemic’s biggest problems for parents: the lack of child care. While having kids in school a few days a week or a few hours a day might give parents a bit more flexibility to do their jobs, “the benefits of being able to work a little less part-time and a little less erratically are not going to be anything like what you’d be getting from full-time school,” Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Center for American Progress who studies the impact of child care, told Vox.

And while some parents may be able to stay home with their kids on the days they’re out of school, others will need outside child care. That means kids will spend part of the week in child CONTINUE READING: Hybrid school might be worse than remote or all in-person school - Vox