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COVID and School


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Well, I was a size 4 and played soccer, so... OK I see their point.

 

Seriously, though, the whole distraction for having a developed body on a high schooler really bothers me, because it gets pushed down to the younger grades, even. It sends the message that boys can't control themselves and that girls should expect them to behave poorly and they get what they deserve.

 

I do remember Coed Naked shirts in junior high and they got outlawed in 8th grade. Those were hilarious.

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I agree wholeheartedly. Its ridiculous.

 

Having been a boy, teachers calling attention to how a girl is dressed makes you notice/desire her more.

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They mostly hated me because hair products suuuuuucked back then, and I couldnt afford a wig, so I mostly wore bandanas and turbans to hide my hair. Except at school where there was a no-hat policy, of course, there I just had to look like a frizzy mess.

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They mostly hated me because hair products suuuuuucked back then, and I couldnt afford a wig, so I mostly wore bandanas and turbans to hide my hair. Except at school where there was a no-hat policy, of course, there I just had to look like a frizzy mess.

I went through this too

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I am feeling sad about not experiencing new school supplies. I find it hilarious that they're putting out school supply lists in stores right now. I told my students that they may need paper and stuff to write with and some other stuff but they can make due until we meet in actual class again. Meanwhile I bought five reams of paper to print and grade online paper and a new printer this year.

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I bought a new printer/scanner right before COVID. That was a stroke of luck. The old printer worked great but OS updates had made the scanner part non-functional.

 

I bought school supplies but they are staying in the box until they go to school. My son's school asked for flair pens. Can anyone tell me what is so special about those? I didn't buy them because they seemed awfully specific and because I usually ask my son's teachers if they need anything extra and specific for their class needs (like last year I bought some of the thick crayons and the twistable ones since my son had quailified under fine motor delays).

 

I've always hated shared supplies in schools. We didn't do that growing up, so its always struck me as odd. And I totally don't mind throwing in an extra box of crayons or 3 to help out the teacher or a kid whose family is struggling financially. But I really hate getting a bag of broken crayons back at the end of the year. I am secretly hoping COVID is the death of shared supplies. Let little Timmy stick his own crayons up his nose and break them into 25 pieces each and then not have any supplies. Might teach him some actual consequences. My daughter's school just pretty much has a pencil supply but they hold onto their own crayons and markers, and its nice because my daughter usually comes home with an entirely fresh box of crayons and an almost full Elmer's glue that I can send next year.

 

However, I bought some new glue sticks for my Girl Scout troop last year and I about had an aneurysm the first time they used them because they PUSH. SO. HARD. on them and put a million pounds of glue on something that needs a swipe. Can we teach that skill in Kindergarten? (In all seriousness, I see a lot of fine motor problems with my girls that people are blissfully unaware of).

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HAHAHAHA. welcome to teaching. We did a project to give an idea about shapes and triangles and stupid stuff like that with straws and marshmellows. I bought extras but in the end the extras were not enough and how do you break a plastic straw? The instructions didn't call for bending!

 

Sharing supplies is off limits for a while but we curtailed out supply request to help parents who are still on unemployment as this continues.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My wife's first day back. The system crashed. I told her that should have been expected. What was unexpected though was the amount of parents who tried to drop their kids off. 20+ she said. That's just her school. It either but surprise me if there were more where they used just didn't pay attention to the news or their emails.

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Our district just released the results of their parent survey saying if kids will be doing school in person or virtually. We're in one of the largest districts in the country and cover all socio-economic classes.

 

Of the top 5 schools with the highest in-person percentages, 3 are in my subdivision. The elementary school I just withdrew Luke from (which is the "poor" one here) was #8 on the list. Our neighborhood is FULL of 1 income families and parents who can afford to hire(so they are) tutors and nannies to stay with their kids. But no. These arrogant, entitled, Trump-flag flying jackasses want to send their kids back to "prove" that the pandemic is a liberal conspiracy that won't outlive the election.

 

We have to move.

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My wife's first day back. The system crashed. I told her that should have been expected. What was unexpected though was the amount of parents who tried to drop their kids off. 20+ she said. That's just her school. It either but surprise me if there were more where they used just didn't pay attention to the news or their emails.

OMG! My schools system is failing too. And to top it off by backup FB messenger is being dumb.

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I got through my day of teaching. Fortunately, my two classes are back to back so I only have to be on campus for two hours. I had two face masks layered along with a face shield. i had a little trouble catching my breath occasionally, but I think a lot of that was nerves rather than the masks. My students said they could hear me fine with all of that on, even from the back of the room, which is great to hear. It also looks like I've got good groups of students in both classes. Everyone was wearing masks without me having to ask them to put them on and seemed to understand why the mask policy is important and how my other course policies are aimed at keeping us all safe while still giving them the education they are paying for.

 

It's such a huge relief to get through this first day.

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Our district just released the results of their parent survey saying if kids will be doing school in person or virtually. We're in one of the largest districts in the country and cover all socio-economic classes.

 

Of the top 5 schools with the highest in-person percentages, 3 are in my subdivision. The elementary school I just withdrew Luke from (which is the "poor" one here) was #8 on the list. Our neighborhood is FULL of 1 income families and parents who can afford to hire(so they are) tutors and nannies to stay with their kids. But no. These arrogant, entitled, Trump-flag flying jackasses want to send their kids back to "prove" that the pandemic is a liberal conspiracy that won't outlive the election.

 

We have to move.

The irony is that all of those jackasses think public education is the enemy, but they are the one's pushing hardest to go back. The district here that pushed the hardest to go back had a decade long pay freeze because voters refused to pass any mill levy. fuck those ***holes. Talk about wanting free stuff...

 

Anyhow, this is our second we back. We are at about 85% daily attendance and have been getting a very positive response from families. We still have a lot of opportunities for growth, but I think all things considered we are doing well.

 

My biggest complaint is that about once a day I deal with a pissed off Karen that all 5 of our after hours and weekend tech pick-ups and being open all day from 8-4 M-F for our supply pick up aren't enough where we are giving every student a brand new Chromebook isn't enough...

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I am stressed because the school district is still sticking to their usual no announcing teacher assignments until the Friday before Labor Day at 5pm so that no one can call to bitch. Like, maybe this year we could get a schedule a little in advance and not the first day of school so that I can plan for how much upheaval I'm in for? Like, do I need to quit my job or drop to part-time? The district is telling everyone that there will be daily attendance taken in live Zoom meetings and you can't just log in to do assignments on your own. They've made a huge deal about equity but that is not accommodating whatsoever. From what I can tell, the administration living in a fantasy land where they think those of us who have to work can easily make arrangments with the YMCA and Boys and Girls Club and their barely-have-a-pulse-and-hungover high school graduate employees will be able to get 45 kids on Zoom meetings at the same time. Our plan is to log our son on and then its their problem. I'm not monitoring mute or fighting to get him to sit still and pay attention. They still don't know what their gate criteria is for moving to hybrid instruction, there's just a plan for a plan. They also seem to be the only district expecting your kid to sit in front of a computer from 8:30-2:45 every day with some cutesy "lunch breaks" and a 15 minute recess at 1:30.

 

And if you're friends with me on Facebook, you saw me bitch today that the internet structure in this country can barely accomodate people working from home, let alone people working from home and kids doing virtual school. My daughter lost her connection to her Zoom meeting for a Girl Scout badge today and then couldn't get back in because the host wasn't paying attention to the waiting room. This is just a stupid badge, we moved on with our day. We lost internet for 7 hours one day in May. My boss did not excuse it and made me work the weekend to make it up, and we had to get my daughter's daily assignments done that evening. Is no/bad internet an excused absence now?

 

Sorry, I know I'm ranty. I just find this district to be completely detached from reality. I listened to a special meeting with our new director of special services and it was very clear that they are not ready for school to start after Labor Day.

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Oh yeah, that's a thing we worked through all summer. We have communicated. We have sent emails. We have called. We have sent letters home. I have a syllabus just like in college posted clearly for each week. Where we should be and what needs to be accomplished. And then Zoom went down.

 

HAHAHA. And my biggest problem/amxiety is Mom's going off on me in the Zoom lesson I am teaching. It hasn't happened yet to me but apparently kids about to meltdown or parents who have had enough have been going off during the class on teachers. Like this one Mom that had her kid trying to ask a question but it was a new teacher doing it and that teacher didn't set up rules or mute the kids until the end of the lesson and had kids talking over everyone. This Mom started screaming at the teacher who had everyone unmuted and I think the teacher was in tears and kids were laughing their asses off.

 

The other big issue is when classes start the kids have to ride the bus. The CDC says one kid facing forward, windows down and the bus sanitized at least once a day and kids sitting one to a row and then skipping rows. But that requires more bus drivers so in a perfect world maybe 16 kids to a long bus? But when you have 38+ kids on one bus because you only have one driver... well that's just Trump math.

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The online assignments for my third grader are in Canvas and a Google Cloud Word program. The worksheet is a completely editable template. My third grader is calling me over every few seconds to ask where his Flashy Line Thing has gone and why the questions have disappeared.

 

Another version of online class work which my third grader is doing involves following a link to a news article, reading the news article, and then writing a summary of the news article.

 

These are the instructions. What follows is literally what is there, all wording and spelling as is.

 

***

 

Directions: Read the article. Then press the submit bottom and write down (one-three words) and the main idea (one sentence) in the text box provided. Write two complete sentences.

 

[link is here]

 

***

 

Obviously those instructions could have been written better, and yes there is such irony in what was written that I was laughing out loud at it, but lets move on. My third grader clicks the link. We can see the articles headline now. We cannot click the article to read it. This news site requires a membership. We click the large header that asks us to sign in or join up. We are asked if we are a teacher, parent, or student. I have my third grader select the student option. The form now asks for a teacher and classroom code. We dont have a teacher or classroom code. I told my third grader his school work is thus done for the day, and now Im waiting on some sort of explanation from his teacher in how to proceed. How a third grader was supposed to manage the interface our distract has set up is an additional question that now burns in my mind.

 

Edited In Side Note: The mobile version of Nightly still removes apostrophes and quotation marks even if I type them. Hence things like Im and were when those should be contractions for I am and we are.

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That was written by a non-english speaker. Possibly even engrish.

 

Gawd.

 

I teach math currently so I filmed myself teaching a lesson and the kids watch it - I learned this last year or you end up getting kids talking over the lesson while you're doing it in Zoom or not waiting until I'm ready to ask if they have a question. That way I can say did you watch the video titled "division for fractions"? Then we have a QA afterwards and I do more sample problems. Then I do open office hours where I am available in FB messenger, Zoom, the dumb portal on the schools website that never works, our classroom closed group on FB, Skype and discord. Parents use Skype and Facebook messenger to message me most because our schools system crashes constantly. I also have called kids directly to do my new job as teacher - technical support.

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Yeah, it wasn't doing it for me and then it recently started.

 

Again, I don't think there's much we can do to fix it unless we upgrade the system, and I don't think anybody has $200 to drop on Nightly right now.

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