School in 2020-2021..what it probably will look like

I have read some posts that say that the 2020-21 school year should be postponed past the regular start of August or September. According to what Scientists are saying and some highly scientific people I have talked to such as doctors, that might be a big mistake.

According to a retired doctor friend of mine and many Scientists, this is what next school year will look like in the United States. It is predicted that things this summer could be mostly safe in most states. Of course, human behavior between now and then might effect that. So going to restaurants, movies, and other places like this in some way or form? Yes, it should happen. School ready in August?...again yes it should happen. Now for the rest of the news.

Scientists and my Doctor friend are saying that the virus will be back when the weather cools down...maybe late October. If so, I am guessing that schools might not want to wait until the last minute again, so school might be out after Columbus Day in October until...late Spring? In other words, principals are you ready to prepare to start school on time and then go for 1 quarter? Or for those who start after Labor Day only 6 weeks? Then we do this at home learning possibly until April?

1st quarter: school
2nd and 3rd quarter: at home:
4th quarter: ???--maybe 1/2 at home and 1/2 at school?

Delay the school year and there won't be a school year at school.

We must see if this is as likely as some are saying. If it is, then it would be smart to start preparing this summer for a very different school year...most of it possibly at home. I'm not saving my best lessons for 3rd or 4th quarter next year if this situation is as likely as some say it is.

 

As far as I know, we’re going back to school on Wednesday, August 12th until I hear otherwise. I keep hearing too many different scenarios. My teachers have had so many trainings on all the different programs and aspects of online teaching that I think they’d be ready to go digital again (if necessary) in the future.

 

Right now, I think it's too early to say what school will "probably" look like. Eventually, things will be normal again, as will school. In terms of what reopening looks like, I think the governors are currently working on those plans. When schools are closed, it makes it difficult for homes that have both parents working. Getting people back to work is going to require that schools be opened. Could there be staggering in the way sectors and geographic locations open? Might the school year be modified? I think those things are very possible, but right now we are dealing with possibilities, not probabilities.

 

I do know that Gov. Newsom wants CA schools to start up in the fall, but things will look different. He gave different scenarios in his latest address.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article242009006.html

 

One possibility that some states are thinking about is staggered entering. Perhaps the school day would be divided into 2 sections, am and pm. That way classes could be cut in half. During hurricane recovery here this has been done by many districts.

 

That’s what the CA gov mentioned yesterday. I’m fine with whatever as long as we can get the kids back in the classrooms.

 

How does this work exactly? I’m not familiar with staggered classes. Would teachers have to work a longer day? Can you give me an example of how the periods are structured using your state and how it is done there, please?

 

One way this program has worked is when two schools use one building. One school and it's staff meet am, the other school and it's staff meet pm. In this scenario, no staff members are furloughed and salaries remain the same. This method could be used if schools are located near each other and the district can't get enough healthy bus drivers.
A second way the program would work is by dividing each class in half and doing the am, pm schedule. Students are not given lunch at school...that is the time classes are changed. Teachers work a normal day, although they would all have that lunch period as their planning time. I have worked this type of schedule before and it went well. Even though the teaching time with each class was cut in half, we were able to teach that whole time which allowed us to cover almost as much curriculum.
Both scenarios were set up so students had to do more work at home, like they are doing now.

 

I worry that what would happen in high schools is doing away with electives to make core classes smaller. So I'd be back to teaching English, which wouldn't be the worst. But I worry I'd never be able to build my programs back up.

 

Which elective do you teach, if you don't mind me asking?

 

I love, love, love this option. If anyone in my district asks for my opinion, I'd present this to them! For us, though, we'd have to feed students at school (we're 99.4% free lunch) and teachers would have to get their 50 minute duty-free lunch (planning time is before and after school per the teachers' union agreement). Aside from those two things, this could work!

 

I wonder if this could include a blended/hybrid style. Here in Mexico, the public schools are so overcrowded that they do the am/pm schedules. I teach in a private school, so I don't know how exactly that looks. Mexico has a longer school year, and I "think" it's due to the staggered schedules. Perhaps the school year in the US becomes longer?? Perhaps there's a more blended style of learning???

 

I really like this option too. It would likely require a focus on the essential standards and objectives, could include a sort of blended-style of teaching/learning, but seems very possible in terms of executing.

 

I feel like we might see a lot more forays into flipped or semi-flipped classrooms if schools decide to do AM/PM shifts of kids.

Another possibility in areas where feeding the kids isn't a top concern is to do A/B days. Split the classes; on "A" days go to school and receive direct instruction, on "B" days do your homework and supplemental material or vice versa for the other half.

 

You can send lunch home with the am students (just like now) and use teacher assistants to cover lunch for the pm students as they arrive. That would keep assistants employed. We had to renegotiate with the union to use that hour between classes as planning time. Teachers were given a choice to come in early, stay late if they wanted planning then, or use lunch time. Salaries were not effected in either scenario. Teachers have always come in early/leave late and this was basically volunteer time anyways. Most of our teachers chose lunchtime planning. The few that didn't were given an assistant.

 

I would certainly prefer this option to doing online schooling for any longer than we have to, but I just don't see how it works. How do parents go back to work with their children only attending school half day or every other day? There are some that may be able to work from home and handle picking up/dropping off their child at odd times, but there are many more this doesn't work for. I know the first thing our teachers would be clamoring about would be childcare for their own children- this schedule doesn't work for teachers who have kids.

Do the kids go to some sort of daycare/childcare the rest of the time? If so, do parents then have to pay for that? Is it really "distancing" if large groups of kids are then at daycare? And even with only half of the children at school attending at one time, will they really distance? Maybe secondary students will; I can't see being able to enforce this in a primary classroom. Our classrooms aren't big enough to keep a 6 foot radius around everyone even if only half of the kids were there.

Even if you don't let the students move around in an attempt to keep them distanced, they're all touching the same things and little kids are gross! Before we closed school we had really tried to ramp up cleaning and hand washing efforts and it was such a losing battle. Every time I turned around someone had fingers in their mouths or nose, was chewing on their clothing, sneezing and coughing all over the place, etc. And then is the teacher supposed to stay 6 feet away from every child? Again, perhaps feasible in secondary. I don't see any scenario where that works in elementary, especially in primary grades. I would also have concerns about an impossible workload if I as the teacher am expected to teach a full day AND provide online teaching as well. That seems like two jobs to me.

I read an article the other day that was proposing mass and very frequent testing until we have a vaccine. Every 2 weeks for everyone and every day for first responders. The article was pointing out that it would be costly to implement, but far less costly than shutting down the country indefinitely. To me this seems like a better solution than trying to do "social distancing" for a year or more.

 

At my school we have independent study and blended.
The blended side is supposed to be 'great", but trust me, it doesn't work. Kids go to math class once a week, for 3 hours. You have 20-25 kids in one class,all who range from prealgebra (yes it's high school but we have a lot of low kids in math) and range up to geometry, all in one class, working in groups with project based learning. The teacher is doing a fantastic job (he's not even a math teacher but it's a charter so it's ok), uses Google Classroom, etc, but still, I don't see how can any learning going on like that. Not the teacher's fault. He does this twice, on the other day another 20-25 kids come.
The kids need math every day for an hour, tailored to their needs.

We have the same thing set up with English, Science and History. Maybe they have US History one day and World History another, and maybe biology one day and earth science another, its fine, but foundational skills like math and English cannot be done once a week in a 3 hour class.

True, we have less kids on campus every day, but it just does not work in my opinion. Us, doing independent study works 100 % because we do have an hour with each student one on one per week, and they can stay longer or come more often if they need help, we can also require them to come more often. I feel that we are truly reaching the kids. The rigor might not be there with some f the curriculum, and with others it's way too high so they struggle but we can help them. But I can say that they are learning and we can take care of their needs, emotional, intellectual, physical, etc.
This can be the future if they are worried about a virus. Our kids are the least impacted out of everyone, they are doing their work, alone like always, they just don't come in once a week and don't see us. But we talk to them twice a week, so it's not much difference.

 

There will be lots more cleaning and saniziting, that's for sure.

 

I think that the idea that the virus will go away during the summer is a bit of supposition, not entirely unfounded but not really confirmed either.

Maybe we just flip the school year so "summer" vacation falls into January-February instead of July-August?

Just kidding... I know how "popular" that would be.

 

I actually think we will have to look at modifications, and that could include a scenario like you mention. Is it ideal? No, but we are living through unprecedented times.

This doesn't go away in the summer. This isn't over until we have treatment, testing, and a vaccine. Until then, it's a new normal that requires doing things differently from how we've done them before.

 

I am really interested in independent study, especially since I recently applied for an independent study teacher position (I haven't heard back from them). Aside from that, what does your student population look like? Do most of them have a parent home? I'm just curious how to make that work in most schools. My school could easily make this work before we are a private school and most families have one parent at home. However, in most schools, especially in public schools, that is not the case. So, I wonder how this works. I am asking not because I think it won't work, but because I think there's potential there.

 

I also wonder how splitting students into AM and PM would really work in this case. In a hurricane or other natural disaster situation, there is no risk of infection. However, in this case, that's our main concern. If an AM student infects the teacher and then the teacher infects a PM student, we still have the issue of putting everyone in the entire school at risk. I could only see this working if staff are assigned to particular halves of the day too... and if there is daily sanitizing during the mid-day break.

 

Definitely see the concerns. (I have a kid in daycare!) It would admittedly require a fairly big culture shift of some form or another to work.

 

I've been wondering if we will see fewer "community supplies" when we finally return to school. I have always thought it was gross to see young kids share all of the pencils that they've all had their hands and mouths all over, but now it even seems dangerous. I've often wondered if that's a major contributing factor to cases of strep, flu, or some other illness taking over a classroom.

 

I do know it's a popular thing in many classrooms, but I never took fully to community supplies.

And yet... the supplies were community supplies. I had a supply table. Orphaned pencils went into a can. Orphaned gluesticks and crayons had buckets.

Oh, yuck.

 

It's just the way of my school, so I've never had much choice. When students bring in supplies, they are expected to drop them off in a category location (e.g. folders on the left table, pencils on the right table, etc.). Then teachers go collect what they need from each category and distribute those items in and around the classroom. It is gross, and I always keep my own stash of pencils and dry erase markers hidden behind my desk so that I know I have "clean" ones to use.

 

There will probably never be an easy answer to the problems of opening schools until the vaccine is fully utilized. Schools are just going to have to work out individual plans for their population.

 

We have a variety of situations.
- girls who are pregnant or have a child
- young fathers who have to work to support the mom and the baby
- students whose parents are unable to work so they have to work to support them
- families in such poverty that kids must be working
- students who just prefer a setting lie this due to safety concerns (gun violence, etc)
- students who have high anxiety, introverts who would just not do well in a classroom setting of 30-40 kids
- students who have been bullied
- students with medical issues. I had a girl who frequent, really bad migraines and that would make her miss school. At our school it wasn't a problem because she only had to come once for 1 hour
- I have many many wonderful students who just prefer to go to school like this
- some students prefer this because they've heard from a sibling or friend that it's so much easier. The work may be less, because doing your work independently does not take 7 hours 5 days a week, but kids who are not self sufficient or self disciplined do not succeed and are dropped (after following protocol)
- some kids are dropped from their schools for being behind in credits. They can come to us and catch up in one year. Every student earns 30 credits per semester. a freshman or sophomore can earn up to 40, and junior and senior up to 50, possibly more with approval. So a junior can catch up with 40+ credits in one year, not something they can do in a comprehensive school
- some kids come here because they want to graduate early. If they're with us from freshman year, they can graduate one semester early with hardly any more effort, and one year early with minimal extra effort.
- we also offer a high school enrichment program. Starting during the summer after sophomore year, a student can enroll in college (for free), take 1 class in summer, 2 classes in fall and spring and so on. By the time they graduate they have taken 10 community college classes and are way ahead of the game.

so our school is really wonderful, really. I wish we had more electives. So far we have construction and welding with an actual shop, a teacher who knows what he's doing and he has job contacts. A several child development classes where the students are actually working with young children. Both these courses are CTE or ROP. We have photography (online), and leadership, the rest of the electives are from books We used to have music (piano and guitar class) and an art class. I wish we had these and possibly something with culinary arts, and computer class, with Office. Then the program would be pretty complete. We do have a bilingual credentialed teacher, it'd be great if he could start teaching Spanish.

I would say our school is pretty great and now the transition to distance learning is as seamless as you can imagine.

 

This is a public school?

 

Would you have wanted your own daughter to have attended that school?

 

Must be a public school.

 

Sounds like a good school with a wide variety of students and lots of resources.

 

It’s high school alternative ed.

 

Thank you so much for your in-depth explanation. I have been really intrigued by independent study schools. The working environment definitely seems ideal, and I am sure that behavior is much more manageable (and likely not an issue) in this setting. I have applied to an independent study school, but so far I have not heard back. However, there are a couple of schools like this in my area (finding a teacher opening is the difficulty). I think with the prolonged forecast of having to practice social distancing, a model like this really might work.

Thanks again!

 

Yes it is.

 

Yes, I would have. She would have missed out on prom, but we still have a very nice graduation. She would have also missed out on being in band, she was playing the flute in marching band and then was in drumline, so that was actually something she really enjoyed.

She actually did attend this school for 1 week Even though she is a daughter of a teacher, she wasn't doing that great in school. Her senior year, she was still shy of 10 or 15 credits, not sure, so she had to do summer school. She didn't get to walk. But, something got messed up in summer school and they put her in an online class that would take a semester, not sure exactly what happened but it was a bad situation. So, at that time I was still classroom teaching at the other school but knew about our independent academy and said she can just make it up there.
The counselors looked at her transcript, and things get weighed differently, her GPA went up, and get this: she only needed 2.5 credit of electives!! that was what kept her from gradating according to our system. So she chose Geography, and did the 2.5 credit worth of work in 1 week. So when she went back to her teacher for her 2nd appointment, she dropped off her work and was done with highschool.
No celebration, no walk, but I told her that was her natural consequence of not doing it right the first time.

If we didn't have this school, I think she would have had to go back for a semester for a few classes.

 

We are actually hiring a teacher, unless it has been filled internally.

There is no issue with behavior, ever. there is no disrespect or cusswords, or anything. Any moodiness or slight attitude, I can have a talk with the kid and everything is handled. Appointments are one on one, but we have 3-4 teachers in one room, so we can have 3-8 kids at a time - just in case someone is staying over, etc. But there is no real audience for any misbehavior, so no one is acting out. everyone is there to take care of things, and then go home, so if they were messing around they would be just wasting their time at school.
There's not much socialization going on, sometimes students know each other, then they quietly talk but if they got loud, we would tell them to knock it off.
We have wonderful relationships with the parents.
I really do love this job, I don't see myself ever leaving it voluntarily.

 

Do you think we'll be required to go through testing before going back into school buildings?

 

It would be nice if that were an option at any workplace. But test availability seems to be shrinking at the moment.