Bozzlife: Educating in a Pandemic
Working in the public education sector, it would be a gross understatement to say that this past year has been a little weird.
We were humming along pretty easily in February, starting to get ready for state testing season which takes up a large portion of the Spring. Then Covid-19 reared it's ugly head and whether you believe it is real, a hoax, or something else, it threw a monkey wrench into everyone's plans.
The district my wife and I work for is pretty small. Probably close to 1250 students on a good day. I am the Director of Technology for the whole district and my wife is a school social worker at the largest of our two elementary schools. If you really wanted to do some detective work you could probably find out which district it is, but for the sake of mild anonymity I am going to refrain from naming it.
Last Spring this was all so new to us. For the most part we were all navigating new territory. Districts were supposed to still give students work, but if the student was receiving a passing grade at the semester break, they would automatically be advanced to the next grade. None of the work they did last spring was graded or if it was, it didn't really count.
I quickly started working on a website to consolidate educational and community resources for our parents and community members. I was also in charge of figuring out the logistics of holding our school board meetings online vs. in person. My wife spent her time creating a virtual classroom using Bitmoji's and compiling social/emotional resources for our students who were suddenly dealing with big issues and big feelings.
Students who didn't have a device at home were given one and as a district we started making plans for the next year.
We kind of knew in the back of our head that this would not be over by fall, so like many other districts we made the decision to go 1 to 1. Every student in our district would get a Chromebook. We were pretty close to having enough anyway, but with an early order we were one of the lucky ones to actually get some delivered before school started in the fall.
My summer was spent dismantling the Chromebook carts we already had so those Chromebooks could be distributed to students in the fall. I was also working on getting mobile hotspots placed throughout our district. Each bus had a wireless hot spot installed and we ordered ~250 mobile hotspots from AT&T so we could provide them to families that needed them. We also switched the community hotspots we had installed at some of the town halls over to AT&T from Verizon.
The principals and other administrators (besides me) spent the majority of their summer coming up with a game plan for the next school year. The state had made it clear that credit for work would be mandatory. We all knew that this fall couldn't be a repeat of the Spring.
Families were given the opportunity for their student to go fully virtual (through a purchased online curriculum package supplied by the district) or face to face in the fall. I would say about 60% of our students decided to go face to face and the rest went virtual.
We were one of the only school districts in our area that started the year face to face. Many other districts went the full virtual route. We felt it was important for our students to make that connection with their teacher on the first day. Then if we ended up having to go virtual due to an outbreak they would at least be familiar with their teacher. This is especially important at the elementary level where moving from one grade to the next can cause significant anxiety for children.
I am going to be honest here. The online program we picked isn't the greatest. The company wasn't expecting the influx of new customers they got and therefore were not able to scale their product efficiently. Students (and parents) realized that the online program wasn't going to be easy sailing and I would say that now we have about 20% of our students in the virtual program and 80% face to face.
We have anticipated an outbreak and the need to shut down from the beginning, so we have had around six "remote days" since the beginning of the year. These happen about once a week and instead of coming in to school all students stay home and learn that way. We wanted them to be prepared for the process should the need to close down completely arise. Today is one of those remote days in fact.
There are tons of safety measures in place. I couldn't list all of them even if I tried. Students have personal desk shields they are required to carry around.
So far we have had only one student with a positive infection. The county health department calls the shots when that happens and they came in expecting to send close to 100 people home. Once they got here they saw the procedures we have in place and they ended up only sending about 30 kids home for a 14 day quarantine.
I feel the planning we put into starting the year face to face really contributed to our ability to minimize the spread. Many districts in the area who started back face to face recently have already needed to close down again due to widespread outbreaks.
Teachers, students, and even myself are learning new technology tools to help them most effectively provide content to their students.
TL:DR
It has definitely been a crazy year!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
https://twitter.com/dick_turpin/status/1321438367071019011
Your cable management is atrocious. 😜
Taking my "Capitalist Pig" hat off and donning my "FOSS Hat" Love the project. You may take one cookie from the cookie jar.
I shared this post on Twitter to try and get your work in front of more people.
You can find your post and me on Twitter if you like? https://twitter.com/dick_turpin
I've also upvoted you and shared your content on Hive.
I read your post. No Bots were used this was all done manually. Hope That Helps.
Don't forget, you can upvote peoples comments too!
Yeah, I know. I was on the fence about even posting that picture. I have a worker for the first time in about twenty years of doing this, so I might turn him loose to clean up that rack at some point!
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I should think a lot of academic IT departments have had a lot of extra work this year keeping everyone connected. Some companies will do well from providing services, but they may get swamped too. At least kids are used to doing lots of stuff online, so they will adapt easily. No doubt lots of new tech will come out of this.
Have fun.
For sure! It is a mad scramble right now for these teleconferencing companies to add features to their products. In the end the end-users are the real winners in it all.
I want to come tidy those cables....that's a job I LOVE! My colleagues often think me a little strange.
Well a nice looking cable job lasts only a short time, unless you have space for some major management tray's etc.
One day at a time. I think most IT groups have been pushed really hard during these interesting/changing times.
Yes, indeed they have. I am dealing with stuff I never would have imagined would fall under my department.
My wife works for our local board of education as well. I think we had this conversation before. She is a Psychologist for the out of district child study team. All the major medical, emotional or behavioral issues are hers. Lovely. I thought our district was small at 11,000+/-. 1200 is not bad at all. It’s all relative in the end.
Our students are in class two days off one and back for two more. How long this will last will be answered in time. Fall spikes are happening here in NJ right now. Looks like you have a fun job!! When you don’t have deadlines that is.
Oh yeah, I get to play with all the tech and all that kind of stuff. We have regional Intermediate School Districts in Michigan that offer all of our special ED services. My wife is one of the few (but growing) general ED school social workers in the state. Districts are finally starting to learn about trauma and how important Social Emotional Issues are. Unfortunately our ISD psychologist and other workers tend to have a "I know more than you" attitude and they dismiss my wife's opinion even though she has the degree and the fifteen years of experience in education to back it up. The real loser is the kids because they don't get placed where they belong and end up being robbed of a proper education.