Caution: Rant ahead. If you aren't in a place where reading a rant is a thing you want to do, bail now. I totally understand.
Ahem.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OUR SCHOOL DISTRICT?
::sigh::
So ... schools across the nation are adjusting to the ever-changing state of life with COVID-19 in wildly different ways. There is no "right" way to handle any of it, but I'm pretty sure our district has found the exact wrong way.
First of all, they weren't at all at the forefront of closing down. Our district was fully intending to continue classes this week and only stopped because the Governor said so. Kids were not sent home with anything on Friday. Teachers were not asked to prepare for the inevitable. It was business as usual. In fact, Alexis had cheer try-outs Friday night along with a HUGE group of other girls, even after the Governor declared schools closed.
Let's contrast with a neighboring district, shall we? I have a STEM outreach program with a high school. I mentor a group of girls on careers in engineering. I am not an engineer, but as a Product Manager, I'm super good at telling them what to do. We meet every Thursday to review progress on their project. They're designing a real product that my company will "finish out," so to speak. When I was there last week, it was very clear that every student and staff member knew they would not be in the school on Monday. Teachers were using the time between classes to complete a training on how to use the virtual classroom tool that the district had already decided to use. In fact, the same teachers were required to have 15 days worth of lesson plans prepared by the end of the day. Every single person in that building was clearly preparing to be working remotely on Monday. Chromebooks were being taken home, kids who didn't have access to Wifi had been identified, and solutions had already been put into place.
I checked in with my teaching peer today. She's up and running, albeit with her own kids sitting next to her making her crazy. There was very little disruption.
Guess what I got today from our school? NOTHING USEFUL. Emails went out with ideas for things kids could do while they are off, but the email made it extremely clear that the district fully expects to return to business as usual on March 30. Mila is supposed to do some sort of BINGO game and Alexis has a poem to write and some other nonsense, but all suggestions are exactly that - suggestions. Nothing they do will be graded or "counted" academically. It's just for fun and it's obvious that the teachers considered it "for fun" and didn't put major effort into it. I do not fault the teachers for this. They were clearly all given the same instructions and followed those instructions. They're also dealing with crazy times just like the rest of us, and I would absolutely do the minimum if I were in the same situation. Also, since no arrangements were made in advance to give kids access to technology, they really can't assign anything useful. But, no worries! They'll be back on March 30!
I work as part of a global team so I get a lot of information about how COVID-19 has tracked in various countries. We are currently 9-10 days behind France and tracking EXACTLY in line with them. The entire country of France shut down yesterday. WE ARE NOT RETURNING TO LIFE AS USUAL ON MARCH 30. I would love to be wrong about that, but I will be more surprised if kids go back to school this year than I will be if they don't.
Basically, kids in our district are going to lose half a year.
But you know what my girls won't lose? A SINGLE SECOND OF DANCE INSTRUCTION.
In even more startling news, the dance studio that both girls take classes at has moved to fully online instruction. Mila only has one class. She already has a video of her class for the week and another video with her recital choreography. On top of that, she has a worksheet activity to do. She'll continue to get video classes for as long as needed, which is fantastic and amazing because she did the class she has four times already. The teachers worked a zillion hours over the weekend to make content available and they are basically superheroes for doing it.
All of Alexis' competitions for the next month are cancelled, but she has classes headed her way as well. They seriously will not miss a beat, despite the giant interruption to our routines.
A dance studio adjusted faster and more effectively than our school district. That's ... ugh.
Is this whole COVID-19 thing over yet? I don't think the super nerd Big Kid or the extra extroverted Tiny Human can survive weeks - or even months - without school.