A couple weeks ago, I wrote that Aberdeen should start with a hybrid school schedule, part online, part face-to-face, because if we crowd everyone back into the building on a normal schedule, we’re going to end up with a coronavirus outbreak that will shut the school down and send everyone home for distance learning anyway. Our kids and teachers will experience less disruption to learning if they start in a hybrid model and develop their online teaching and study skills.
Sioux Falls Roosevelt teacher Grace Gill agrees that her school district’s back-to-the-building plan, with, like Aberdeen, no mask mandate, means they are headed toward the same unnecessary and avoidable disruption:
Grace Gill says at a minimum she wants the district to include a mask requirement with its back to school plan. She wants to return to class–
“But I think this plan as proposed means that we are in school for two weeks and then we’re back to virtual school, which is not something I want. I want a sustainable policy that allows us to not only go back but stay back” [Jackie Hendry, “Sioux Falls Teachers Worry Current Back-to-School Plan Is Unsustainable,” SDPB, 2020.07.27].
Sioux Falls superintendent Jane Stavem says the district has revised its guidance on masks from “highly recommended” to “expected”. That’s still not “required”.
Gill tells Hendry she has tried to rearrange her classroom to follow social distancing guildelines… but that distance isn’t going to happen:
She tried arranging the desks in her classroom six feet apart.
“I could fit twelve,” she says. “Now, I made it a little looser to the three feet, and I could fit 24 with that three feet adherence guideline. And the fact of the matter is I’m going to have 30 kids in a classroom and unless they do something to promote social distancing, you’re gonna have 30 kids in a classroom. No masks? That’s a breeding ground for COVID-19” [Hendry, 2020.07.27].
We’ve designed our schools like factories… or perhaps like meatpacking plants, and we know how well they’ve done at preventing coronavirus.
If you want more coronavirus outbreaks and sudden changes in education delivery channels and schedules, go ahead, pack your kids into those classrooms. If you want a sustainable, somewhat regular, and optimally effective school year, you probably better call your school board and ask them to dial back their wishful thinking and dial up their creativity and flexibility with respect to staffing, scheduling, and curriculum delivery.
Related Reading: To give Sturgis sickness time to simmer down, the Rapid City school board voted last night to delay the start of the school year two weeks, to September 8, after Labor Day… which hey! is when school ought to start anyway!
It is really not a good sign that Covid is a lot smarter than the folks pretending they are going to open schools with exclusively face-to-face learning.
The reason our classrooms are designed like meat packing plants is because that is exactly where we plan on sending the graduates. These kids need to be close to one another all the time they grow, so they can further grow into cutting meat and other menial tasks, you know, the republican dream that we are now living in. Working 3 close quartered jobs a day to survive…if you can in the republican gig economy, or what’s left of it.
“As the economy teeters on the brink of collapse, as the death toll from the SARS-CoV-2 virus mounts and threatens to skyrocket far beyond our nation’s ability to control it, many Americans are shaking their heads in dismay, wondering just what has happened to their country. As the crisis prolongs, as our schools struggle vainly to reopen, as businesses continue to founder, it’s as if a curtain is gradually lifting. It’s as if the willful, hopeful blindness of millions of people has finally given way to a collective shock of understanding and recognition of the actual horror that lies before us all.” https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/27/1964368/-We-re-all-living-the-Republican-dream-right-now-Do-you-like-it?utm_campaign=trending
In South Dakota, in particular, we don’t want to pay teachers, we don’t want to improve the schools, because we would have to pay for it. Doesn’t matter that they have too many students in overcrowded classrooms now that have always been a breeding ground for the flu and other fun things the kids bring home.
Meanwhile, we have millions in a rainy day fund. We scoff at Medicaid Expansion that leaves a BILLION on the table for the kind of use that would benefit our children and their teachers, Republican government is the perfect example of a failed state.
For years my spouse, a retired elementary teacher, as well as many, if not most, other educators have pointed out the fact that reducing class size is the best way to help kids get the best education. Unfortunately this reality has fallen on deal ears. Wouldn’t it be something if the virus turned out to be the ticket to actually accomplishing this goal and future children end up with a much better education as a result of the virus? Perhaps a potential silver lining in a very ugly cloud.
You know how we could reduce class sizes and control the pandemic? Pay every household a per-child teacher’s aide stipend from the CARES Act money. use the same formula we use to calculate the per-teacher/per-child state aid to every school. Tell parents, “This is your pay for helping us teach your children during coronavirus.” Require the recipient heads of household to attend training (online, of course) on the school’s learning software and basic teaching strategies, as well as some brush-up courses on school subjects. Pay parents for staying home from work and helping their kids study.
Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins have 15 players and coaches with COVID-19 in an atmosphere of constant testing. The players stay in their hotels at all times. Basically a quarantine.
If the virus gets in there how in the hell are we going to keep it out of our schools? That is question I wish Noem would have been asked about today.
Bearcreekbat, the Brookings Institute has a wonderfully thorough examination of the arguments surrounding reduced class size. The body of literature, they point out, would actually contradict your spouse’s belief. The cost of achieving the class size reduction required to see tangible results (reducing classes by 7-10 kids) would be phenomenally expensive; they argue the body of research establishes there are other interventions with a higher ROI. It’s not that reducing class size isn’t beneficial, but rather that there are other things out there which will have a more meaningful impact given scarce resources.
It’s lengthy, but I encourage a full reading:
https://www.brookings.edu/research/class-size-what-research-says-and-what-it-means-for-state-policy/
It’s heartening to see the vast majority of engaged Sioux Falls School District parents are in favor of masks: https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/education/2020/07/27/sioux-falls-school-district-coronavirus-covid-19-back-to-school/5521240002/ A super majority also plans to send their kids for in-person schooling. I’m happy that my school district has decided to pivot to a mask-required policy.
Cory may be right that we see schools open just to quickly move to the hybrid or full distance learning model due to the spread of Covid. However, if we start out from the position of a hybrid or distance learning model, we’re guaranteeing disadvantaged youth will be left further behind.
Morevoer, there’s great evidence that mask wearing is sufficient to arrest the spread, even in intimate environments https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6928e2.htm If we’re diligent, we can mitigate the risks.
I’m quite cognizant there are students and staff who are immuno-compromised, or otherwise at a higher risk, and wholly support reasonable accommodations to alleviate those risks.
But I also think it bears noting than any staff who raises concerns about safety, yet chooses to gallivant around the town without a mask or ignoring physical distancing recommendations doesn’t get a lot of sympathy from me.
Cory, now you are starting to sound like the homeschool/Devos crowd.
Today, Noem falsely claimed children don’t transmit COVID-19, there isn’t clear evidence for the effectiveness of masks, handwashing is the best way to mitigate, and the risk to adults in schools is lower than what they experience in grocery stores. Will any media clearly point out this misinformation?
> risk to adults in schools is lower than what they experience in grocery stores
That’s the one I couldn’t believe. You are in a grocery or pharmacy for hopefully a short time, you are in close indoors proximity for six hours with the same cohort of kids in a classroom all day. Gov Noem makes no sense.
I think she is taking the Adderall like her daddy trump inhales to be that damn dumb… or to think we are.
The only thing better than homeschooling your kids forever is homeschooling them in a bunker in Igloo SD, where they could engage other students in the Organized Debates as a Rattler over the Zooms and play the real sports on video games against the Edgemont Panthers.
The covid bugs can’t get you in Igloo.
Cory’s idea about the education $ going directly to the parents has merit, but not quite as Cory described.
Neighborhood groups of parents, called “pods” or “mini schools” are working together right now to educate their children. They’re joining with nearby families who have children the same age and hiring a teacher.
If states provided $ to the families that would end the income disparity that has made it difficult or impossible for some families to afford this plan.
States could provide parts of their school buildings and some spaces and equipment on a rotating basis. (The virus isn’t supposed to live long on hard, dry surfaces.) Gymnasiums, art rooms, musical instruments, labs and other things could be shared.
Schools could do the space coordinating and facilitate placement of teachers. Mini classrooms all over town, plus a return to multi classes in one room.
It requires the will of the parents, school districts and state departments.
STRIKE!! UNION SAYS STRIKE!! A strike is a beautiful thing.
“One of the largest United States teachers’ union is authorizing its members to strike if their schools plan to reopen without proper safety measures in the middle of the global pandemic.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which represents 1.7 million school employees, issued a resolution on Tuesday saying it will support any local chapter that decides to strike over reopening plans. The group says school buildings should open only in areas where coronavirus infections are low enough and if schools enact certain safety measures.”
What’s the point of being in a union if you don’t take a stand for yourselves and more importantly, the students in your stead.
I think we need to think very hard about Ms. Geelsdottir’s idea of shared pod music equipment.
We’re not talking about kindergartners shaking maracas, we’re talking about marching bands with scantily clad drum majorettes and suggestive hip-hop music the young kids like these days.
Cleaning the spittle from a shared oboe reed and dumping the vile drool from the bowels of a sousaphone is sure to not spread the covid bugs. And the debaters, when debating, must wear masks to keep the spittle from flying at their antagonists and proactivists.
Mr. jerry, grudznick dares the teachers in the lowest 4 of the SILT layers to strike. Double-dog dares them. Do you think they’ll take my bait?
Mr. grudznick, there are strikes and balls and bats, not baits. Please use your spellcheck or understand the nomenclature of baseball. Speaking of baseball, looks like the sport is tanking and that is exactly what schools are gonna do as well.
Both will be bad for the children of South Dakota, in every county. Very bad, the tanking will be.
Children will be alive, that’s not bad. So will teachers, parents, grandparents along with everyone else who comes in their contact like school bus drivers, custodians, school cooks….golly, just about the entire state…even those tanking the drunk tanks. Booyah!!
Debbo, et to? Both you and Cory are missing the point: we collect tax dollars so that a community has access to free public education for its children; not so tax-payers can send their children to school. Your rhetoric is the same as those who wish to strip public funds from education to put into the pockets of families to send their students to private institutions — leaving the less fortunate high and dry.
Why not advocate for public schools? Distance learning has challenges for the schools, students, and families, but why not advocate our public schools, out trusted education institutions marshal the infrastructure and staffing to accomplish this task? Let us not fall into the too easy trap of funneling money to those already most advantaged — the families who can afford to have an at-home parent or family member supporting their student’s distance learning.
Jerry, SD teachers (who do not choose to freeload), are members of NEA — AFT is the national competitor union.
Grudz, are you saying the the health and safety of our children, our education workforce, and our communities is not an issue worth striking over? If literally life and death decisions are not worthy of a strike action, then what would be?
Freeloaders always grift. Thanks for the information. I hope they can organize to save our children, our economy and their’s and their families heartbreak and lives. To the custodians and those that also do the heavy work of providing transportation and other lines of support, please stay safe and hope your teachers prevail.
O, agreed, do make sure I don’t slip into supporting vouchers. I speak only from the perspective that the schools cannot single-handedly and immediately solve the major economic barrier to conducting public education online, the low-wage economy that forces both parents to work and leaves no one at home to help kids with their homework. To avoid the Devosian defunding problem, let me be clear: Education Policy Priority #1 should be to pour all the resources we can into public schools, with no diversion of existing streams into private schools, to help the public schools provide free, fair, universal, and safe education. We should spend additional money to hire additional teachers to reduce class size, improve educational outcomes, and exposure to contagion. If we could find a way to hire lots of parents to serve as teachers’ aides at home for their kids and the neighbors’ kids during this regime of online education, we could kill one and a half birds with one stone, helping those helpful parents weather the financial loss of giving their usual out-of-the-home employment. We could use CARES Act disbursements (and, if we had a governor who was not enemy of public education, additional state funding) to hire those at-home teacher aides. That way, we’re hiring people who are already exposed to their own kids and some of the neighbor kids and thus not increasing the contagion vectors quite as much as if we hire teachers from outside the parent pool.
But I gladly concede that my off-the-cuff suggestion is inferior to a broader social revolution to support education and families:
O, I stand, or actually sit, duly chastised, with one caveat. I had that solution in mind only as a pre-vaccine stopgap.
I’ll return to my earlier proposal which piggybacked on Jerry’s. Retrofit empty big box stores and other spaces as classrooms suitable to safely space a dozen students. Hire the necessary teachers, aides, custodial, cooks, bus drivers, etc.
Invest in education, tax the rich, disinvest in war, build infrastructure, create jobs, add tax base.
Wayne, thanks for the interesting link that studies the impact of class size on learning based on cost. You are incorrect in stating this study contradicts my spouse’s viewpoint that reduced class size improves student performance. Indeed, here is a quote from the article that support’s the view of my spouse:
The article’s focus on an “either/or” analysis of the cost of providing smaller class size compared to using the funds needed to have smaller class sizes to other expenditures of such funds is an altogether different question. Of course if available funding is restricted to the extent that providing smaller class size means a loss of other essential services, then this supports the idea that the financial “cost” of smaller class size can outweigh the comparative educational loss of students through large class sizes.
Also I did not see any reference to the intangible cost of large vs small class sizes, such as how the difference in policies will affect the personal and financial lives of the students once they leave the school.
Nevertheless, the ideas and research discussed in the article are worth examining – thanks again for the link.
This is the Minneapolis plan:
“distance learning will be the ‘primary’ form of education, but the school district will also offer additional ‘targeted support’ such as tutoring, technology, and mental health support to students and families.
“School buildings will be reopened to provide this support.
“After that, it hopes to open up to in-person classes more widely by the end of the year, offering a ‘hybrid’ version of school that’s part in-person, part distance learning.”
Details are here, no paywall.
is.gd/FOgwFj
“Only 9% of white parents are worried about their children having enough to eat at home if schools remain closed, compared to 44% of parents of color.”
538
This is the “pods” or “mini schools” option I referred to earlier. No paywall.
is.gd/CrgJlJ