Adaptation to COVID world

derp

 

Reducing class sizes is a non-starter for several reasons - number of teachers, number of classrooms, opposition to paying to increase either. The only way it's possible is if you have half the class in the room one week and half the next. That still puts parents in the position of having to homeschool every other week and if both parents are working that isn't a good situation.

 

This is all true, but we may not have much of a choice. I think we can manage with distance learning the rest of this school year, but what if the situation isn't appreciably better in the fall? One of the few things teachers had working for them during the transition to distance learning was they had months of building relationships with their students and establishing protocols and expectations for them. They won't have that in September. In most cases, teachers are dealing with an entirely new group of students each year. They may have met a few around the building, but the relationships just aren't there. Take all that away and distance learning is going to be far more challenging.

That means finding some way to get back in buildings in September. I honestly don't know how you do it. If anything, school districts are going to have less money to work with come September, not more. I know New York's budget for education is going to be cut significantly. I imagine other states will do the same. School districts are going to have to take the financial beating residents are taking into account when they make their budgets and set their tax rates. I'm not sure about other states, but those votes normally happen in May in New York, though Gov. Cuomo pushed them back to June. That means schools won't even know exactly what resources they have until far later in the process.

That said, it's probably going to be smaller class sizes or something that is even worse come September.

 

With libraries closed, "distance learning" doesn't account for thousands of poor kids in New York City who don't have internet access.

I'm not sure the city has lots of options going forward.

 

I don't either.

Our kid's school is less than a mile away and several teachers from there and other schools live in our neighborhood. We see them often when the weather is nice and they or we are out walking, They are really worried about their students. Now and the ones they'll have in the fall.

 

I think any good teacher is worried about their students right now. This is especially true of at-risk kids. Some entire districts are made up of students who are at risk due to challenging situations at home. Often this means poverty, but it can also be terrible family situations. You brought up homes in which both parents work, but those aren't even the biggest issue. What about single parents or other single guardians? What about students whose parents or guardians don't give a damn about education in the current situation? What about the ones who never gave a damn? What about students who count on school for 10 meals per week, breakfast and lunch every day they are in the building? I fear the high school dropout rate could skyrocket if this goes into the fall.

 

you need an invisible hand to defeat an invisible enemy duh

 

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Our schools have installed free wifi that covers their parking lots and been providing grab-and-go meals for breakfast and lunch since this all started. On Fridays, they also provide grab-and-go weekend snacks (protein bars, GORP, shelf-stable items).

 

Some internet providers have made free wifi available temporarily, but I do wonder how long they will keep that up.

Of course, we all hope schools can return to something close to normal in the fall. I'm just not sure how realistic that hope is at this point. I am sure that some instruction in the building is much, much better than none.

 

Even then, most of the kids we're talking about would need computers, too. That's why the libraries here are filled every afternoon.

I assume it's part of why De Blasio was so reluctant to close schools. A huge number of at-risk kids in NYC have no resources at all. None.

To your earlier point about meals, through school kitchens the city has been providing three free meals a day to anyone who needs them. No questions asked.

 

I'm on a volunteer planning commission that mostly screens zoning change requests for the city council. The city stopped all meetings in early March, and yesterday after Governor Kemp's announcement, the city planning official who staffs the commission asked how many of us would be willing to meet May 20 with distancing, no public presence, etc., to vote on the requests that have built up, and if we had to do it virtually, how many of us had the capability to do so. So far, only one of us has been willing to meet in person, and the rest of the answers have fallen somewhere from "I wouldn't now, but it depends on how things look in mid-May" to "No way."

 

The funniest fucking thing I have seen in a long time.