We’ve been doing training for the upcoming school year and its being done on zoom from our classrooms (I’m a high school physics teacher in Texas), our district decided to open with in person instruction in a week and we are completely unprepared. This morning we were scheduled for some diversity training, but instead it turned into a hype or “pump up” type motivational deal.
During one of the slick videos they made for the school I typed in the chat, “I hope the memorial video for all the teachers we lose to covid will be as well done!” All the teachers were supposed to be in the meeting and we had about 650 watching. Not 10min later my Principal and Vice Principal came into my room and told me I had to go home for the day for being “unprofessional”.
Whole conversation was about a minute long, he quoted my comment and asked me what my purpose was. I told him I wanted to bring attention to the real dangers of the pandemic and didn’t feel like the situation and safety of the teachers was being taken seriously. He responded with, “How’s this for serious (or attention, I’m not sure which), I’m sending you home for the day.” He had the gall to tell me the district is doing “everything possible” to keep teachers safe, to which I responded, “like have distance learning like all the nearby districts?” His response was, “Not all, not all, my wife’s district is going back to in person teaching next week.” I conceded the point that my statement was hyperbolic but reiterated the fact that the surrounding districts with similar composition and literally bordering us all went to distance learning for at least the first 2-3 weeks of school and with provisions to extend (the state allows the first 3 weeks without any issue and the option to extend for another 6 weeks if prudent, without any other special requirements and no lose of funding).
He told me to do the rest of the online training for today at home (silly since then there is no difference in what I’d be doing aside from the location and the meetings are virtual anyway.” I get to talk to him again on Monday; however, if I self screen (no training or materials provided for that) and have any symptoms or a temperature of 100F or more, I’m not supposed to come in. We were also notified last night that one of the teachers on our campus had a positive lab test for covid, but not to worry the cloth masks we brought from home (we’re told that we’d get some when school starts, but haven’t yet) kept us safe.
The district has no provisions for screening, contact tracing, or adequate plans for covering classes when teachers get sick. 60% of my students opted for in person classes (about 20 per class). The students were given the option to learn from home but the teachers had no option to teach from home. The “hybrid” model we’re supposed to use forces us to either pretend the in-person kids are virtual and have them watch from their laptops in class or have the virtual kids passively watch from the webcam (not yet installed) with little to no interaction with the teacher (the solution proposed was to use multiple screens and/or computers to try to simultaneously teach virtually and in person. When they tried to demonstrate this to us, the trainer broke down in tears because it went so poorly (the other trainer couldn’t get it to work at all for the first 30min and struggled the rest of the time).
But hey, 3 day weekend!