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!
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