Last week, the state’s largest teacher’s union said it would stand behind any teacher who didn’t want to return to an in-person classroom setting. Many teachers have expressed concerns about health risks, both for kids and for themselves, as well as the lack of funding to create safer conditions at schools.
Source: “I’ll start my 28th year teaching in a few weeks. But will I survive it?” | Michigan Radio
Call it karma or science (it’s science), but over the weekend news broke that nine people, both students and staff, had tested positive for the coronavirus at North Paulding High School. This is the Georgia school made notorious last week by a photo of a hallway swarming with shoulder-to-shoulder unmasked students. It’s where the girl who posted that photo online was initially suspended for her whistleblowing, and where the superintendent claimed, “wearing a mask is a personal choice and there is no practical way to enforce a mandate to wear them.” It is also the place where irony died, because the school had proved it did have at least one tool — suspension — for dealing with students it believed were in the wrong.
North Paulding has temporarily closed.
But for when they return to the classroom, here are some additional notes for school systems and other ruling bodies on how to enforce mandates:
Punish mask noncompliance the way many schools have for decades wrongly punished teenage girls for spaghetti straps, shorter skirts and scooped necklines (all prohibited in North Paulding’s dress code), yanking those girls out of class for “distracting” their fellow classmates with scandalous body parts like knee caps.
You know what is truly a distraction? Being yanked out of class while you’re just trying to learn trigonometry. Hearing that your male classmates’ learning experience is your responsibility. Fearing that a visible bra strap, or the “personal choice” of your clothing will get you called a slut.
But I digress. North Paulding’s handbook also says the administration “reserves the right to alter the dress code for special occasions,” and as this pandemic is pretty special, I would advise school districts to picture a face without a mask as if it’s a girl without sleeves, and proceed accordingly.
In many places, students returning to school buildings will be required to wear masks. These strategies can help elementary students adjust.
Source: How to Help Elementary Students Get Used to Masks | Edutopia
The state Senate has scheduled an unusual Saturday session for this weekend, and while nothing is yet certain, early indications are that the goal will be to pass measures related to the return to school this fall.
Less clear is whether the agenda will include bipartisan solutions to pandemic-related challenges or partisan schemes that use the health crisis to push privatization.
If being born into Generation X ever gave me anything, it has been a lifetime of training in lowered expectations. And as we chaotically hurtle toward the start of a new school year in the midst of a still explosive health crisis, my slacker parenting technique has never been stronger.
Source: Why I’m OK with my kids “falling behind” in school during the pandemic | Salon.com
By the end of this week, every school district and charter school in Michigan will have filed its reopening plans for the 2020-21 school year.
If the nearly two dozen plans or announcements made so far are any indication, most public school students can expect to start the school year similar to the way they ended the last: online.