Sunday, June 7, 2020

The Teacher Parade

Everything changed for our kids on March 13. That's when the principal of our school sent the email out to all the parents stating: 

The health and safety of our community is always our highest priority.  Today we demonstrated that clearly by dismissing students from school for the next week.  All public schools in our county will be closed from March 16-20, 2020.

This due to the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) on our lives. He ended the email with I look forward to seeing the Wildcats back on campus soon. Looking back, we obviously never went back, participating in nearly three months of distance learning from our public school. After every new day of working from home and schooling from home, my wife Amy and I got a little bit better with our cadence and working with our two daughters. Amy did most of the heavy lifting as she's always done, and thankfully since there's been no business travel for me since early March, I invested nearly every morning in our daughters' school work.

The girls' teachers also finally found their rhythm after the first few weeks of trying to figure out what the heck to do, how to teach online and how to ensure they were giving as much support per kid that they could. At first, they sent each family a sample checklist of work to do and a sample schedule of when to do it, and soon found that each family had their own unique situations and schedules. Soon after they moved to assigning work to the kids -- core reading, writing, math, science and more. I can't imagine what that transition was like for teachers, kids and parents not used to working this way, since I've worked virtually for nearly the past decade and run a virtual organization for the past five years. Of course, the reality for most parents was that school was/is a place of learning, of socializing, and also for child daycare. Add to that an after school program for kids whose parents and/or guardians worked all day. 

Then take it all away all at once. For those parents who remained employed, it became a juggling act of managing their jobs and managing their children at home. Plus, there were those families who didn't have internet at home and/or computer resources for their kids. Our school district, like many others, provided Chromebooks for families to use and tech companies donated WiFi hotspots for connectivity. We moved to virtual Zoom calls for the classes and leveraged Google Classroom for assigning work and completing it. Other outside resources were utilized as well, like Khan Academy, YouTube and others. 

Add to that families who lost their incomes and struggled to provide food and shelter for their kids. Thankfully our district provided breakfast and lunch for any children under 18 who it and will do so through the summer. 

Also, not all families got the resources or support they needed, and then there were those who just couldn't (or didn't) help their kids complete their schoolwork. Even with the support of our school district and school, and the teachers continuing to teach as best they could, it was a lot of work even for us. Their work totaled about 2-3 hours each day, being in 3rd and 5th grade, and we ensured our girls got the guidance and support they needed from us to get it all done. 

There's also a big difference between 2-3 hours of virtual learning and 6-7 hours of at-school learning, because there's been a whole bunch of time to fill in between and after. Especially when the parents are working. We also know it would've been exponentially harder if our girls were any younger. 

We did it, though. It was far from ideal and a lot of change all at once, and we still did it. We did it because we've always been invested in our girls' education. Regardless of our circumstance, it's an all-in investment for us, and we require the same from our girls. This was not what they signed up for either -- going from a pandemic to now social unrest in ever-changing world (we hope for the better). The girls have struggled with missing being at school and missing seeing their friends in person. 

The silver lining has been that, while our youngest Bryce is more autonomous with her schoolwork, her older sister Beatrice has benefited with more one-on-one attention from us helping her. That in turn prompted Bryce to want more individualized attention, which we also gave her. This hybrid world of virtual classroom instruction, virtual office hours with their teachers and our overall support definitely paid off for both girls. Again, not ideal, and we'll see what happens when we get to the next school year starting in August, knowing that our state will take a big hit in public school funding, equivalent to losing over $1,200 per student, probably even more than that. If there are in-person classes on campus again, they will be most likely smaller groups that will alternate days. 

We love our school, the teachers and the staff. The girls have been going there since preschool and we've been involved since the very beginning, especially Amy. She's also served as PTA president and vice-president for the past three years. However, because we couldn't do anything in person, the end-of-school activities and ceremonies were bittersweet. Beatrice finished 5th grade and will be going to middle school in the fall. She had a virtual "graduation" ceremony and then we drove through the school parking lot to get her leadership award certificate, club participation certificates, and her 5th grade completion certificate. Bryce will continue at the same school going into 4th grade, and her 3rd grade teacher put together a sweet awards ceremony, dubbing Bryce "Brilliant Bryce". Both their teachers worked hard at helping our kids finish as strong as possible considering the circumstances. Beatrice's band teacher also struggled to keep all the band kids engaged until the end of the year, and yet she still pulled together a wonderful virtual concert, with Bea being one fo the flute players. 

Out of all the end-of-year activities, the simultaneously most wonderful and heart-wrenching part was the teacher parade. Led by a police motorcycle escort and ending with a fire truck (one of the parents is a fireman), our principal, teachers and staff drove decorated cars from the school parking lot and down through many our school district neighborhoods. They waved at us cheering them on, and we held our signs of love and thanks proudly. In that moment, all the teachers I ever loved and cared about growing up, those who truly cared about me and who wanted me to learn and be a better human, I imagined were also riding in the cars with our girls' teachers. Tears streamed down my face and hope filled my heart for what's to come. 


Other "Days of Coronavirus" posts:

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