Things I anticipated before full-time, F2F school started in #bced in the COVID-era: long-term absences on a regular basis.

Things I didn't anticipate as much, but am now facing: constant popcorn absences (in and out multiple x per week) /1

I'm spending a solid chunk of my time catching kids up. While they're gone, I pop items into "While you were away" folders, but then they spend their next day back with me catching up between other blocks. I have 6 or 7 on my folder rack today waiting for kids next week. /2

Kids who are away, as always, just straight up miss experiential lessons, which, if I'm honest, comprises most of my class. That's always been true, but something I struggle with, because I have "nothing to show" for what kids missed. They just... missed it. /3

I'm not given extra time to develop online materials and post them, and we're not yet established enough in our online spaces to expect my students to do that independently. Even though I teach middle years, I get elem prep time hours (110 min/week) b/c I'm at an elem school /4

Time is most certainly a factor in all cases here. My workload is getting unreasonable and I'm not reaching the small groups I should be supporting regularly. Instead, I'm catching kids up all the time. /5

I'm *just* in the midst of setting up one of my main peer support systems called Spirit Buddies, so that will ease me slightly for sure. These groups meet every day for 10 min so the kids can give a little synopsis to whoever missed the day prior. /6

So, my questions:
1) Do you have an imaginative approach to this problem of chronic, but popcorn absences?

2) How are we approaching this with parents? Is it different if a kid misses one or three days? What about 2-3 non-consecutive days in a week? (has been happening OFTEN) /7

I knew the expectation of "catching up" would always be on me, but I wasn't very well-prepared for what that might look like and how much time it would *really* take if I tried to do it the way I always did. We can't be everything for everyone, all the time.

/end