Let me share some of my second-hand experiences. My wife is first-grade teacher. I won't say which school district, because there are some vengeful spirits out there. https://twitter.com/AliyyaSwaby/status/1319673806529712130

so to begin, she was teacher in maryland for 5 years before covid hit. She decided to dial it back and become a reading specialist for the past couple of years in a local school district. Why am I saying all this? The pay she was offered was dismal.

teachers are supposed to be garanteed a certain step and level of pay that comes with the experience they have. They didn't want to honor any of it. Even still, she was being paid better than the reading specialist position.

She got hired about a week before the school year started. The district did not yet know whether they'd be opting for in-person or online learning.

At the 11th hour of the final week, they opted for online learning for the month of September. Then they switched to a hybrid model where some kids could show up in-person if they wanted. One pod of kids shows up two days, another pod shows up two days. Reduces exposure, ya?

then they decide "let's let both pods of kids show up on fridays together." thus nullifying the entire fucking point.

More beside that, as they were ramping up to prepare for online learning, she was placed in the position of ensuring each student got their tech from the school. Her class was over 30 students. She had to confirm each and every child got a chromebook or ipad.

I bring this up, because typically logistics and tech in the classroom is an administrative function. On top of that, she had to make sure all children could reach and log in to schoology. That means your teachers gets to play IT specialist.

Oh, the IT support contractors were still technically around for the districts, but they realized really fast there weren't enough of them. If you assumed this means teachers are getting extra pay for having to deal with technical support issues, LOL. NAH.

So she's now responsible for ensuring all kids can log in, all kids have necessary hardware. If they don't have internet access, informing them that they can get sim cards or hotspots through the school district.

Shes responsible for working with schoology. This year was the first time many were exposed to this fucking terrible content management system. Its positively awful. I say that I use wordpress and actually like it. So I guess you can call me a sadist.

Its hard to navigate, hard to configure, and whats more is that schoology isn't a UI/UX designed with K-5 students in mind. Its high school level learning management software.

so in an effort to make things easier, you place large, easy to click buttons everywhere. Bear in mind, that my wife isn't a graphic designer, but that through other sites like say pinterest or teachers pay teachers, you can pay for these accessibility buttons.

At first, they were using schoology's conferences platform to do online learning and she was use to the UI. It lets the teachers mute the whole class, and limits what the students can do. This worked fine for the first week, when all the teachers were allowed to work from home.

After the first week, the admin demanded that teachers start workign in the classrooms at school instead of at home. Bear in mind, they hadn't gone back to in-person learning just yet. They were just there for shits and giggles.

Because they sure as hell weren't being given time to prepare their classrooms for the arrival of in-person students. My wife would have days where she was up at 6am to get ready, prep some work before leaving, drive 20 minutes to the school, and wouldn't be home till 5 or later

school lets out at about 3? 3:30ish? And even once she got home, the work doesn't end. We'd have dinner together. maybe take a half an hour together at the TV to be a couple, then she'd work until like 9-10pm. Preparing lesson plans, powerpoint slides, schoology, etc.

So here's the best part. You know how I announced that some kids stay online, and some kids do hybrid learning (a few days on, a few days off) well, teachers have to develop lesson plans for both the in-person and the online kids.

Which, of course contributes to a massive load of work they have to do. The district promised that they would have staff to handle online learning, and then just basically doubled their workload and told them to deal with it.

along side all of that, the teachers are responsible for mananging attendance and truancy for both in-person and online students. Typically, teachers perform attendence, hand in the attendance sheet to admin staff, and if there is a pattern of absensce, its admin's problem.

No, she has to take attendance, call every student's house who hasn't shown up every single day. Twice. to ask why they aren't showing up. Every fucking day.

Online learning in and of itself is extremely difficult, because now, not only do you have to deal with the student and their difficulties in getting use to video conferencing when they're 5-6 years old... you gotta deal with the parents, or the guardian constantly now.

What I mean by this is that, on the first day of online learning and going back to school, my wife heard an adult shout, with the entire class listening "This bitch doesn't know what the fuck she's doing". Across an entire class of 5-6 year olds.

If you try to install discipline and routine into the children and have them calm down when they are throwing a tantrum the parents will send you nasty grams. About how you picked on their kid and how it wasn't fair.

Then you have the parents refusing to let the kids do things independently. "Oh, they can't do that." When they should be encouraging them to try.

then you have the parents very obviously doing the work for the students. You can tell because there are logins at 10,10:30 pm that are almost perfectly done, and then the next day when they are asked to do the same thing and review what they did... they have no idea.

The teacher's union is basically doing next to nothing. They keep saying that they're fighting for the teachers, and as of yet, I'm not seeing any improvements at all.

and in the meantime, at least one teacher in the district got sick with COVID (not at the same school as my wife, but... still, concerning) and they're just acting like nothing happened. Business as usual.

Most of the children are operating at a K or pre-K level right now. School let out in michigan around March. And when they closed the schools, there was no plan. Absences weren't tracked, and there was no online learning strategy.

combine that with whats commonly referred to as the "summer slide" in which students lose a portion of their learning from last year, and.. you have children that barely know how to write letters. barely know letter sounds. These kids have all lost half a year at this point.

Its a lot to watch. I do everything I can to make sure my wife's landing when she comes home is as soft as I can make it. Dinner gets done, dishes get done, I help make the crafts for the in-person kids for craft projects, I've helped troubleshoot computer hardware problems

I constantly help configure things in schoology, I help format powerpoint slides and spreadsheets, because thats what you do for your other half when you feel powerless. You share your time with them any way you can. Its still incredibly hard to watch this.

No increase in pay, very little assistance, pointless fucking staff meetings that could've been emails for teachers who are already stretched thin on time. The most recent message gave us both a hearty chuckle.

admin staff sent an e-mail with recommendations for those who are afraid of the rising COVID infections over fall, and what is gonna be done in the district. The administration is telling them to socially distance from their peers. Eat lunch alone. In a closet. In your car.

which yes, social distancing is one strategy, of course. But they're completely oblivious to the fact that most teachers are using their lunch period to resolve student problems or do "truancy checks" and call parents because there is literally no time in the day.

Okay. So you've made it this far down the thread and you're probably wondering: Why is she still there?

Well, my wife loves teaching children. First grade is her favorite. When all is said and done, she loves the kids. and she puts so much love and attention to detail into little things to make her kids successful.

That's one part of it. The other part? Let's say that this is too overwhelming for you and you just want to get out. You can't handle the pressure. If you up and quit, then the district can blacklist you across the entire state of Michigan. Good luck getting a teaching job.

So this is where it ends. If you get anything out of this, I want you to remember that the teachers are suffering right along with you. The unions aren't doing anything, and admin staff is trying to stretch everyone to the breaking point.

Be kind. Be patient. This pandemic is hell for everyone. If its within your power and capacity to be doing online learning, for the love of god do it. You may believe that the education quality is low, but I'd like to see my wife (and your child) live to complain about it later.