NEWARK – Local teachers are struggling as internet problems have exacerbated the already difficult task of moving forward with in-person and virtual learning simultaneously as the pandemic continues.
Though Worcester County Public Schools officials believe the internet connectivity issues of the past week have been corrected, they don’t dispute the fact that teachers are dealing with a lot.
“Our teachers are our frontline heroes through all this,” said Annette Wallace, the school system’s chief academic officer for grades 9-12.
Though the school year started virtually, with distance learning for all students, a first wave of students returned to school buildings Sept. 28. Additional students have been brought in every two weeks since and roughly 56% of the school system’s students have now returned to in-person learning. Any additional students who want to return to in-person learning are expected to return to school this month, and parents are now being asked to submit an opt-out form if they want to keep their kids in distance learning for the rest of the school year.
“I think parents are pleased with how we’ve opened schools,” said Dee Shorts, chief academic officer for prekindergarten through eighth grade.
Teachers, however, are feeling the strain. A person who identified themselves only as a Worcester County Public Schools teacher went to the Reddit Maryland page to describe the difficulties teachers encountered with virtual learning and with teaching hybrid classes made up of some face-to-face students and distance learners. The post, “School reopenings as seen from the perspective of a Worcester County teacher,” says teaching will become even more complicated if classrooms don’t physically have space for all of the in-person learners.
“Now this isn’t a problem for a few of the schools in the district, but my school and the middle school next door do not have the classrooms big enough to accommodate every student returning while continuing to maintain the required 6 feet distancing between students,” the post reads. “So instead, they plan to put the ‘overflow’ students in a separate room, where they would Zoom into the main room with the teacher.”
The post says teachers are being asked to come up with three lesson plans—one for face-to-face students, one for distance learners and one for overflow students.
Shorts, however, said in an interview last week that there were not multiple lesson plans.
“We don’t have two sets of plans,” she said. “That is a piece that makes the distance learning experience very related and close to face-to-face learning.”
The Reddit post also questions the support teachers are getting from school system administration.
“This entire push to reopen schools are making us teachers into unwilling guinea pigs so that the superintendent can look good for the state,” the post reads. “But they are only able to look good by hiding information from parents, teachers and students.”
Wallace last week, however, said that the school system was providing all of the COVID-19 information it was required to with its Responsible Return plan.
“We follow every protocol put in place in our plan, which was approved by the health department. We have made every contact we should be making,” Wallace said, adding that it was the health department that notified the school system when there was a positive COVID-19 test. “The health department is in the driver’s seat here.”
While the Reddit post says teachers are being pushed to the limit, Wallace acknowledged that educators were under a lot of stress and said the school system was doing what it could to help. She said that lately, the school system was offering mental health resources and stressing the importance of self care.
“We’re trying to find creative ways to pay it forward to them,” she said. “One of the things we’d appreciate is grace for our teachers and our school system. None of us have dealt with this before.”
Some teachers feel the administration is apathetic though. The Reddit post encourages parents to share their frustrations with the school system and slow the opening process.
“Our custodial staff rarely wears their masks properly, there is no county wide testing mandate, and teachers are actively discouraged from being tested as they cannot return to school while the results are pending, students are lying during the check in process which leads to them being sent to the nurse an hour or two into the day and the school system is actively trying to get around the social distancing requirements in order to squeeze as many people into the classrooms as possible,” the post reads. “With the internet down, teachers are being told to use their phones as hotspots to upload video lessons for students at home (without additional planning time to make the videos). We are stretched way too thin, and the school system is acting like everything is going great.”
The anonymous teacher also said the strain is intensified when there are educators out because they are awaiting COVID test results.
“Educational Assistants are also being pulled daily to substitute for teachers that are awaiting test results, which means that students with IEPs are without their legally required accommodations in a lot of cases,” the teacher wrote.
The entire post can be seen here.
