Pandemic Back to School
Week 24
Day 160 – Sunday, August 23, 2020
Today was significantly more laid back. I did make a small Walmart run at 7am to get a couple of things, then I stopped at Starbucks, and went to the gas station. I ate my breakfast on the deck with my Starbucks and enjoyed being outside before it warmed up too much. It was quite foggy at 7am but had mostly cleared off by 8.
I did a few laundry loads of bedding, and vacuumed.
For lunch, Leah and I met Libby and her mom at the park for a picnic. The girls ate and made bracelets for over an hour before the moms needed bathrooms. All public bathrooms are still locked up. Our homeless population has really grown, and it makes me sad. Besides the shelter downtown, I don’t think there is anywhere for them to use an actual bathroom.
Leah has started the “I don’t want to go to school” chant…. Her math teacher called tonight to check in and see if we have any questions. I’m glad the girls are finally going to start school.
Dinner was a quick and simple affair of smoked sausage and cooked cabbage.
Tonight, I worked on making Boom Cards for my students. Boom Cards are interactive digital “flash cards” where you can drag and drop text and images to create just about anything.
It was a good weekend!
Day 161 – Monday, August 24, 2020
Last night the dissolvable stitch from my biopsy came out. I was starting to wonder if it ever would. It’s pretty itchy, so I’m keeping it covered for a bit longer. I don’t want to accidentally scratch it.
The girls had a long, first day of school. Elijah and I are exhausted too. We were all pretty much ready for bed at 6pm.
I received the following texts today:
11:03 am
H: Not going to lie, going to every class everyday is a lot more chaotic and tiring than block schedule
11:21 am
H: Soo I can’t actually get into my locker because it jams really bad
H: And I’m not strong enough to get it...
H: I’ve had to get help the times I’ve used it and now I have to carry around a bunch of textbooks because I can’t put them away
1:20 pm
H: I need to remember to start bringing a water bottle
2:35 pm
L: I don’t have lunch with Libby
Not exactly a banner day for the Rosen girls….
I found out about another preschool student of mine, and that two more middle school students went virtual. As of today, I have 48 in person elementary students, 6 in person middle school students, 22 in person high school students, and 18 virtual students for a grand total of 94 students.
I spent the day creating data sheets for each of my students, and I finished the elementary and the middle school.
After school, I signed a million first day of school papers. Leah and I have decided that when this week is over, we might need another 5 months off.
Day 162 - Tuesday, August 25, 2020
I started off the day getting briefly stuck between two trains on Ohio Street. Normally, when I see the yellow flashing light announcing that there is a train half a mile down the short cut street I usually turn down, I go straight and get onto the expressway. This morning there was a train blocking my way to the expressway. I have literally never seen a train on that track, and I have driven that way OFTEN over the past 6 years. That track also crosses the short cut road, but I thought it might be the only train. The car in front of me and I sped to beat that train (we beat it by a good 30 seconds, it wasn’t a dangerous close call or anything… I’m no risk taker). Just a bit up the road, the normal train WAS crossing. Stuck between two trains. Thankfully, the 2ndtrain had almost passed at that point.
I needed to make a phone call this morning, and since I don’t get cell reception in my building, I decided to unplug everything on my office phone to see if it would work. It did reset the phone, and it does work… kind of. It works as a speaker phone, but I still can’t hear anything out of the handset. It’s an improvement. A couple of hours later, I got an email from the tech person saying they had reset my phone. At least I was able to make my phone call.
I finished up creating/updating data sheets for all of my students and got them printed off for September. I’ll be ready to go next week!
Hannah had a rough day at school. Leah “hated everything” about school and never wants to return (this is not new). Elijah had a fabulous day at school and asked to stay late to work on a extra-curricular project with some friends. One out of three isn’t great, but at least one kid enjoyed their day.
I got my usual “2pm on a school day” headache that didn’t respond to Advil, so I drank a diet Dr Pepper when I got home. I felt so much peppier!
After a 9:30am “lunch” and a rough day, Hannah stopped at Sonic after school, so she didn’t eat dinner…. We are not fans of this new schedule!
Day 163 – Wednesday, August 26, 2020
The day started out well, I spent most of the morning organizing and figuring out what my first therapy sessions are going to look like. They are going to look like “log into my Google Classroom”!
After lunch, I found out that I had to call all the parents for my virtual students. It wasn’t too big of a deal for the students I had last year, but about half of them are new to me. I am not a fan of calling strangers. However, it went fine. I left quite a few messages, but I’m sure most of those will not result in return phone calls. I had to make all of my calls on speaker phone because the handset still doesn’t work. I guess I’m happy that it works as a speakerphone…
I went to help kindergarten with their dismissal. There are some real live wires in kindergarten, lol. They don’t really need my help, but I’m not doing anything else at that time. Right before dismissal, the principal announced there would be a short teachers’ meeting after school…. I kind of thought it would be about tomorrow when all the kids come to school on the same day. It was not. It was a staffing meeting to let us know that neither kindergarten nor 1st grade is big enough this year to have two classes. We are losing a 1stgrade long term sub and a kindergarten teacher will move to Virtual Academy. I was certainly not expecting that announcement. Most of the teachers stayed to talk it over, but I left to pick up Elijah. It was a real bummer for the end of a pretty good day.
After school, Leah begged to go to Dollar Tree to buy candy, so I took her. She picked out $4 worth of sour gummy candy.
Hannah came home with at least 10 bagels from Panera that her beloved English teacher sent with her because he bought too many for class.
Day 164 – Thursday, August 27, 2020
Our principal brought us donuts this morning to improve morale. I refrained but brought one home for Elijah. He loves donuts more than any other dessert.
I’m pretty much ready to start seeing my students on Monday! I spent the morning putting assignments into Google Classroom and scheduling them for specific days. The trick will be to get everyone logged into their school emails to accept the invitation to my Google Classroom,,,
I also made therapy schedules and handed them out to teachers. That took a little longer than it should have since the printer wanted to print the Excel spreadsheet front and back…. Normally, that would be great, but I had all the schedules in one spreadsheet and needed them printed on just one side so I could hand them out. The same printer has stopped printing front and back for PDFs, which I generally want it to do.
After lunch I worked on some future assignments. Using mostly digital therapy materials is certainly different than I’m used to.
Today was our first day with all the students in the building at one time. I think it went pretty well. When I went to help with kindergarten dismissal, the WebEx conference call the principal is using to call students out to their vehicles wouldn’t play audio on the computer. I put the app on my phone, and it played through that just fine. Kind of weird.
Around the time Leah got on her bus (2:30pm), a torrential downpour came through. She got wet, the bus windows were down, so the seats were wet too. It was mostly over by the time we started dismissing the elementary students.
When I got home, I moved the grill to the covered front porch to grill burgers. It’s a super high “awning”, as high as the vaulted ceiling, but I don’t like grilling there. I used less charcoal for a smaller fire, and it worked out fine. If I hadn’t moved it, it would have surely rained and put the fire out…
Tomorrow, the remnants of Hurricane Laura are due to arrive, but they are only predicting half an inch of rain…. We probably got more than that this afternoon.
Day 165 – Friday, August 28, 2020
We made it through the first full week of school. Next week will be my first “real” week where I see all of my students. The first month may be a little hit or miss since every virtual student with an IEP has to have a case conference, and some of them aren’t scheduled until the last week in September. I have to run at least four myself.
At lunch Elijah sent me a text that said, “A group of teachers were going around at lunch talking to people. We think someone got COVID at Sig, but even the teachers are confused right now.” Around 2:00, my phone got a notification from the local paper that said, “22 Students at Signature School to be quarantined”. When I picked up Elijah, he told me who tested positive. I got a text from a friend that verified who it was. The same student who was pulled out of school on the first day of school (23 days ago) because their mom tested positive.
After eight days of school for the county school system, the county COVID rates look to be on the uptick.
This morning, I walked into our now double sized kindergarten classroom (there is a moveable dividing wall between the classes), and I almost cried at how many kids were now in one class. Twenty-six kindergarteners spread six feet apart in a giant double room is not the way it’s supposed to be. I needed to check in about one of my new students who has a hearing impairment before his current teacher moves to “remote teaching”.
At dismissal, I was helping one of my new students to the bus because they were having a hard time, a really hard time. I was summarily dismissed by the person taking the group to the bus, even though the student continued to cling to my hand… I headed back to help with the rest of the kindergarteners, when I heard the call for help over the walkie…. It was very frustrating since I’m trained for those situations.
I guess it sounds like a crazy day, but the rest of it was pretty uneventful, thankfully. The remnants of Hurricane Laura came through… just a bit of rain here and there.
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