October 6, 2020
I am presently working as a substitute teacher in area public schools in the northwest corner of Connecticut. So far, I have worked with students in grades five through ten as the full day substitute for science teachers in one of the middle schools and at the regional high school.
The health precautions to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV2 are many. The students are required to wear face masks covering their mouths and noses throughout the day in the classrooms. They have barriers set up at lunch tables—the only time they may take off their masks inside the buildings. They are seated at desks or tables with two yards (two meters) of space between each other. The students are well-behaved, and characteristically for their age, very resilient.
Every student has a personal laptop. The teachers use desktops and/or laptops in class. They have live video feeds for remote learners (students studying from home). And, most of the work involves documents shared on a website for the class. Students collaborate on the shared documents, which may include discussion tasks or presentation instructions. Students have the option to occasionally or entirely study from home. And, the teachers can teach from home whenever they are even slightly ill; hence, an increased demand for substitute teachers.
In the middle school, movement is greatly decreased not only by excessive use of laptops. Students are not rotating to different teachers, but rather the subject teachers are rotating. For sports in middle school, the students singular outdoor option is no-contact soccer—basically just passing practice. The playground equipment is cordoned-off, as well. There are no after-school sports for middle school now. At the high school, there are after-school team sport practices, but students have to wear face masks. At this school, students do move about the building for their different classes, but all of the classes are blocks of approximately eighty minutes.
On the positive side, students are not missing an entire year of schooling as we all wait for resolution to the 2020 pandemic in the form of a vaccination. However, experiencing school days with the new safety protocols is bizarre. We can get used to it, but we hope it does not continue too long.