3/19
Rainy days at the end of winter are much better than snowy ones. We have had snow days in April several years, so a little drizzle isn’t a big deal. But it sure is better setting up a temporary school when the sun is shining.
Today felt a bit more like a very big wave if not a tsunami. Emails didn’t subside, which is good really because many of them reflect our students’ efforts to complete activities or get clarification to do so. Communication is working for a fairly good percent of the community. Kids are dropping in to Google Meet sessions to say hi and make sure they are on the right track. Completed activities are coming in through Classroom. Not everyone is there yet for a number of reasons. Not a bad start, though.
So we are studying the behavior of our great big group of students, teachers and parents. Some aren’t connecting just yet because their Internet connectivity is an issue. The district is working to get everyone online who isn’t. (We are even suggesting that good neighbors might drop their wifi passwords to allow someone nearby to get online who otherwise can’t right now. No imperative there, since security concerns never go away.) Others may not be joining in just because it all feels like a series of those snow days during which we don’t try to keep the learning going in this fashion. And it wouldn’t be surprising to know that some aren’t feeling normal enough to do something this abnormal; there’s plenty of stress to go around, and that makes the unusual even tougher to work through sometimes.
Still we will continue to reach out every way we can to establish consistent contact. There have been emails, phone calls, even some knocking on doors across the district to try to bring everyone in to this school without walls. Some of us have been through a lot of years of using every move imaginable to help the kids of South Portland get the most out of every day that they can. We don’t give up easy.
So Friday, we will do it again.
4 days down.
spk
><>
Rainy days at the end of winter are much better than snowy ones. We have had snow days in April several years, so a little drizzle isn’t a big deal. But it sure is better setting up a temporary school when the sun is shining.
Today felt a bit more like a very big wave if not a tsunami. Emails didn’t subside, which is good really because many of them reflect our students’ efforts to complete activities or get clarification to do so. Communication is working for a fairly good percent of the community. Kids are dropping in to Google Meet sessions to say hi and make sure they are on the right track. Completed activities are coming in through Classroom. Not everyone is there yet for a number of reasons. Not a bad start, though.
So we are studying the behavior of our great big group of students, teachers and parents. Some aren’t connecting just yet because their Internet connectivity is an issue. The district is working to get everyone online who isn’t. (We are even suggesting that good neighbors might drop their wifi passwords to allow someone nearby to get online who otherwise can’t right now. No imperative there, since security concerns never go away.) Others may not be joining in just because it all feels like a series of those snow days during which we don’t try to keep the learning going in this fashion. And it wouldn’t be surprising to know that some aren’t feeling normal enough to do something this abnormal; there’s plenty of stress to go around, and that makes the unusual even tougher to work through sometimes.
Still we will continue to reach out every way we can to establish consistent contact. There have been emails, phone calls, even some knocking on doors across the district to try to bring everyone in to this school without walls. Some of us have been through a lot of years of using every move imaginable to help the kids of South Portland get the most out of every day that they can. We don’t give up easy.
So Friday, we will do it again.
4 days down.
spk
><>
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