That scar on my neck? That was a completely unexpected left carotid endarterectomy that ended my school year early some seven years ago. I’m fine now, but that was one wild raft ride through the rapids, complete with a visit to the ICU. You never know… No matter how healthy you seem or how careful you are, reality can bite at unexpected moments — even on a completely peaceful Sunday morning while composing review questions for final exams.

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Sticking to my thread from the last post: What is coming at you, teacher? As I read my social media feeds, I find a number of teachers on the fence about retiring or quitting. To go or not to go? “I love my job but…” their posts say. Should I risk it?

I fully understand. Teaching is not a job as much as a calling. That classroom beckons, a huge annual adventure filled with exciting new faces. Walls are being decorated with posters and favorite internet memes even now by eager teachers, hoping for in-class instruction and determined to be ready for the upcoming year.

If you are on the fence about returning this year, though, I want to help. I’m off the fence myself. I’m retired, but if I still had my girls at home, I know I would home school this year. I’m in Cook County, Illinois, however, not far from Chicago. I would feel differently if I lived in a quiet county in Alaska or North Dakota.

Here’s a consideration I’d put in my t-chart if I were deciding whether or not to go back: What is my insurance situation? If you teach, you almost undoubtedly have health insurance. How good is that insurance? If you leave, how will you replace your insurance? Can you use a spouse’s policy? You can COBRA, but COBRA’s price often shocks people. You end up paying for the part your district covered previously. That relatively painless policy may suddenly cost over four figures each month.

One of the perks of teaching used to be superior health care policies. Like government workers, teachers often received top-quality insurance with low deductibles and extensive coverage, low or no co-pay, drug plans that covered almost everything, plus dental insurance and help with glasses. Those policies helped make up for the low salaries starting teachers received.

But that was then. This is now. A few districts still have great insurance. Many others have pretty good insurance with higher deductibles and stiffer copays. Some have mediocre insurance with limited networks and less-favorable coverage. A few are running self-insured or are offering catastrophic plans with those $1,000 deductibles. You may have a choice between a PPO and an HMO. Multitudinous options exist — the good, the bad, the ugly and even the abominable.

And unusual drugs drain the bank fast. Even”usual” drugs can be a strain. Epi-pens currently cost over $600. Insulin — my friend’s daughter makes trips to Canada because that’s the only way she can afford a drug she requires to survive. (One tip: Don’t take a new drug home until you know the cost. Pharmacies may not let you return a drug once it leaves the premises. Sometimes your doctor.can prescribe a more affordable alternative.)

This post is about numbers, nebulous numbers, but numbers that should still be part of any decision-making process. What happens if you actually get sick? Your odds on getting well remain strong — and those odds are improving as doctors get COVID experience — but the process seems to be taking weeks or even months for many people. What drugs will be prescribed? What medical care will you need?

How does your medical plan work? Here’s a sample from the Affordable Care Act plans.

From https://www.insurance.com/health-insurance/health-insurance-basics/how-to-buy-an-individual-health-plan.html:

“Health plans in the Affordable Care Act marketplace are divided into four categories:

• Bronze – Plan pays 60% of your health care costs. You pay 40%.
• Silver – Plan pays 70% of your health care costs. You pay 30%.
• Gold – Plan pays 80% of your health care costs. You pay 20%.
• Platinum – Plan pays 90% of your health care costs. You pay 10%.”

Reader, let me throw in one quick math fact: 30% of $40,000 is $12,000. An overnight stay at a hospital can easily run over $40,000.

So how good is your district’s insurance? How good is your health network? Should you make changes during an upcoming open enrollment period? I moved from a PPO to an HMO some years ago due to PPO costs. The HMO has worked well enough. My primary care physician is caring and helpful. My access to specialists is adequate and often much better than adequate. I am lucky enough to live in a state with seven medical schools, most of them near me. The HMO covers pretty much everything except for co-pays.

If you consider changing plans, do your research. Are HMO customers happy? Why or why not? What doctors are available to you? Go to your calculator app and run some numbers as part of the process. What percentage of your care do you currently cover? How much does that amount to in different scenarios? You have to look carefully at your policy. What about mental health care and rehab expenses? Policies are filled with limits, a few that benefit you and others that do not.

Eduhonesty: Now I have to pass this question on to readers. How will you manage insurance if you quit your position? Can you use spousal insurance? If you are just out of school, could your parent(s) pick you up? Do you want to stay where you are? Do you want to change insurance?

You definitely should have insurance right now. You may or may not want to be in a classroom. Here’s one wild card in the deck: As people quit, vacancies will open up. Do you want to try to switch to the better-funded district this year? The district with excellent insurance and an actual budget for supplies? The district that may actually be able to implement most of the CDC guidelines because that district has enough money to do so?

I recognize this post has not provided the Great Solution to any problem. I’ve raised more issues than I’ve solved. News articles seem to be outlining risks right now and emphasizing the possible dangers of going into the classroom. On the backside of those stories will be the teachers and students who do get ill. Many teachers will become ill if we reopen without regard to local conditions. We are in the middle of July with the coronavirus nowhere near under control. .

So today’s advice: Look at your insurance plan. Can you do better? How could you do better? How should you factor this into your possible plan to quit or retire? Health trumps finances obviously, but any plan you make demands some type of health coverage.

Hugs to my readers.

P.S. I’ll throw in one more item for your t-chart: What does your district plan to do if you have to quarantine during the year?

Some districts are expecting teachers to use sick days if they have to quarantine for COVID. You will use your sick days whether you are sick or not. That’s appalling. It may potentially be a much bigger loss than some teachers understand yet, especially if teachers are home for multiple periods of quarantine. My retirement check was boosted by my unused sick days. In Illinois and other places, if you don’t use those sick days, they add on to the total days used to calculate your pension. Every month I am rewarded for the fact I almost never stayed out sick.

As far as that quarantine sick leave question: This issue’s worth marching for, even worth a strike. A sick-leave for quarantine policy has the potential to chop hundreds of dollars a month off pensions down the line for unlucky teachers in the wrong areas who end up going in and out of virtual learning while quarantined. I would hope districts would leave sick leave alone and simply shift to virtual learning — but I would never leave that up to the benevolence of the district.

Even if pension issues don’t exist, emergencies happen and you may need that accumulated sick leave later. If that left carotid endarterectomy had occurred in the middle of the school year, instead of right before finals, my unused sick leave days at retirement would have been badly depleted. You may or may not find those days useful for retirement purposes.

You definitely want them for the morning when you suddenly develop double vision and end up in the hospital for a week, surrounded by kindly doctors giving you all sorts of bewildering advice that ends in major surgery. When the vascular surgeon wires you up like some modern version of Elsa Lanchester in The Bride of Frankenstein Returns because he is about to shut off a major source of blood flow to your brain, you want the best health care coverage possible.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” (John Lennon, Allen Saunders and others.)

Fight for that sick leave.

P.P.S. Useful comment from a friend: Check out AFLAC, which provides a cash benefit directly to the insured, money for expenses not covered by your health insurance.

Here’s a thought for us all:

From https://m.facebook.com/ictlearnwichita/?ref=bookmarks

If teacher’s social media posts are any indicator, the U.S. educational system is nearing Defcon 2 where reopening is concerned. The Coronavirus took a great leap upward with re-openings across the country. Many teachers are scared to go back. Many school boards and school administrations are trying to figure out which direction to take. The American Academy of Pediatrics has been pushing for schools to reopen with students physically in the classrooms this fall, observing especially that evidence is piling up to show isolation has led to mental health issues that must be weighed against other health risks. In the meantime, teachers are sharing sites with masks and face shield instructions, debating how they will manage new safety requirements. Some are retiring. A few are even resigning with COVID fears as the cause.

I saw this picture today, though, and I wanted to share its message with parents and teachers. As I write this, I am thinking of a local parent who posted to the neighborhood app that she is worried online schooling will prevent her son from getting his golf scholarship Other parents have chimed in on both sides of the elearning dilemma, some issuing warnings about dangers to immunocompromised kids and kids with diabetes, arthritis, other pre-existing conditions. On the other side are those parents who are frantically worried about learning losses from elearning.

I know a number of kids are aware of their parents’ worries, and adolescents especially are reflecting those worries as they communicate with friends over social media. The younger crowd may not be writing down their fears, but all children listen to their parents speak. Sometimes they may appear to be playing Mario Kart 8, but today’s children are experts at multitasking.

As much as kids appear to ignore adult conversation, morsels of that conversation are being chewed on all the time. The above picture says it all for me: Stay positive and model perseverance. Young people cannot control the current school situation. Sometimes their parents may be unable to affect plans they dislike. Parents near me are trying to get the district to open the two local high schools and allow students on campus. Maybe they will succeed. Maybe they won’t. In either case, I hope parents will not add to their children’s stress by sharing too many concerns.

Eduhonesty: We are making history right now. Every so often, a microbe slips off the leash, and COVID-19 remains nowhere near in control, despite some rah-rah speeches that ignore the numbers. Not only will there be no perfect choices for our next school year, sometimes there may not even be good choices — at least in comparison to 2019.

But attitude is huge and kids tend to adopt the attitude of their parents and teachers. If parents and teachers remain positive, our students will have a far greater chance of holding onto their own equanimity and enthusiasm for learning. At home, whatever the plan, the best approach will be to be enthusiastic about what happens.

“It’s so great that I have a chance to spend all this time with you!”

“I loved that video presentation you prepared on Costa Rica!”

“These new online bedtime stories are great. Didn’t Ms. Porter do a wonderful job of reading “A Porcupine Named Fluffy?”

“Be sure to wear your mask, but I know it will be fine. Maybe we can buy some fabric you like to make a new mask or two. That would be fun!”

“Yes, I imagine you don’t like the cafeteria changes, but maybe you can help me plan next week’s lunches. I bet we can come up with something more delicious than the old cafeteria meals.”

“I bought you the cutest penguin to hold your hand sanitizer. It attaches to your purse/backpack/belt loop.”

“We should make lawn signs for your birthday party! We need to plan the games for when we Zoom, too.”

“You should take up running to keep in shape for when sports open up again. Maybe we could all go biking more often.”

“Your report on the mating habits of armadillos is so interesting! Who knew armadillos did that? This is great research.”

For the kids’ sake, please let’s all try to sell whatever plan our local school district decides to put into play. In or out, remote or not, for the kids’ sake, we have to make the best or it. We want to encourage enthusiasm for this year and for all the years to come. When the next school year arrives, it will be a time to emphasize the importance and joy of learning — however we can manage to pursue that learning. Today more than ever, that question “What did you learn in school today?” should be worked into as many evenings as possible.

As to our real and valid concerns about COVID-related educational changes — I recommend we discuss those with other adults while out of earshot of the kids whenever possible.

Thomas Rhett wrote the lyrics. The song is “Be A Light,” with Keith Urban, Chris Tomlin, Hillary Scott & Reba McEntire. I’ll pick a few favorite lines:

“In a world full of hate, be a light
In a time full of doubt, just believe
In a place that needs change, make a difference.”

Hi teacher reader, and anyone else reading this today! Teaching is all about being the light and the change in kids’ lives. Even when we are sending a student to the Dean’s office with a referral form in hand, those referrals tend to be attempts to help a kid back on track while offering others the uninterrupted instruction they deserve.

Are you hurting today, reader? Did you give virtual teaching your absolute all, only to end the year on a down note?  Maybe you were riffed or even nonrenewed.  Maybe you were forced to pass a passel of kids who did nothing for months. Many schools did not let anyone fail.  Maybe you gave a “C” to one of those kids who did no work only to have angry parents attack you for their child’s non-effort.  How dare you lower his or her GPA!? If you had been a better teacher, maybe you would have received some work!!

I remain mystified by those administrators who made no allowances for the challenges of teachers trying to manage the remote learning needs of their own families while also helping all those middle or high school students who may or may not have entered their Google classrooms.  For many teachers, the last few months have been crazy busy and an abysmal downer. Whether by Zoom, Facebook or Google, so many teachers tried to make virtual learning work, with varying degrees of success.  

If you are hurting, maybe it will help to understand the whole game was loaded. For people in some places, no win was possible. I won’t dwell right now on the many reasons why that’s true. I’d like to provide support instead. Thomas Rhett wrote this song and made me think of my fellow educators: “Be a Light” – because that’s what teachers are. Teachers are lights in the darkness. In some times or neighborhoods, they may only be faint candles in fierce winds, trying their hardest to get that angry child to eat a little breakfast and calm down before the start of the day.  But day after day, they walk back in to help the adolescent girl who still cannot read, the frightened child who hopes dad will NOT be paroled, the lost boy who is hiding his confusion by cursing to get thrown out of class, and so many, many other children… all with their own stories and hopes, all carrying their own invisible baggage

Eduhonesty: You made it through the year. Be proud of yourself. Focus on what you accomplished and if you did not get the support you deserved, remember the faces that matter, the faces of the kids in your classroom. Despite all those mugs with apples on them, teachers remain one of the most underappreciated resources of our time.

In a time full of war, teachers fight for peace.

In a time full of doubt, teachers believe in students — and not just the advantaged ones. We believe in that girl who arrived at the age of fourteen with about twenty words of English. We believe in the boy with ADHD, as we try to teach him coping strategies to help stay focused. We believe in the girl who is juggling high school and a full time job at the supermarket, helping her at odd moments and during lunch with her homework. We believe in the OCD girl who is sometimes paralyzed because her rainbow has become too uneven, or the blue came out too dark, and we help guide her to a gentler place where a rainbow does not have to be abandoned because of one flaw. We quietly buy supplies for the homeless boy, and books for the girl whose single mother just lost her job.

In a world full of hate, teachers try to bring light.

In a time full of noise, sometimes teachers are the only ones listening to children crying out to be heard.

In a place that needs change — as so many do today — teachers provide safe havens for the sad, the struggling, the lonely and the hungry, along with books, Jolly Ranchers, healthier snacks, sparkly bookmarks, learning games and, most importantly, a sense of belonging.

Are you hurting today? “In a race you can’t win, slow it down. Yeah, you only get one go around… In a race you can’t win, just slow it down.” You worked and worked and worked and somehow it didn’t all get done? Forgive yourself. Some of the expectations in April and May were simply nuts. You can create the lesson. You can’t make Johnny log in.

We have been locked in the virtual fight, and I am beyond impressed with how valiantly the teachers I know have fought. But a number of you are feeling hammered in the endgame. Don’t. Just don’t. Take a deep breath, maybe find a guided meditation or bake some gingerbread cookies. Put the pain down. Teachers have been holding torches aloft through the spring of 2020, making a difference in America and all across the world. Many have been marching in streets across the country for weeks now, seeing the faces on their rosters in the face of George Floyd. Others have simply been filling out days and days of “paperwork,” trying to hold on to jobs that help feed their families, while also reading virtual bedtime stories to students scattered by quarantine.

Embrace that effort. Embrace yourself. In a time full of doubt, just believe in yourself.

The last verse of this song resonates with me:

“Yeah, it’s hard to live in color
When you just see black and white
In a world full of hate, be a light.”

And don’t let anybody dim your light because this year went sideways on us all. To all the teachers who tried to slay the dragon, while managing your own families, new technology, new software, children without access to technology or software, children missing their graduations and dances, children who were sad, afraid, or bored, holidays without celebrations, and day after day of new educational experiments, I’d like to say

P.S. And to any administrators or other decision makers who did not say thank-you — or who made it a practice to say some version of “thank-you but why did you do this when you should have done that instead?” — Shame on you!

Your search for the ideal mask may be well launched by now. In northern Illinois, most stores will not allow you to enter unless you cover your face. Many cities and suburbs require masks. Whether your geographic area requires masks or not, though, the CDC wants teachers and students to wear face coverings — masks for students over the age of two. I can see preschool children all across America happily chewing on those wet, slimy masks, and using them as Kleenex.

I’d like to start this post with a caveat that needs to be echoed through schools this fall: According to the CDC, you cannot rely on your mask. Maintaining 6-feet of social distancing remains vital to slowing the spread of the virus, Those masks help. The research shows mask usage slows infection rates. But even the unavailable N-95 is not 100% safe. That “N95” represents an efficiency rating from the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety: N95 masks filter out 95% of non-oil particles larger than .3 microns. They don’t filter out everything. Many cloth masks out there right now filter out far, far less. There’s a reason why so many articles emphasize masks should be worn to prevent YOU from getting other people sick.

You can’t trust masks. Kids will have to learn the appropriate behaviors for limiting the spread of germs. Reinforcing the need for clean hands and social distancing will be the first priority.

That said, the masks are coming. This post is especially for readers who are still only lightly acquainted with masks. Today’s a good time to begin working on finding the optimal mask. Masks can be even more complicated than shoes. A place to start untangling the mask question: Coronavirus Face Masks: What You Should Know by WebMD.

Flter pocket, nose wire and extra space are items to look for in your mask. Those filters are sometimes sold separately. The nose wire may be unnecessary and even one more thing to mess with on your face — which you are trying to avoid — but the right nose wire will yield a better seal for your mask.

I struggle with masks. I am small enough to shop the children’s section sometimes, and those adult masks often leak. Are you an unusual size? I’d be searching out those larger or smaller masks now, because some of your first attempts may be fails, even epic fails. Definition of an epic fail: It keeps falling off your face.

You want to try out masks and not merely for a half-hour jaunt to the grocery store. Come fall, you will be living in that mask all day if your district decides to go live. Can you do it? Can you do it without going nuts? The wrong mask is like the wrong shoes. You can get into school. You may manage to keep those shoes on when the kids are in the classroom. But you will be thinking about your feet when you should be thinking about metaphors or whatever-your-particular-subject instead.

Masks are a special problem for those of us who wear glasses. If you don’t have a good seal on top by your nose, warm air is guaranteed to fog your glasses. Certain breathing techniques can diminish this fogginess, but a mask that allows your glasses to fog too easily isn’t doing much of a job of keeping your breath in or the outside air out. Here is a place to start your fight against the fog: https://www.fastcompany.com/90486716/how-to-wear-a-mask-without-fogging-up-your-glasses.

If you are not the right size for most masks, you may wish to pull out a needle and thread. You can definitely make your own mask, even if you are not handy with a sewing machine. I searched “youtube video on how to make a covid mask” on Google and got “About 298,000,000 results (0.81 seconds).”  Yep, no shortage of helpful mask makers out there.

And if you create the mask version of a messed-up bedhead, well, you can always hide the mask. I have a large collection of scarves. I have been covering my mask with patterned silk. That adds one more layer to my mask and makes a fashion statement for our times. I just tuck the scarf in on top of my mask and tie it in back. Or drape it over my shoulder like below:

Other tips: Your skin will be oilier and more prone to irritation once you start wearing that mask regularly. You want to avoid products on your skin. Drop the foundation and other products below the mask.

Some doctors suggest you wash your face before putting on and taking off the mask. Well, you do you, depending on your skin type — that much washing would cause me trouble right there — but I’d say most of us should do that cleansing, with the observations that I would want to make sure my hands had already been thoroughly cleaned before I did that wash.

Materials will matter more for some than others, but almost everyone can manage cotton. If you are sensitive to fabrics, I’d research options. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/making-your-own-face-mask-some-fabrics-work-better-others-n1175966 provides useful information on picking the best fabric. A quick takeaway from that article: “In other words, if the fabric allows for a substantial amount of light to shine through, it’s probably going to allow tiny viral particles through, as well.”

If you wear earrings, life will be easier with hoops. Ties and elastic bands tend to snag on earrings, even posts. Some bracelets can be problematic and bracelets also complicate hand cleaning.

For those who have problems with ties and elastic staying in place, I recommend bobby pins, barrettes and other devices for keeping hair in place. They help keep ties and elastic in place, while potentially spiffing up your look. In Project Runway, they always emphasize that accessory wall! A strategically placed pony tail, braid or bun can also solve the problem of mask drift.

Short-haired guys — is it time to grow your hair out? More hair might make those ties more stable. Of course, due to COVID, a lot of you ARE growing your hair out…

A “don’t raise the bridge, lower the river” approach to the glasses problem: Can you get by with cheaters? Those +2.00 glasses you can pick up at the pharmacy or craft store? I have discovered some frames work better than others. Smaller rectangles fog less often.

You may also wish to add a face shield to your mask. I can’t speak to this shield’s comfort or efficiency, but I liked my mask from this company: https://boomernaturals.com/collections/medical-supplies/products/boomer-anti-droplet-protective-visor-face-shields — the best protection will be a mask/shield combo, but that combo has the potential to be pretty warm, maybe oppressively so in the wrong classroom.

Mask just a tiny bit big? Look up “ear protectors for mask.” This will pull your straps further back, which may be all you need. They look simple to make, too.

Eduhonesty: We can do this. If you missed my previous post, please consider ordering (extra) masks for students. My district has regularly “unexpectedly” run out of supplies as vital as paper. Oops! No paper for late April or May! Then weeks pass as teachers use their own supplies waiting for some purchase order to rescue them. Even if you trust your district to lay in the necessary supplies, I would not be surprised to find administrators underestimated the number of masks required. Preschool and early elementary teachers understand kids in ways that administrators do not. I bet those masks will be great for short games of tug o’ war.

Hugs to my readers.

P.S. Unfortunately, masks and scarves have to be washed. You might put a note in your calendar to remind you to wash face coverings. Like sweaters, I suspect it will be easy to wear those unwashed masks a bit longer than is wise.

This is one of those “I hate this post” posts. Because YOU should arrive at a school with pencils, paper, markers, and all the supplies you require to do your job. But you probably are not that lucky, especially if you work in a poor district. I remember I once got a $250 budget for school supplies from my district. I remember that because I never saw anything like that ever again. Some years I saw over $100. Not infrequently, I bought all my own supplies. I remember the year of red erasable markers. The head of the foreign language department had managed to source thousands and thousands of red markers and a quickly consumed supply of black markers. That was almost all the supply cupboard held all year. I used the red markers for grading, but I could not use them on the whiteboard. Colorblindness is a real thing.

Next year you will want masks and hand sanitizer. I am betting many districts are placing those orders now. But will there be enough masks? Sanitizer? How will you manage the U.S. Clorox wipes crisis when you get to the classroom? A few posts back I wrote about the absurdity of the CDC guidelines for schools. Absurd or not, doable or not, we look to be going forward. So what will you do if there are not enough masks?

For middle and high school, I would lay in a few boxes of those blue masks found in doctors’ offices. Middle school teachers especially might also want to add some smaller masks. You may need back-ups for back-ups. If you are an elementary school teacher, you might do a search on “pediatric masks” or “pediatric surgical masks.” Free hours this summer? YouTube is filled with directions for simple masks. Rocketship and dragon masks could be a fun craft project. You will want baggies for mask storage.

Eduhonesty: I would put the burden for masks on parents, and hope for the best from my school district, but as the old saying goes, “Pray to God, but row for the shore.” We all know those kids who never have a pencil. Maybe that pencil is in a bundle with other supplies under a bed, but whether supplies are purchased or not, they don’t seem to make their way into school classrooms and lockers.

This post was inspired by a colleague who had already ordered her masks and sanitizer. Most teachers do that summer supply shopping. This year, I’d include the COVID supplies and I’d start soon. Personal protective supplies can be hard to find, and sometimes take awhile to arrive.

Hugs to all. I had to close this blog to comments years ago due to trolls, so my feedback tends to be limited to messages from friends on social media. I know many readers are probably groaning or even muttering a choice stream of expletives as they read this, tired of spending so much of their own money to do their job. But row for the shore, readers. When the coughs start, you will want to be sure you have masks.

From my preceding post:

“In the area of unintended consequences, teachers are currently being riffed or nonrenewed all over the country. My social media feed is a sea of men and women who find they have no job. I am certain that many of those teachers whose jobs evaporated are the victim of numbers — the numbers that making superintendents say that schools cannot reopen under the new guidelines because schools cannot afford to reopen. What do you do when you are a district running on financial fumes — as many districts were before the start of COVID-19? You tell newer staff members that they cannot rely upon a job in the fall. Maybe you even tell them they definitely have no job. Districts afraid they cannot afford their busses will cut staff, waiting until fall to determine the absolute minimum amount of classroom coverage they require. Many of the laid-off will be rehired. But right now, they are freaking out all over my social media feeds.”

First, I want to emphasize the penultimate line in the paragraph above: Many of the laid-off will be rehired. That’s riffing. A district dumps teachers to free money for the spreadsheets. Come fall, though, those teachers tend to be called back because student loads don’t allow the district to begin without some, most or even all of those riffed teachers. Keep in mind that riffed teachers are looking for work and not all the riffed will be available to come back, creating possible vacancies. I was riffed four times and I returned every single time.

Now today’s message: Get out there. Start actively looking for the next, better job. You will never find a better time. This is anecdotal but I would put a month’s mortgage money on my belief that panicked districts have been overly aggressive in sloughing staff. I have never seen so many scared, technically or genuinely unemployed teachers at this time of year. On the one hand, that obviously would seem to put a damper on employment searches. On the other hand, in August districts will require teachers. America’s kids haven’t been abducted by aliens. That school that had 1,500 kids last year will almost undoubtedly have 1,500 kids this year. They are likely to look at their numbers and they will know that they still require a full Spanish department or the usual number of 4th grade teachers.

Nonrenewed? Nonrenewals seem to be at an all-time high too. That’s in your favor right now. You will be lost in enough of a crowd so that your nonrenewal will be unremarkable. Get the best recommendations you can. I recommend using colleagues who will enthuse about you if you are concerned about what administration might say.

Be positive. Prepare a set of upbeat answers for why you want to work in District X, Y, or Z. Don’t talk about what went wrong. Talk about what went right and why you love teaching. And go for it!

One possibly large X-factor remains in this equation that should also improve hiring and rehiring prospects this summer: August will reveal a number of unexpected vacancies from teachers sitting on the COVID-19 fence, deciding whether to risk returning to the classroom or not. Not all those teachers will choose to go back into the classroom.

Eduhonesty: Don’t panic. I believe vacancies will be popping up all over. This might be perfect time for the big adventure, the move to Alaska or Hawaii. If you are rooted, don’t be afraid to drive, especially if you enjoy listening to books.

Put on your job hunting shoes and go for it.

P.S. It’s always good to have a couple of answers to those questions about what you can improve upon, something safe like “I would like to improve my management of transitions when changing groups…”

Here is a synopsis of the CDC guidelines for reopening schools:

I hardly know where to start. I loved a comment by a colleague: “I can’t keep them from picking their nose or putting their hands down their pants.” Convincing 3-year-old kids to keep their masks on? You have a slightly better chance of colonizing the moons of Saturn. Convincing kids not to share crayons when we have been teaching them to share since they entered school? Will they ignore that kid who has trees but no green crayon? Or will someone slip him a crayon? I see a future with crayons and glue sticks being passed surreptitiously under desks and behind teacher’s backs.

How will we begin to teach our whole new system of interaction: Keep those crayons for yourself, dammit! It’s your glue stick! If she doesn’t have a pencil, it’s her problem! Except it will be the teacher’s problem and I predict those teachers who are spending hundreds or more to supply their own classrooms are about to spend larger sums than before.

I love those desks set “six feet apart.” Let’s do the math, We’ll say our classroom is 600 square feet in size. With luck it’s bigger, but elementary rooms often run about 30 x 20 feet. Twenty feet allows for 3 desks since 6 x 3 = 18. Except we have to figure in the actual size of the desks themselves and potentially subtract that. The room may also have cupboards, closets, shelves, and radiators on one or both sides. More realistically, I’d say two desks are possible as we cross that 20 feet, but maybe we can manage three. The thirty feet cannot accommodate 5 desks. Again, we have the size of the desks and chairs to consider. Four rows may be possible. I have not attacked the question of just where we place the teacher. He or she might even want a desk or at least a podium. That’s 8 to 12 students by my count. That’s a lovely size for classroom management. Of course it’s also only half or even a third the size of a usual class. What, oh what, will we do with all those extra students? We can’t get them all in the empty cafeteria — not if they are all six feet apart.

Where will the busses come from? A conventional school bus has 13 rows of seats, less commonly 15 rows. Those busses may transport 72 students. Except under the new rules we can seat 12 -14 kids total due to skipped rows and single seats. Some parents may opt to drive rather than put kids on the bus and staggered start times could help a bit with this problem… but the truth here is we have yet another set of numbers that simply don’t work.

For a more official take on this question: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2020/05/21/too-expensive-to-re-open-schools-some-superintendents.html?cmp=eml-eb-ad_popweek_05292020&M=59584386&U=1591057&UUID=0bd866503bd6b6f20027a88f737fee71#

Carpools might be organized to fill in the gap. Maybe we can use our (nonexistent) extra money to create a whole new system of student transportation based on Ubers. Or we could employ pizza delivery cars, filling student laps with pre-packaged boxed individual pizzas to eat in their classrooms. We could knock out the transportation and lunch challenges in one Domino’s swoop — with lots of healthy vegetables placed between the slices of pepperoni. Uber drivers or pizza delivery guys will definitely be easier to manage than all the as-yet-unhired bus drivers to drive the phantom busses required to somehow get America’s children to school.

I am so clear that the CDC has never investigated the workings of elementary school bathrooms. Or middle school bathrooms. By high school, the water in those bathrooms is no longer flying around — with advancing age, the fascination with faucets and water play does seem to decline — but I recall a middle school student who once spent a whole day skipping school in a boys’ bathroom just a hop and a skip from the front office. He and his friends apparently had a perfectly fine day from his description, despite the smell. I also remember a couple of fire drills that resulted from students throwing water on smoke detection devices. I don’t know how or why that works, but I know I ended up standing out in the snow. Mostly middle school bathrooms work better than elementary school bathrooms, too. Any teacher who lets a large group of elementary or preschool school kids loose unsupervised in a bathroom has not been teaching long or has done a truly excellent job of teaching classroom norms. Because that’s a recipe for play, one that sometimes requires a change of clothes and custodian later. I don’t see how physical barriers or screens will help a lot. Those screens had better be well-secured, and at upper levels districts should plan to lay in the appropriate paint colors to cover the graffiti.

I expect hand washing galore for all the right reasons. But have any of those CDC folks watched a group of elementary kids in the washroom? Semicircular sinks with foot pedals remain common out in our schools. Splash, splash. Giggle giggle. Splash splash. By a certain age, that elementary school teacher can’t easily monitor the opposite sex bathroom either. By middle school and high school… ummm, in addition to the many new expenses the CDC list adds, like phantom busses. we probably should throw in bathroom monitors.

And let’s be clear: Kids are always getting sick. Forget COVID-19 for a moment. If we start taking temperatures, we will find temperatures. There’s this glistening skin, with red eyes and cheeks, although a vampirish pallor can also signal trouble. Sometimes these kids are hunkered down in their hoodies or even winter coats. They tend to be unusually silent. I always send them to the nurse as soon as I spot them. She takes their temperatures, then calls home. When parents are not at home, she sequesters their febrile bodies in the nurse’s office. So will we COVID-test all those students with fevers and coughs? Some months that might add up to one-quarter of a classroom. Daily health and temperature checks? What will we do in the case of temperature spikes when no one is picking up the phone?

Eduhonesty: Little kids won’t wear masks. You can put all the tape you want on the floors. Those properly distanced straight lines will never hold. The expense for those extra busses, gas for the busses, partitions, barriers, screens, duplicate crayons, duplicate glue sticks, duplicate pieces of technology, masks, and extra cleaning supplies? Not to mention staffing the bathrooms? Finding that money would be a miracle given the number of schools in this country that still ration paper for copies.

But the silliest part of this plan has to be the health and temperature tests. The CDC must never have listened to the audio for a late fall or winter classroom. It’s amazing how much coughing goes on in schools in November, December, January and February. Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough.

In short: Plan A is insanely expensive and therefore utterly impractical.

P.S. In the area of unintended consequences, teachers are currently being riffed or nonrenewed all over the country. My social media feed is a sea of men and women who find they have no job. I am certain that many of those teachers whose jobs evaporated are the victim of numbers — the numbers that making superintendents say that schools cannot reopen under the new guidelines because schools cannot afford to reopen. What do you do when you are a district running on financial fumes — as many districts were before the start of COVID-19? You tell newer staff members that they cannot rely upon a job in the fall. Maybe you even tell them they definitely have no job. Districts afraid they cannot afford their busses will cut staff, waiting until fall to determine the absolute minimum amount of classroom coverage they require. Many of the laid-off will be rehired. But right now, they are freaking out all over my social media feeds.

It’s a poor sort of memory that works only backwards. ~ Lewis Carroll in “Through the Looking Glass”

As I write this, I am part of a historic event. Hundreds of years from now, researchers may view the COVID-19 virus as one pivotal point in the human story of our world. Teachers in that misty future may assign essays based on today’s wayposts, asking students to describe effects of 2020 pandemic.

History unfolds in spite of us sometimes. Many friends and coworkers are sheltering right now. At least one is valiently trying to make the sound work on her Facebook group presentation about Austria. Online learning has been a high hurdle for many to leap, especially those working in technologically disadvantaged communities. This post is not exactly about COVID-19 though; It’s about ancillary damage from the coronavirus. We are so busy trying to manage online education that not enough attention is being given to a big win: Ding dong, the tests are dead. (At least the tests not immediately related to classroom instruction.). Which old tests? The wicked tests.

As fraught as these times have become, I’d like to seize the opportunity they present. All those years of lost voices trying to slow America’s onslaught of testing? Those voices have gone almost silent. For 2020, the standardized tests have been cancelled. They can’t be proctored at home and they can’t be done in a school setting.

That dark cloud cast by COVID-19 is carrying one colossal silver lining. For a brief window in time, students and teachers have been freed from the U.S. testing juggernaut. Why do I call this an opportunity? The massive momentum of testing has been helping to keep those exams in place. Tests became a central topic for the start of the year. PowerPoints showed improvement or lack of improvement as administrators and then teachers brainstormed how to thrust next year’s numbers upward. That focus on numbers instead of students has been underlying much of what has gone wrong in education during the last few decades.

The testing voices will be muted next year. They have no numbers to feed into their spreadsheets. They have no data to insert into Google Slides or PowerPoints. For a short, powerful window, we are free from the infection of test score mania.

May I make a suggestion? When government bureaucrats and school administrations start back-sliding toward numbers instead of students, why not make use of these somber times to deflect that conversation? We have at least one strong starting place for redirecting the conversation: Students have missed varying degrees of instruction, in many areas full weeks of instruction. In the past, testing time was sometimes as high as 15% in major studies. In my own classroom, in the year that I decided to retire, it went over 20%. That much time testing is crazy and always was crazy. Every test day is a lost instructional day.

Eduhonesty: When the push push push to resume our old testing regime comes up, I suggest pushing back. I also implore readers not to drop the issue of excessive testing because of the many challenges facing us as we reopen schools. The perils in the foreground must not be allowed to shut down the testing issue in the background. When the tests slither back in, we have to be ready to object.

“I can’t afford to lose those days for a practice test. We are too far behind on the elements of a plot.”

“Can we eliminate one benchmark test? Too many students are confused about converting fractions to percentages and decimals.”

“Can we afford to lose the time for XYZ test right now? What if school shuts down again? I’m afraid to lose those instructional hours. ”

Or the politically expedient choice might be: ” We are not going to do well on this years standardized test because of all the school we missed. Is there any way we could opt out and focus on instruction instead, at least until we get our students caught up?”

The point to hammer home is that every test presents an opportunity cost. We sacrifice instruction on every single test day. We didn’t have enough time for those tests in the past, not if we go by stagnant and even declining test scores in the schools taking those tests.

Let’s reclaim some of the stolen hours those tests took from U.S.children. The explosion of COVID-19 has blocked 2020’s test avalanche. Maybe we can use this odd piece of luck to help out kids in our classrooms — or kids on their iPads at home in their bedrooms.

Carpe diem, I say.

As we build new memories in our shelters, let’s all look forward. What can we do to use this microbial thunderclap to make the future better?

I will start by sharing an excerpt from a blog post I read this morning: Return To School Or Retire? Pick Your Poison by Dr. Michael Flanagan

“Contemplating retirement is difficult under the best of circumstances, but now that decision has become immensely more complicated. Covid-19 and the economic collapse have created a life and death dilemma for older teachers. Should we retire from teaching and trust in our evaporating pension funds, or return and risk our lives to teach our students again?”

I strongly suggest reading Dr. Flanagan’s article which lays out the tough choices facing educators today. Those choices are the reason why I suggested this might be a good year for the bold to go out on a job search. This might be your year — although I suggest you read my caveats as well. Funding is about to fall through the floor, and if you have tenure in a safe spot, staying put makes sense right now.

But it’s time to begin thinking about your choice if you are nearing retirement or simply reaching a point where you doubt you wish to continue teaching. Making that choice sooner would be the kinder, more responsible action since your district will likely struggle to replace you.

You might want to make a T-Chart. What’s good? What’s not good? I will note that “possible death” is it’s own category of “not good,” in a wholly different league than underpaid, overworked or angry about extreme testing.

Eduhonesty: I don’t have a recommendation, reader. YOU have to make that choice for your own situation. I can tell you that I personally would not find this choice much of a dilemma. In fact, it’s a personal no-brainer. If I had not already retired, I would retire now. I am older, my tricuspid valve leaks, and I frequently catch la maladie du jour. I would be done after this year.

Who would have thought something even more ugly than extreme testing could be lurking in education’s future? But it was. The coronavirus might be a distant memory in ten years, but there probably won’t even be a vaccine in 2020. I think I’ll let other people test that warp speed vaccine for me in 2021, at least for a few months. I definitely do not plan to be one of the first people to test out the new transporter beam.

So reader: Is it time to retire?

https://www.badassteacher.org/bats-blog/return-to-school-or-retire-pick-your-poison-by-dr-michael-flanagan

The following paragraph is taken from my post “Advocate for Yourself.”

“This could be the year of ongoing blizzards, repeated microbial “snow” weeks. Schools will need back-up plans for their back-up plans potentially. Online learning will not become a memory soon. Outbreaks in a school are guaranteed to ensure shut-downs, whether short or long.”

That paragraph may have lost potency as I blogged about the need to communicate with school leaders and others planning for next year. Those future shut-downs should not get subordinated to the agenda for the upcoming year. The threat of repeated shut-downs is not merely real: It is inevitable.

In the absence of a vaccine, people will continue getting ill. The rate will change. The severity will hopefully decrease as medications become more available. But teachers and students will become ill with COVID-19. We are locked into this struggle because those original sick persons in Wuhan were passing the virus on to two to three people apiece when they got sick. That number would rise as high as 3.82 last January. For those interested in “R,” I recommend https://www.newsweek.com/what-coronavirus-r-number-how-contagious-covid-19-1498204 — a good fast explanation of this measure. COVID-19 is easy to catch.

Come next fall, then, what happens when “Ms. T” spikes a fever? With luck, this hot and aching teacher can quickly locate a COVID-19 test. Geography may have a great deal to do with that luck, unfortunately, but the obviously ill now can expect to find tests, even if the process remains inconvenient. For purposes of this hypothetical scenario, we’ll assume that Ms. T does not have to go to the hospital right away. Ms. T sits in the drive-thru line to get swabbed. The test comes back positive.

How many people now are supposed to enter a 14-day quarantine? If Ms. T is an elementary teacher, her whole class to start, but that’s only the start. What if Ms. T had lunch duty? What if Ms. T had been copying papers in the front office? Was the teacher’s lounge open in her school? How many colleagues had lunch with Ms. T before she realized she was sick? Let’s assume they kept their social distance. How big is that lounge? Even with distance, if Ms. T sits in a small enough room for a long enough time, that distance does not guarantee safety. If, Ms. T teaches middle or high school, our scenario rapidly becomes much wilder. Over the course of the day, she may have taught 150 students.

Exposures will be difficult to calculate. The evidence suggests the count may have to start from before Ms. T decided to wait in the testing line. From reports, we know that on the first day, many coronavirus victims don’t know they are sick. A slightly scratchy throat may combine with feeling a bit warm and tired. Sometimes the only sign may be odd, random joint pains that leave people wondering how they strained their muscles. Maybe a slight cough moves in along with a sense of breathlessness and related anxiety. COVID-19 has so many odd symptoms. That first warning shot across the bow might even be a stomach ache or diarrhea.

Why does this matter? Because until testing is vastly better than it is currently, Ms. T may be shedding virus all over the place before she even realizes she is truly sick. We are all used to rationalizing away symptoms of illness. I can’t think how many sick people of my acquaintance have told me, “Oh, it’s my allergies.” only to admit later that, oops, maybe all those sneezes had nothing to do with ragweed pollen or their particular allergen.

I remember my oldest girl calling for advice from her grandparents’ house. She thought she had the flu. She had flown out to visit them a few days earlier on a delightful whim that ended with all three suffering fevers and aches. (Everyone got through that event fine. She had given her mom and the same grandparents the flu about 25 years earlier after another plane flight. When the world opens up, I recommend driving to see grandparents.)

Sickness just happens. Sheltering at home helps. Avoiding exposure helps. But once we open the schools, the shelter automatically shuts down.

Eduhonesty: I am not saying we should not reopen schools. We can’t let the educational system and the economy flatline out of fear. We are going to have to open before the economic landscape becomes a wasteland of failed businesses and dead dreams. We are going to reopen because no viable economic plan allows us to stay shut until everyone has gotten sick or vaccinated. We are also going to reopen because the scientists are not running the show.

But I want fellow teachers to be ready. These are the “snow” weeks of next year. Those closures will happen. When planning next year, expect possible shut-downs. Sometimes the snow never falls. But here in Illinois, they are not even predicting the coronavirus peak until mid-June.

Some of that microbial snow has to fall.