A quick thought: Yes, I know you are swamped. If you are a mom providing help for your children’s online schooling while simultaneously offering your own classes to students who may or may not log on, you are likely inundated with urgent items on growing to-do lists.

BUT THIS MAY BE THE YEAR — THE YEAR YOU MOVE ON TO THE BETTER PAYING, BETTER SUPPLIED DISTRICT DOWN THE INTERSTATE.

Some of those men and women in their fifties and early sixties are planning to retire. I am talking with them. Those with health issues or simply enough time in the system are thinking of cashing out this summer. A number have already done so.

That better-paying district down the road? It almost always offers more support personnel as well as a higher salary. Extra hands can help manage social distancing questions, take children to the nurse, tutor students who fell behind this year, and do many tasks that tend to all fall onto the shoulders of the teacher in our less economically advantaged districts.

U.S. unemployment is nearing 15%. In a few years, I predict changing positions will become more challenging. Desperate states will relax teacher requirements in response to their teacher shortages. At least some of the newly unemployed from other fields will choose to enter teaching, going back to college to add courses toward teacher certification. As unemployment moves up into the stratosphere, the teaching shortage may ironically evaporate. I can’t say for sure — no one can yet — since more cautious individuals may opt to stay away from a calling that demands so much social contact. But after awhile, when no other appropriate position materializes for that professional in their late 30s or 40s, at least some bolder souls will decide to make use of their physics or English degree in the classroom.

I don’t guarantee a teacher shortage in a couple of years. But I do guarantee that shortage NOW.

Eduhonesty: Feeling overwhelmed? If so, you are far from alone. BUT THIS IS AN EXCELLENT TIME TO BUMP “JOB SEARCH” BACK UP TO THE TOP OF YOUR LIST. If you were planning to look for a better position, I strongly suggest you let drop a few of the flaming swords you are juggling, and start juggling those online employment site searches instead.

Even if you weren’t planning to search for another position, I recommend thinking about your district. Have you been carrying the world on your shoulders alone? Did you have eight kids with IEPs in your third period class this year with no aides? Do you always lose your planning periods because of extra duty? Do you make $15,000 less than your next-door-neighbor, a woman with less education who has taught for two fewer years than you?

Here’s my last observation: Teachers tend to stay in more difficult schools because those schools are their schools. They are White Sox fans, not Cubbies fans. They are true to their school, even with its broken water fountains and revolving door administrators. And that’s a good thing. I was true to my school until I retired. I accepted the lower pay and broken door knobs and lost planning periods. I did it for the kids. But this year will be a lot tougher than previous years and those who are also parenting with spouses in iffy employment situations should consider whether this might be the time to make a change.

P.S. If you have the requisite years into a union district and have tenure, I would be very cautious about leaving. Job security may be worth that hit in pay and lack of aides, especially if you have confidence in district administrators. That Principal who has always listened to you and had your back has an intangible value, especially as we navigate COVID-19 waters.

And make sure that a new district will give you full or at least adequate credit for previous years of experience before you make a move. When different districts award steps based on previous experience, those steps may be capped and other rules sometimes apply. One district might only give credit for six previous years. Another might offer full credit for the first six years and one step’s credit for every two years after that. Even with step limits, though, a financially stronger district may result in better pay, despite loss of credit for previous years.

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Many of us are entirely occupied trying to get through this school year. Some of us are being evaluated on this performance, even as we juggle the online learning of our students and our own children, while sharing technology with family members who are working at home. In these circumstances, a be-here-now approach to daily life is entirely understandable. Who wants to think about impending meat shortages? Or teaching toilet paper rationing to kids only a few years out of diapers? Hugs to my many readers who are juggling a growing set of flaming swords.

But we educators should start thinking seriously about next year. When possible, teachers should be communicating with their districts and even school board members. Your school board may at this very moment be making decisions that will define the quality of your life next year.

Will your school shift to staggered start times in order to cut class sizes? Another model breaks the school into different grades on different days — first, third and fifth grades attend Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for example. Will students and teachers be expected to wear face coverings? How will the district set up busses? Depending on virus levels in the area, mass transit can pose a major infection risk to students and drivers. How will lunch be managed? What about recess? More lunch periods equals fewer students per table. Will those half-hour lunches begin at 10:00 A.M. and end at 2:30 P.M.? In many crowded schools, lunches already begin before 11:00 A.M.. I would expect school assemblies and sporting events to be cancelled in areas where COVID-19 is prevalent.

The virus won’t be contained by fall. Any pipe dreams that include the mysterious disappearance or even control of the coronavirus should be understood for the fantasies that they are. We will have better control of COVID-19 soon, enough to reopen schools in many areas. The curve has been flattening. Medical treatment has been improving. As states add more and better testing, hopefully combined with robust contact tracing, schools and even preschools should reopen.

This fact raises a set of questions for school boards, administrations and classroom teachers. What will this look like in the classroom? Will schools continue the social/physical distancing that now dominates public interactions? How will educators control for this? Staggered start times can help decrease crowding, but may also steal break and planning time. Whether class size goes up or down, how will teachers convince little kids to stay apart? I talked to a Principal today who observed that kindergartners naturally want to touch everything and everybody when they first get to school. Many are natural huggers, and we can’t put them all in individual, giant hamster balls. I guarantee they won’t stay in masks. The littlest ones will fail distancing regularly. And adolescents? Yes, teenagers can understand the concepts involved in keeping their distance, but they have a bad habit of viewing themselves as immortal. Will close contact be a disciplinary infraction?

Class sizes may be going up too, not down. Teacher shortages are already problematic in some areas. “Early” retirements appear inevitable. Some of those men and women with 28 years into the system will decide 28 years is enough, depending on their pension structures.

And what if a new coronavirus wave starts and school campuses are shut down again? 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.

Here’s the big question: What does this mean for you?

School boards across the country are debating plans. Administrators are beginning to decide between options for scheduling. Depending on contracts, school days may automatically lengthen in response to these plans. Some plans involve taking temperatures and answering screening questions before staff and students are allowed in the door.

Issues of equity loom. How will districts help students who have fallen behind because of lack of access to online learning? How will districts prepare for possible future online learning? Summer school and tutoring are traditional methods to address students who missed material, but how will that school and tutoring be structured?

So many questions, and as yet so few definitive answers.

Eduhonesty: Teacher readers, it’s time to up periscope! What are your district leaders doing? I recommend you communicate with fellow teachers and communicate with your school board. Communicate with friends who have the ear of local district decision makers. Ask administration about plans that are evolving. Parents, please communicate too! Do you have helpful ideas? Hopefully better ideas than giant plexiglass hamster balls to put around your kindergarteners?

When creating a new system, it’s always best to get as much right at the start as possible. Getting this next year right will include understanding the authentic behavior of students, a factor that disappeared from the planning process of education brainstorms like NCLB and the Common Core. How do kids act? How will they react to proposed changes? Online learning suffered heavily from a lack of buy-in in the recent past. If we continue online, how can we improve student participation? A podcast does no good when no one watches it.

How will we organize lines? Library visits? Even the act of walking in the front door poses challenges. Teachers can help with these questions. Teachers might want to post these questions to a few people. They might want to suggest laying in a large supply of colorful duct tape to place in strategic spots across the floors of classrooms and other public spaces. Those purchase orders take time sometimes, and kids who have no idea what six feet might be can easily recognize a bright orange piece of tape.

Many of my readers are frantically busy right now. If this plea to communicate sounds overwhelming, please feel free to ignore me. Go make yourself a latte or another presentation for your online classroom instead. Or bake a delicious banana bread with rum topping. Do anything fun that will help you stay centered.

But I did want to put the idea of communication out there because many decisions are being made right now. Hiring for the year is happening right now. Decisions on reopening are likely right around the corner in some areas, Depending on your situation, you may want to make your voice heard.

Eduhonesty: We’re not going back to “normal” in the near future. We don’t know where we are going. If we must boldly go where no one has gone before, I suggest we try to pack as few surprises as possible into that trip.

P.S. I feel compelled to close with a caveat: If you are currently operating at full capacity, well, even Captain America took a few decades off to marry his beloved Peggy Carter. Steve Rogers made time for his dance. Please, reader, set aside your own dance time. Superheroes and teachers are entitled to relax with their kids or wheaten terrier sometimes, instead of saving the world.

P.P.S, With all the crazy, you may not want to even think about employment applications, but this could be the ideal time to search for that better paying position closer to home.

At least some readers should put today’s eduhonest.com entry in the “job hunt” category.

There will be an absolutely gruesome shortage of substitute teachers next year. I wrote earlier posts on subbing when the number of available sub positions began climbing early this year, but those posts were short term thoughts. I stand by the advice in “Yes, We Have No Substitutes Today” and hope it will help teachers to get the back-up they need, but I am afraid my advice will not help teachers in more challenging schools next year.

Schools may open in the fall. If they do, most of those retired men and women who form a fat percentage of many sub pools will not be clicking on the openings on their screens. The job pays poorly — in some areas less than $100 per day. For a great number of retired subs, subbing represents a little spending money and a reason to get up and change out of their pajamas. Subbing is often fun for retired teachers, a chance to read “A Porcupine Named Fluffy” to the crowd on the rug, or to share the story of the American Revolution with older kids.

But subbing is also an adventure in ducking germs. Cough, cough. Cough. Cough. “Can I go to the nurse?” The stream of kids headed to the Kleenex box throughout the day comes with the territory.

I don’t think many retirees will listen to that coughing next year. Until a viable vaccination becomes available, balancing the $100 per day against COVID-19 risk, I expect former subs to stay home and take long dog walks instead. Maybe a few will look into getting their real estate licenses. In the meantime, teachers will end up covering for each other during their students’ specials and their own planning periods.

Eduhonesty: As you consider where and what you may be teaching next year, if you are given any choice, I would keep these thoughts on subbing in mind. If I were searching for a teaching position, I would want to know how a possible district paid subs in comparison to nearby districts. The subs won’t exactly vanish. Young, aspiring teachers will still be there. Hearty moms with education credits and all their kids in school should mostly be showing up too. But if the pool shrinks significantly, those districts that pay $95 per day will go wanting while the district that pays $120 will find more help.

I would also talk to district teachers about their personal sub situations since money makes up only part of the equation. Supportive administrations and engaged students will attract subs even when the money is not great. Big red flag: Problems getting substitutes last year should make teacher candidates cautious. Any district that encountered sub troubles in 2019 will be in greater trouble — maybe much greater trouble depending on the make-up of their sub pool — in 2020.

I strongly recommend adding the sub factor into any job search this year.

Lack of subs may sound innocuous to those without experience — but going day after day with lost planning periods can be extremely rough. And those planning periods will disappear. If Mr. X is out with the flu, someone has to cover Mr. X’s classes. That “someone” becomes a group of teachers who give up their planning times to take over Mr. X’s classes throughout the day. An administrator may step in on occasion, but mostly the burden is shouldered by other teachers who may pick up a little extra pay, but who lose the downtime during their days.

P.S. I expect requirements to become a substitute to be relaxed soon. This might become the right time to invite the right friend or neighbor to join the sub pool in your school.

I am not going to put forth a long, reasoned post against the idea of evaluations in this time. Kudos to those districts and states who are dropping teacher evaluations for the year. A walk down the Hall of Shame for any others. I am just going to share a comment by a young friend who captured the drama of evaluating teachers harshly in this (and other) times:

“A job evaluation should not feel like your dog just got hit by a car.”

No PD speaker, book or journal article has ever expressed this idea better in my view. Even if Charlotte Danielson meant well, and those State Departments of Education were trying to boost test scores as best they could, the fact is that many evaluation instruments are filled with slots that represent ambushes in a time when at least some administrators feel “there’s always room for improvement,” a phrase that tends to translate to “almost nobody ever gets an “Excellent” or “Distinguished” in anything.”

Eduhonesty: During the coronavirus craziness, I’d ask those people who are still inexplicably evaluating teachers to remember the above phrase:

“A job evaluation should not feel like your dog just got hit by a car.”

Hugs to to everyone who is staring at that evaluation in disbelief, especially those parents who have been trying to homeschool while also teaching their classes and keeping homebound children from bouncing off the walls. I’ll add one more thought: The relationship that always makes you cry? They call that relationship “toxic” — and usually recommend that you walk away as soon as you are able to set up a safe departure plan. I might start by finding happy colleagues within the many social media groups online. Ask yourself: where would I rather teach? Then check the postings.

I read a post from a coworker yesterday, a coworker who was “feeling furious.” She is trying to manage district on-line learning demands. She ended up starving by day’s end — no time for food — and “in tears, shaking and nauseous.” Teacher friends commiserated, sharing that they also had no time for family, food or friendly video chats.

Eduhonesty: Today’s message is simple. Until and unless school districts can provide childcare for the teachers in their district who are sheltering at home, they need to back off. Teachers should be given the time they require to take care of themselves and their own children. Newsflash for administrators: You can’t save this year. It’s lost. I’d suggest trying to hold on to the loyalty and support of your staff for next year.

Many of America’s teachers are home with their children, expected to provide home-schooling for their own children while also texting, calling, and emailing all 26 families in their classrooms. These educators are helping their own children to find and manage online classroom demands, while making meals, managing emotional trauma, helping with loneliness, playing ball, finding other games for bored kids, managing overuse of electronics inside the home, in addition to all the regular parenting tasks that suck up each day in bits and pieces: baths, laundry, kitchen, bathroom and floor cleaning, cat care, dog walks, paying bills, changing lightbulbs, checking on parents, family and friends, and finally bedtime stories. In too many cases, those educators are then skipping that post-bedtime relaxation, instead calling families whose children are not going online because mom, dad or someone has decided that online learning is interfering with COVID-19 life. Title of an Education Week news article that I just discovered on my phone: “Where are they? Students go missing in shift to remote classes.” In the absence of a 48-hour day, this set-up is a perfect recipe for a major emotional meltdown. Some administrators are forcing teachers to drive books and materials out to student’s porches. Even single or older teachers without children at home are sometimes being expected to work nonstop all day with glitchy technology to produce… what? “Rigorous common lesson plans” that perhaps almost no one will complete?

Newsflash for clueless administrators: You can’t make parents do anything they don’t want to do right now. This craziness should stop, stop, stop. I can guarantee readers that the children of the teachers in the middle of this on-line push will not say on some future career day, “I want to be a teacher.” At this rate, nobody will ever want to be a teacher again.

May I suggest a trip to https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/opinion/coronavirus-home-school.html ? Dr. Jennie Weiner is an associate professor of educational leadership and she does a stellar job of explaining why she is not doing Coronavirus homeschooling — at least not the homeschooling being thrown at her as an option. Parents are always homeschooling, every day. I’d say we ought to let parents decide how they want to do their homeschooling right now. If that’s an opt-out, then teachers should be left alone to accept parents’ wishes.

And, damn, can we forget about grades? Grades are stupid this spring. What are we grading? Access to technology in many cases. It’s hard to work on a phone and a phone may be all the connection students own. We are grading competition with siblings in others. That kid with four brothers and sisters? He may not be getting a lot of screen time and his parent or parents may not have time to do the day’s packet with him. Levels of cooperation by parents will also be part of any grade. Jennie Weiner has opted out of homeschooling and I’d guess she has millions of counterparts in greater or lesser degree. Then there’s the problem of the parent who has to use the household technology to work from home… I loved this FB quote, too: “Ugh. Dear webinars, plz just make slides I can download and read? I am not an auditory learner!” Current online lessons may be more problematic for the auditory learner than the visual learner, but the fact is that many kids benefit from classroom interventions that help them access material they cannot effectively read. Those interventions may not exist in the home. The huge and manifold inequities inherent in the shift to online learning should automatically shut down any idea of spring grades.

I am not against providing schooling for children at home. Schools should make this treacherous time a period of enrichment, an early summer school creative writing class with fun reading assignments for those who will read, adding in recreational mathematics at free sites and certainly art projects and fun days. This is a perfect time to let children post pictures of themselves to virtual classrooms, showing their braids sticking up through paper plates and donuts for crazy hair day.

P.S. Fellow teachers, if your routine is bringing you to tears, I suggest letting some of the home rules go by the wayside. If administrative demands are making you feel frantic or overwhelmed, well, another episode of Power Rangers Beast Morphers honestly won’t matter in the long-run. A few hours of phone games won’t rot anyone’s brain. I suggest sitting down to watch Stranger Things with the older crowd. Let go, let go, let go. Do what you have to do to get by. Then make cocoa for everybody and ignore those emails until you feel ready for them.

WebQuests: Life is a webquest right now. My current quest involves getting Amazon Prime to give me a window for a Whole Foods delivery. Two have escaped already, for no reason I understand. I think the pantry will eventually send me canned pineapple. The run on peaches seems to have wiped out any supply. I managed to order Coffee Mate, which my spouse considers palatable. As to Whole Foods and Amazon, the site’s simply overloaded, I fear.

Readers who are not as far into the crazy as Cook County in Illinois – please pay heed! I drove a girlfriend with vision troubles out to stock up on paper goods a few weeks ago. She declined that last package of toilet paper I tried to put in her cart. Well, she’s running low and there is no toilet paper. A couple of days ago, she went out to a favored area grocery store. They were selling one roll for one dollar with a limit of one to a customer. This morning they had none. The quest for TP is in full swing around here. People attack like a battery of starving barracuda when a pallet of that precious white paper is unloaded. I know people who have driven around for hours to do battle with the Invasion of the Toilet Paper Snatchers.

This post was going to be about webquests for students and I will finish that quest in the next day or two – I love to create webquests – but I thought I might put in a practical post today. Are you in a smaller city that has not yet been hit hard? Or even an out of the way area with no or almost no cases?

I’m about to write a few unpopular thoughts. But I want to help. And I know I am right.

Wherever you are, you are probably too late to find masks or hand sanitizer. If not, BUY THEM NOW. You don’t have to load up like some gouger headed to EBay, But the truth is – AND ALWAYS WAS – that the evidence suggests that wearing a mask helps you to avoid getting sick. All that talk about how masks don’t really help because you will put your hands on your face to adjust your mask? I strongly suspect that talk was meant to slow a panic run on masks during a time when health care workers throughout the country need those masks badly. But you may also need at least one mask badly. During panic buying, many people do not respect one another’s space. Shelter in place does not always work; Trips to pharmacies and stores happen despite good planning.

If you can’t find a mask, here’s a webquest for you. Go online to find information on how to make one. Apparently you can use old bras. If I did that, I’d probably stick a few Avengers stickers or something on my mask. If you are going to be absurd, well, push it to the limit! We can use a few laughs right now.  Don’t poke holes in your new mask with your Ironman pin, though.

Gloves can be hard to find. You might get lucky at a dollar store or smaller establishment. The medical ones may fit better, but a washable plastic with sausage fingers, like those used for scrubbing the sinks, is a functional alternative.

Buy the damn toilet paper in quantity. First, estimate your need and usage. I strongly suggest you do the best job on the math that you can. Plan to buy at least six week’s toilet paper and maybe more. The toilet paper in the greater Chicago area may mysteriously reappear at any time, but it remains a shortage item, with people on neighborhood websites sharing sightings that tend to work for only short windows of time. Truth: Some families with kids are struggling. People with three or four kids at home all day use a LOT of toilet paper. For the moment, we are fine in my house, but my fondness for fiction about zombies and plagues helped me out here. I nevertheless watch our usage nervously despite the fact that we were better prepared than many others. When estimating quantities to purchase, be careful to take into account that usage can soar up into the stratosphere when the whole family is homebound.  

Buy the water too. When I first looked at the gallons of water going by in those packed SUVs, I’d say to friends, “I don’t get it. It’s not a hurricane!” But my village had a water advisory yesterday due to low pressure. The break in the main was fixed quickly and my family suffered only minor aggravation from low-pressure showers. Down the road, they had a boil order however. You do not want to have to make a trip to the store for water once hundreds of people in your area are documented as ill. That assumes the water is there. Water supplies in suburban Cook County do appear to be holding, despite being obviously depleted, but regional supplies may differ. You could get by with fizzy water in a pinch, but I’d still recommend picking up water. I got Costco water and I have a fair number of bottles, bottles I can use when school reopens. Water keeps. I’m sorry about supporting plastic bottles, but I suggest you throw water into your shopping anyway.

Other items to pick up if possible: Clorox wipes or the like, bleach for when the wipes run out, yogurt and canned fruit – those items are in short supply, with canned fruit gone in some places. Regular rice, sugar and flour may now be rarer than toilet paper. Yeast went especially fast.

Dairy products are complex because of rapid spoilage. More expensive lactose free milks often have dates far out in the future. Soy, almond and cashew milks also last awhile. Milk and eggs do seem to keep making their way into the stores here, but the supply is erratic. I recommend a big carton or two of liquid egg whites in addition to regular eggs – more if you have a larger family.

Items to freeze include meat and bread. I’d say load up on frozen vegetables. Be sure to get some variety too. I did not do well enough on this score – too many green beans and bags of corn. I was late out of the gate on my veggies and the supply was extremely low.

Don’t think, “I will order from Amazon if necessary.” Delivery dates are weeks out for many items. My phone constantly tells me how much Amazon will pay me if I please, please, go to work for them. My phone also gave me a blast yesterday, shutting down a conversation with a friend. She, my husband and I all received a message at the same time telling us that if we were licensed healthcare professionals we should go to some website to sign up to work. Right now, sirens are going off in the background, We are living in fraught times. Deliveries are a matter of luck and Amazon/Whole Foods requires more luck than I have had in days. My favorite store was booking out a few weeks before it simply stopped booking. Adding to the delays are walk outs and protests by Instacart and other providers of food –  reader, if you are in a location that is only beginning its COVID-19 ramp-up, please do that shopping.

In fact, here’s your webquest for today: Go to the Amazon pantry and try to do your regular shopping. You don’t actually have to make a purchase. Just try to fill your cart and see what happens. Try to buy “peaches.” See what you can find — and more importantly, what you can’t.

One caveat: Avoid long, packed lines of crazy. If the idea is to get off the streets and avoid contact, standing in line in a store for an hour behind a bunch of people with 100 items will not help you avoid contact. Pick off-hours as best you can, and multiple 15 item or less shoppings may work better than a full frontal assault on the grocery store. If possible, wear the mask and gloves for shopping. At first, and before people start wearing those masks and gloves around you, the protective gear may seem like an overreaction or feel otherwise embarrassing. But there’s no sense getting sick while you are trying to go to ground to avoid getting sick.

Hugs and love, I’ll do that student webquest post soon. I decided to write today’s post after a sobering drive out into the world this afternoon. I ducked the main post office because letters were sticking out of the blue mail boxes and I did not want my letter to fall out. I went to another suburb to mail my letter. That suburb had space in the mailbox, but garbage was flowing out all around the garbage can beside the mail. I get it. No one is willing to touch other people’s refuse. The stores looked about 3/5s as full as usual to judge by the parking lots. And many people are now wearing masks, those who managed to find masks anyway.

Eduhonesty: This post is a heads up for people who are behind on the timeline, the ones in distant places that are not under siege. Maybe many of you will escape this reality entirely. Absent population density, spring breakers, and major airports, I am expecting many areas will not be clobbered by the Coronavirus the way New York, Seattle, and Chicago have been.

But don’t let people talk you out of the mask if it’s still in your store somehow and don’t let them talk you out of the toilet paper, Clorox wipes and bleach. Do the math. You don’t want to hoard, but you do need to be ready. Then fill your cart as high as you must to take care of yourself and your family. Don’t fill your garage or load up on unnecessary supplies that health care workers require – those EBay resellers with their $50 bottles of hand sanitizer are disgusting – but provide for yourself and your family. If a family member has a must-eat, daily cereal, buy eight boxes. Don’t set yourself up for a Raisin Bran emergency. Assume you may be stuck in your house for weeks or even a few months. Those months begin to look possible here. I’d guess six weeks is the shortest window for my staycation and I don’t guarantee I won’t be here longer.

Shortages in my area even include Tylenol. Supplies are low and apparently some hospitals have run out at points. Plan to order medications and other medical supplies well in advance and in the largest quantities your insurance will allow. Stock up on OTC items like Nexium or Pepcid if those are part of your routine. Here’s another web search for readers not yet in the hot zone: Search shortages in affected areas; I have likely missed a few that may affect you personally.

P.S. Don’t think, “I will just order out.” That sounds fine at first, until the numbers ramp up. My brother and I had a brief exchange yesterday. He’s in Seattle and I am about 35 traffic-light minutes from Chicago. He’s getting uncomfortable about McDonald’s and I skipped Starbucks on my way back from the pharmacy and mail run. Yes, pick-up options are out there. But low-wage food service workers cannot be expected to stay home when slightly ill. The evidence is rolling in, too, that a person does not even have to be sick (or sick yet) to pass on this virus. My husband and I would have ordered pizza a few weeks ago, but yesterday we took a pass.

P.P.S. As we ramped up, I kept throwing chocolates into my shopping — dark chocolate peanut butter cups, dark chocolate sea salt caramels, Snickers Creamy peanut butter squares and the like. Don’t forget to grab boxes of treats from above the frozen food in Trader Joes. I’d suggest tossing in a few cake mixes too, assuming you are not deeply immersed in the low-carb lifestyle. Somehow, a small chunk of chocolate after dinner — or licorice or whatever your favorite candy — does make the world better.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, implementing the Common Core and associated PARCC and SBAC tests in response to NCLB’s failure to close the achievement gap easily qualifies as insane. The Common Core was established to do exactly what NCLB set out to do, if indirectly – use high-pressure testing to drive education.

Before pursuing the Core, though, a few questions should have been answered. Why did NCLB fail? Why did state test scores across the United States often refuse to rise? Why did high-stakes tests have so little impact on the achievement gap and educational results in general?

NCLB aggressively “raised the bar.” That bar went up alright, but it left a deluge of lost students behind. State test scores amply document this fact. Given that NCLB did not hit targets – not a single state came anywhere close to meeting targets — how and why should we expect that raising that proverbial bar once again will somehow produce more successful results?

Did NCLB’s lack of success result from a breakdown in interpreting the true causes of low achievement? I believe so. I would go so far as to say that I do not believe our nation’s leaders even tried to determine the causes of low achievement that plagued some areas much more than others. I believe they thought they could do an end run around those causes, solving the problem by establishing targets and threatening educators who did not meet those targets. Management by fear did not work, but that does not seem to have stopped or slowed the standards movement.

The standards movement is doing exactly the same thing as NCLB by implementing more punitive testing to force educational changes. I don’t expect the Common Core or any set of inflexible national standards to work better than NCLB — and NCLB put the EPIC in epic fail.

Eduhonesty: I view the Core and the standards movement as the latest in a long set of desperate maneuvers designed to shift the national focus away from funding reform, since any reform will affect the “haves” adversely — and the people making these educational policy decisions tend to be “haves” in the purest sense of the word.

Newbie tip: Call from school. Or block your number. Or get a google number. But don’t leave a personal number on caller ID.

Looking at my phone log, I was struck by my many fails, expressed in short phrases. Full mailbox. No answer. Phone does not work. Wrong number. Left unanswered message. Think I reached Javier, but he hung up on me.

One of my favorites, a fail I had never encountered before: “This phone does not accept incoming calls.” That phone belonged to a parent who took his two boys out of school for six weeks to go visit relatives in Puerto Rico. A few times, I managed to reach mom. Dad remained a man of mystery. Dad’s boys and I were mostly on our own.

Why am I calling? The following are common reasons why I might call home. At this point in time, no one except myself and a parent or guardian are usually involved. This is everyday teaching stuff, and the reason why 28 kids in one room does not resemble home teaching.

Frequent calls: Student needs to talk less to friends (and anyone with a mouth sometimes) in class. Too social!

Student is not doing homework and/or classwork.

Student needs to focus.

Student may require new paper, pencils and other materials. These items are not being brought to class.

Student has low or slipping grades. Possible failure warnings are essential and the sooner the better!

Student should have his or her phone in a locker. If not, that phone should never pop out in class.

Less common but not infrequent:

Student is doing great!

Student struggles to arrive to class on time. Tardiness is thumping student up the side of the head. (I don’t exactly phrase it like that, but a few minutes here, a few minutes there, and sometimes “Axel” slides bit by bit into a worsening state of confusion, especially when these minutes are spread across classrooms. “Axel” may try to take a bathroom break during each class throughout the day too.)

Student has challenges focusing on material in class. While these communications are often versions of “needs to apply” himself or herself in class, repeated calls on the same student should trigger questions. Lack of focus may imply larger issues, requiring tracking, documentation and eventual interventions.

Student showed deliberate disrespect, such as cursing at the teacher or other students. Subtle forms of this problem may include humming, whistling, tapping, water bottle tossing, or overt phone usage.

Detention alerts.

A few rarities that warrant an occasional call:

Student would benefit from tutoring, either with me after school or with an outside tutor. (I truly hate it when the parent or guardian says something like, “She does not feel like it.” I am sure she would rather play or go to the mall after school. I would too. But I am worried about this kid and I probably have good reason to be.)

Student needs to get the XYZ form signed and turned in.

Rudeness to the substitute.

Rudeness to school staff such as cafeteria workers.

Skipping. One student spent a whole day in the boy’s bathroom. I can’t imagine the stink, but no doubt it’s otherwise a great place to socialize.

Clowning in class. (Although if I make one call on “Markie” early in the year, I may be making regular calls on Markie. That boy who likes to stick pencils in his nose to get a laugh will keep finding novel things to do with pencils. I may have years with no clowning calls at all, but that one kid can make his way regularly onto every page of my phone log.)

Misbehavior with persons who are objects of attraction involving inappropriate words. Inappropriate touching will usually be passed along to administrators and social workers immediately and even words may be passed straight up the ladder. But kids are clumsy at expressing themselves and not always be alert enough to realize their attentions are unwanted. I may try to manage this problem before it escalates into sexual harassment.

Eduhonesty: When Ray’s mom hung up on me because I called to say he deliberately skipped detention, I was sympathetic. One striking feature of call logs has to be the number of parents who receive call after call after call. My colleagues are phoning the same kids that I am with a few exceptions. I understand why parents or guardians stop answering when they see the school ID on their phone. Especially in middle school, behaviors can skew quickly sideways.*

Phone logs tend to look alike across the years. Those talkers without pencils are as ubiquitous as the weeds in my lawn. I do battle with the weeds, the talking, the lack of supplies, and the aggravation of proliferating cell phones. That’s part of the social/emotional aspect of teaching. To properly explain the day’s mathematics, I must command my group’s attention. Calling home helps me to get that attention.

Unfortunately, my most problematic kids tend to have those full message, wrong number, disconnected, and otherwise unavailable phones. My school’s office will try to track down numbers for me, but sometimes I am stuck. Then I start writing letters. Teacher-readers, sometimes letters work. Sometimes Mara’s mom simply forgot to contact the school when her number changed. A letter or two are worth the time to post.

Hugs to all of you in these homebound times!

*I believe test pressure and the standards movement often contribute to these sudden behavioral changes, as students react to the anxious feeling that they are unable to meet demands. But that’s another post, one I have written before.

1. Poverty is not just a lack of money.
2. All cultures are not equally friendly toward formal education.
3. The internet is trouble, especially for kids with phones and little adult guidance.
4. “I don’t like to read!” is a phrase teachers hear often.
5. Gangs are not going away.
6. “Just say no!” frequently fails, although we have to try red ribbon weeks designed to discourage drugs.
7. Because drugs are not going away.

The standards movement and other brainstorms by leaders in education, business and government tend to treat all students as factory inputs with equal potential and essentially similar characteristics. Accordingly, and increasingly over time, almost all students are kept in the mainstream, including those who struggle academically or emotionally. Environment is the invisible elephant in America’s room. While no one can solve the many kinks in learning introduced by environment — we can’t erase the bullet holes in Daisy’s garage and do much about the fact she got no sleep — we do no one any favors by refusing to allow that environment to influence our teaching and actions. Maybe Daisy frankly should be allowed to sleep for a period or two without her teacher worrying about admin entering and writing the teacher up for not forcing Daisy to stare blankly at the whiteboard.

This post was inspired by a number of teachers who are currently trying to make online learning work against the odds. Educators know that luck of the district and demographic matter enormously in making remote learning work. I admire the many fierce attempts out there to keep learning on track.

The current crisis favors districts with access to electronics and practice with electronics. It favors districts that have been passing out those iPads freely for years, sending the iPads home rather than corralling them at the end of the day. It favors kids who live with parents who have been videoconferencing and using group connection apps for years.

Poverty is not just a lack of money. Sometimes it’s the absence of wi-fi. Sometimes it’s a lack of experience with expensive tools. Or poverty may be a single parent who can’t answer questions because her position as a pharmacy tech depends on her driving into work.

Eduhonesty: Teachers are trying heroically to make learning work as classroom doors lock behind them. These home-bound people could be making banana bread instead of scouring the internet for student-friendly lessons. But many of them will do better than others for reasons having nothing to do with their motivation or effort. You can’t teach the kid who does not use the Google classroom.

In hopes that this post will help prevent more teachers from being blamed for events and forces beyond their control…

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Educational funding reform could help equalize the technology gap, but that’s another post for another time.

I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.

~ From “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” screenwriters Jeffrey Price, Pete S. Seaman, and Gary K. Wolf. The pic is from dreamstime.com , bunny-cartoon-vector-hand-drawing-funny-painted-rabbit-carrot-paws-isolated-white-background-96733733.

Not all schools are closed. Not all students have gone out on the staycation that is causing consternation across the United States. Some kids are in school. But they are not immune to the barrage of apocalyptic news traversing cables and airwaves. Those kids with anxiety disorders? I guarantee many are spending hours on the precipice of a full-blown panic attack.

Those kids may escalate misbehaviors. Acting out is a distraction. Acting out can help you escape that fearful place inside your own head, leading you into more familiar territory — yet another talk with the teacher, dean or principal. For some kids right now, talking to the dean may seem infinitely preferable to thinking about scared parents or guardians trying to manage the toilet paper crisis.

Eduhonesty: Teachers are scared, students are scared, and scared has a way of sending some students off the rails. I suggest a mantra for teachers who are encountering unusual management challenges: At https://anxiety-gone.com/52-mantras-natural-anxiety-relief, you can find a favorite of your own. My mantra of choice has long been “just keep swimming.” I also like, “this is only temporary” — it’s good for these times and also for the moment when “George” decides to knock over his desk or toss his water bottle across the room. I’d share these mantras with students who are struggling.

I’ll add one more mantra of my own for the Georges and their classmates: “He’s not a bad rabbit. He’s just trying to draw himself that way.”

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