As an ongoing feature especially for the Coronavirus Pandemic, we continue to show the progress, or total lack thereof, of the SDUSD leadership via relevant LOCAL news articles by LOCAL Reporters (if available) that focus on the SDUSD Sandimic.
As a special feature this week we are providing 3 articles back-to-back-to-back showing examples of how other school districts and Charters are rolling out distance learning during the Coronavirus Pandemic with Teachers in their classrooms not destroying the quality of Student education by severely lowering the number of teaching hours provided.
BE WELL…TAKE COVID 19 PRECAUTIONS!
Teaching Inside an Empty Classroom, A Look at PSUSD’s First Day of School
Quotes from article:
Wednesday was the first day of the new school year for Palm Springs Unified School District families. The school year began with distance learning from home.
News Channel 3’s Madison Weil visited Landau Elementary and spoke with Christina, Alaniz, a fifth grade teacher, who explained her plan for virtual learning.
By 8:30 a.m., her classroom was empty, but her Zoom meeting on her laptop was full of new students.
“Can everybody hear me? I’m gonna share my screen. Can you guys see this?” Alaniz asked her class.
Nearly all her students were logged on early, excited for the school day. Alaniz walked them through some technical difficulties before beginning instruction.
The district says most teachers, like Alaniz, have chosen to teach remotely from inside their empty classrooms.
And…
They say about 35% of teachers have decided to teach remotely from home.
Alaniz says parents can do three things to help their kids with virtual learning.
1. Sign up for ParentVue by clicking here, the online portal the district uses to communicate and display student progress.
2. Make sure your student has a quiet, separate learning space to use each day.
3. Establish a daily routine with your child to help them stay on track.
Charter Schools in South Florida Reopen With Distance Learning
Be sure to watch video with classroom cameras that follow the teacher here: CLASSROOM VIDEO
Quotes from article:
One of the biggest public charter school operators in Florida surprised parents and teachers by doing an about-face this week on its reopening plans for this coming school year.
Charter Schools USA had initially said it would physically open its South Florida schools, but this week officials announced that in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties, the COVID positivity rates are still too high to reopen safely.
“The reality is that we’re in a very hard-hit area and we had to put the safety of everyone first, but we also have to realize that children most of the time learn best in a classroom,” said Jon Hage, CEO of Charter Schools USA.
The company operates 92 schools in five states, with 14 in South Florida serving about 18,000 students. Like the district schools, the CSUSA schools will reopen with distance learning only. Teachers will be instructing from their empty classrooms.
“I’m dying to get in front of my kids, I’m dying to be able to teach them, get them engaged in learning again,” said math teacher Jeanne Alonso.
And…
We spoke to Hage inside a classroom at Renaissance Charter School, a K-8 in Cooper City. The classrooms are being disinfected and set up with desks far apart to allow for social distancing. The hard part is deciding when it’s safe enough to bring kids back.
“None of us have all the answers on this, no one does, if they say they do, they’re guessing ‘cause no one’s done this before,” said Hage.
To make the home learning experience exponentially better, they’ve invested in voice-activated camera technology which follows the teacher around the room, allowing the kids to see the entire classroom and all the materials that the teacher wants to use.
“Rather than just sit at my computer and have them stare at me in my dining room, they can actually watch me walk around the classroom,” Alonso said.
And…
It’s still not the same as being in the classroom, of course, so CSUSA is promising its parents, students, and teachers that it will follow the data and science and as soon as the pandemic conditions improve enough, the kids are coming back.
Hage said at that point, teachers who have health or safety concerns will be able to teach from home. He also said teachers are not being asked to sign a waiver of liability.
“There will be no waiver of liability, you cannot waive your rights, what we are doing, though, is helping them understand and acknowledge what they’re walking into,” Hage said, adding that he’s confident the school environment will be as safe as any schools in the nation.
The Union Says No Way to Teachers Broadcasting Lessons from Empty Classrooms
Quotes from article:
With the Los Angeles Unified School District’s academic year set to begin on August 18, United Teachers Los Angeles, the second largest teachers’ union in the country, has rejected the LAUSD’s proposal for teachers to instruct from empty classrooms while their students login at home.
As ABC 7 reports, while bargaining between the district and the union continues Wednesday, UTLA maintains that if Los Angeles schools are unsafe for students, they are also unsafe for teachers and other staff members.
“While we know some of our members would like to teach from the classroom, the district has yet to provide clear safety protocols or evidence that it has secured the testing and Personal Protective Equipment necessary for staff to work from school sites,” a statement on the union’s website reads.
And…
UTLA also called the proposal “unacceptable” and said that it demonstrates “disrespect” of teachers by the district.
“LAUSD continues to push its unacceptable position that our members should be required to teach virtually from the classroom when the school year begins,” the statement continues. “We once again strongly rejected this attempted mandate.
“Our Bargaining Team called out the disrespect behind the district’s stance and questioned how LAUSD can feel so emboldened as to try to force our members—who are majority female and majority people of color—to return to work during a surging pandemic, putting educators’ health and safety at risk.”
L.A. County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis begs to differ, telling ABC 7, “Going into the classroom, there’s nobody there. You’re at a distance from everybody. That is definitely a safe thing to do. It’s really about the contact with someone who might be infected and being close enough to pass that infection.”
And…
The union also wants LAUSD to scrap plans for a “micro-structured” school day lasting from 8:30 a.m. until 3 p.m., claiming it would compel children to undergo an unhealthy amount of daily screen time. Instead, UTLA proposes that children under five years old be subjected to a maximum of 45 minutes of screen time per day. They are also asking for extra support for teachers to transition their classrooms to online learning.
District Deeds Synopsis and Commentary:
We decided to post the above articles back to back to back to allow our readers to compare how a California Public School District, a Florida “for profit” Charter School Network and a California Teachers Union approached distance learning during the current Coronavirus Pandemic.
When you watch the videos from the Florida and Palm Springs school districts, you will discover that the approaches each organization take are focused on the POSITIVE impact on STUDENTS of having of their Teacher IN CLASSROOMS during the Pandemic. The Teachers highlighted in each organization were enthusiastic about providing a familiar normalcy to their Students by teaching with the displays and manipulatives that create a socially familiar classroom experience.
The 3rd article describes the successful (?) effort of the LAUSD Teacher Union fight against any level of mandating healthy teachers to actually go to work for a full work day in their own locked classrooms.
The United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) claims it is “disrespectful” to ask Teachers go to work at their school and receive full salaries to do so.
Since all SDUSD Parents and taxpayers have been excluded from the top secret 2020/2021 school year rollout negotiations between the weak, corrupt SDUSD Leadership and the SDEA, there is no way we can tell if “Teachers in the Classroom” was even brought up.
We do know that “Teachers in Classroom” was not in the SDEA/SDUSD tentative agreement.
We believe that Teachers are “essential workers” for to the educational, social and emotional success of our most important asset…our children!
But Teachers are not officially designated as “essential workers” in any state as far as we know.
Are Teachers less “essential” than the following workers listed by the Economic Policy Institute?
Is it “disrespectful” for a food processing worker to be deemed “essential”
How about a Bus Driver…or a factory worker making masks, are they being disrespected?
The nation has been calling the individuals on the list “Heroes” but how many of those listed are more “essential workers” than a Teacher in a classroom?
The Teachers in Florida and Palm Springs have proven that they are actual “Heroes”.
By eliminating “Teachers in the Classroom” It is obvious that the SDEA and UTLA Teachers Union leadership have opted for the needs of the adults, not the Students.
This means that on behalf of their Teacher membership the unions have opted for Teachers to be cowards at the expense of Students.
District Deeds has brothers, family and friends that were and are teachers…they are not cowards.
And we know many SDUSD Teachers and they are not cowards.
The San Diego Education Association (SDEA) “About” Page says the following:
SDEA recognizes that our working conditions are the learning environment of San Diego’s children.
District Deeds agrees with the SDEA that Teachers in an excellent classroom “working condition” allows them to create the optimal “learning environment” that not only provides scholastic lessons but also shows familiar displays and manipulatives creating a full social classroom experience that helps ALL their Student grow educationally, socially and emotionally.
Can the SDEA and Teacher membership be courageous enough accept the fact that the same can be true in distance learning?
If the best virtual “learning environment” for Students in person is obviously “Teachers in the Classroom” because of the reasons we listed, how can the same “working conditions” in the same sanitized classroom inhabited by the same individual teacher every day be deemed bad or sub-par for Teachers and Students during distance learning?
That is why we should recognize Teachers as “essential workers” and believe that a full “Teachers in the Classroom” plan should be immediately deployed after the SDUSD first week “Boot Camp” with allowances for Teachers at health risk and other individual conditions applied. We would even be in favor of Hazard Pay bonus to those “Teachers in the Classroom”!
Or do the San Diego Teachers in the Union prefer to be cowards and betray Students in the face of this educational pandemic despite all proof they will be safe in their personal sanitized classroom?
We know that the incompetent SDUSD Superintendent and Board of Education Trustees betray all Students and are cowards because they are weak.
Will “essential” Teachers allow their Union to betray all Students and make them cowards because they are strong?
We hope not. We know you are better than that.
The Schools and Teachers we highlighted in Florida and Palm Springs have chosen to be brave “Teachers in the Classroom”…will the Teachers in the SDUSD have the courage to do the same?
We know they can…we hope they will.
We will soon find out.
Now for our quote of the week:
“Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” ―Maya Angelou
#MARTENSGOTTAGO
#BARRERASGOTTAGO
#PAYNESGOTTAGO
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IF
- Your family has been injured by the San Diego Unified School District, go to the District Deeds Complaint Forms page to find instructions to fight for your Civil Rights!
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Please Click the Link Below and sign the Petition Today and READ the COMMENTS to Support the REMOVAL of Marten by SDUSD Stakeholders!
District Deeds 