Items

• 
  2021-07-15

  High School COVID-19 Expectations and Procedures

  The document is the "COVID-19 Parent/Guardian Expectations" section of a school handbook for the 2021-2022 school year. For this school district, the 2021-2022 school year is the first year since the pandemic started that would be entirely in-person. Due to this, school staff, parent/guardians, and students were expected to comply with essential health and safety standards. The handbook covers when students should be kept home from school, how to report symptoms of COVID-19 or a positive test, bus protocols, sanitation policies followed by teachers and school staff, mask expectations, cafeteria and food procedures, accommodations for social distancing, requirements of school volunteers, and athletics. This document shows how schools worked to create policies and procedures in order to keep students in school in-person. These procedures were created in anticipation of the first school year that would be completely in-person, since the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years were partially online.
• 
  11/18/2020

  Avery Judnic Oral History, 2020/11/18

  In this interview with Avery Judnic, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, she will be touching on a variety of topics ranging from her experiences as a high schooler to her college experience. Being a freshman in college, in 2020, means that Avery’s spring of 2020 was spent in high school during the COVID pandemic and her fall semester is being experienced now as a freshman in college. Her class has experience from both high school and college during the pandemic. As she discusses her concerns about the pandemic pre-college and during college, varying trends and ideals are displayed in her experiences. Understanding the life of the class that has been thrown into the thickest of it all will reveal some of the most impactful effects of the pandemic. Avery focuses on her experience in her hometown compared to college life, as well as the concerns of her and her fellow classmates. “It's not about business, it's about teaching, and inspiring young people to do other things in their lives.”
• 2020-03-09

  Online School

  During the pandemic, I had to participate in an online school. This is one of the zoom links I used to do my online classes. I did not like participating in online school, it was very difficult to learn.
• 
  2020-05-23

  Abascal_Carlotta_

  C19OH
• 
  2020-12-16

  Distance Learning Craziness

  Distance Learning was not for the faint of heart. My very social daughter struggled with distance learning because she needs people. This picture I posted on Instagram. Her teacher was a saint to be able to reach the kids even though he knew full well they were going a bit crazy at home.
• 
  2020-05-25

  COVID 19 Global Impact

  I have selected a photo of a few parents standing around the front of a school. Some were protesting and other were trying to gather information about the nyc public school shutting down because of covid 19. This photo was not taken by me but was found on the internet among other photos similar like this one. This photo shows what was going on in my neighborhood and what was currently take place at the time.
• 
  2020-03-11

  CUNY's Response

  Where to even start? 2020, the year where everything and everyone changed forever. 2020 did not just consist of the Covid Virus it consisted of many other threads that harmed everyone’s mental health including students. It was hard for all students during this time but in my perspective College students. This documents faithfully explain 2020 and I will be here to give you future historians a more in depth look at how it really was during these times. The document I chose not only explains how we went from going in person to virtual but also how it made me feel as a visual learner and as a college student of course. CUNY mentioned we were going to have a “Instructional recess from March 12-18th”, this day I will never forget because I did not know that March 11th was going to be the last day of my two-years of college. When I received this email on Twitter that CUNY had stated this I was overwhelmed and shocked. The thought of everything being virtual just didn’t seem right to me, although I did have all the access from computers to internet access, it just did not sit right. As a visual learner this was tough for me, this was a moment of you get classwork and you basically have to teach it to yourself, not seeing my professors in person and through a screen was very hard to get used to, the internet sometimes would not work and it would cut off and I would miss most of the important things said during the lesson, it was honestly very difficult, this was not just tough on students, as well as professors having the same issues. This era was honestly tough, but technology really saved a whole year worth of schoolwork. To the historians reading this in a couple of years from now, I, as a person who lived through these times want you to understand the rough time we went through, from masks to face shields to many deaths and virtually going to school. These were moments in time that no one anticipated. It shaped the future into what it had become, masks may become the new norm, working from home may be allowed for certain jobs and companies, schools just might let people continue to be fully virtual and things may be extremely dependent on technology from now on. To conclude this 2020 document, though it was a rough year where millions of people died worldwide, I can only be thankful that me and the ones I love are safe and okay. We now know how to take proper precautions in case anything like this happens again, though I don’t wish for a repeat of 2020. The year of 2020 is one for the books and one that will go down in history.
• 
  2021-03-16

  Student enrollment is declining...where have Arizona Students gone?

  This article highlights the declining enrollments of students in Arizona and their absence, so too does the funding disappear. According to the featured article, the combination of an approximate loss of 10% percent of the student population coupled with a drastic cut in the funding levels has significantly impacted the financial operations and organization of public school districts. The enrollment loss is mostly concentrated on the elementary levels, yet a notable loss of enrollment in high schools is of some concern. Declining enrollment not only affects the students' ability to develop important critical thinking and life skills, but in-person instruction should aid the student in recognizing the workload that comes with advanced degrees and education. Another option offers students the ability to learn through the hybrid instructional model.
• 
  2021-03-20

  Michele Gable Oral History, 2021/03/21

  Michele Gable is a wife and mother living in a small suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. In her oral history, Michele reflects upon life before COVID-19 and shares how the pandemic has affected both her home and work life. She highlights her experience contracting a severe case of COVID-19 and how she navigated being around her family throughout her sickness. As an insurance underwriter, Michele describes the advantages of working from home while being ill and how her company handled her sick leave after the virus evolved into COVID-19 pneumonia. She shares the ongoing medical issues she still suffers from months after initially recovering as well as her thoughts on the COVID-19 vaccine as well as wearing masks.
• 
  2020-03-13

  my covid experience

  My covid experience this year is probably a lot like others. I've lost family members to this pandemic my close friends lost loved ones as well. There are a plethora of people I know who have lost their jobs, gained severe diagnosis of anxiety and also depression. Being stuck in the house for all those months with family was a very strenuous task and it was also very debilitating as well. While the covid outbreak started my family and I were sent into a frenzy mentally and physically. My mother lost her job due to the pandemic and I had to pick up more hours at work and do other side jobs to somewhat help with the expenses as well also during this pandemic i was also in school. Attending Brooklyn College during the pandemic was a very difficult thing to do especially due to the fact that we had transitioned to online learning, something I or my teachers haven't really done in some time. The social distance learning that was implemented was a very difficult concept to grasp because one day we go from attending class everyday to the bombardment of information being thrown at us and us as students expected to keep up and also the teachers having to make sure they kept up with the requirements. School, going to work and worrying about the well being of others and myself put me into a state of worry at all times sort've giving me mild ptsd. I hope that this time next year this covid situation will be gone and we can go back to living the way we were.
• 
  2021-02-28

  When The Impossible Becomes Real

  The item I am submitting is about how I saw things changing during this pandemic and how it affected me.
• 
  2021-02-28

  Surviving the pandemic

  It is my personal experience of the pandemic. It's important to me as I've fought my inner insecurities and battles. I'm still coping with the stress caused by this pandemic, but it is getting better and I hope it gets better for everyone else too.
• 
  2020-11

  Isolation is Lonely

  This past November was the weirdest and hardest time during this pandemic for me. In Early November, I had made new friends with other people on my floor and I had been working as a Nighttime desk aide here at the University. At the start of the month, it was election time and it stressed me out. I was concerned about the election, but I was more concerned with how each candidate would deal with COVID-19. With one candidate promising to make things better, and with the other still not believing science, I became even more worried for the future. To get my mind off the election, my friends and I went out to eat and got Mexican. Little did we know, that within the upcoming weeks that we would get sent home early. Before we got sent home, we discovered a hamster on our floor, after we saw the cage in our communal bathroom. To this day, we never discovered who had a hamster. Other highlights that we had was getting Millie’s ice cream, which for me, was the first time I had ever had Millie’s. On November 14th, my friends and I learned that another one of our friends had contracted COVID-19 and we had all been exposed to it. That same day, all of my friends and I packed up and either went home or went to the Hotel. My first worry was that I was going to be losing my paychecks, as I have bills of my own that I pay, including my credit card, and I did not have a job at home to rely on. My second worry was my family, as I didn’t want to possibly give them COVID-19, as my Dad works in a hospital and is at higher risk. I didn’t want to go home at first, but my Mom wanted me to come home and keep me close. Over the next two weeks, I sat in my bedroom at home, with no human contact and I just had my dog to keep me company. After going home, I had to attend all my classes online, which was a struggle for me, as I have a family of 5 including myself, with 2 younger siblings who are also doing online school. Keeping up with my classes became a lot harder because my Wi-Fi at home didn’t support 3 people being on zoom at the same time almost every day. On Thanksgiving Day, I was finally able to leave my room, as I had shown no signs of COVID-19. I ended up getting tested for COVID-19 and tested negative. I also ended up getting a seasonal job so I didn’t worry about money as much. Overall, the month of November was one of the hardest months for me.
• 
  2021-02-02

  The Unexpected Digital Benefits of Distance Learning

  When I first saw our Distance Learning schedule, I was actually relieved. When we were still thinking of re-opening back in August, the Hybrid schedule they proposed was atrocious. I would be able to synchronously (live instruction) teach a student for only 2 hours a week, the other three hours would be asynchronous. The powers that be told us “you have to just deal with the fact that you won’t be able to teach everything you usually do.” Of course, these are the same powers that be who expect the kids to pass their AP tests, and tell us that state testing (which is still happening regardless of the opening status) is “high stakes.” Contradictions, much? So, the Distance Learning schedule, which allows me to see a student three times a week, for 3 hours and 20 minutes of live instruction, was a vast improvement. Still, block scheduling? The very idea of block scheduling sent chills down my spine. Even in college, I opted for M, W, F classes because I do not sit still long enough for the 1.5-hour classes that were on T/Th. And how would I digitize an entire course? I was lucky to have already “flipped” my classroom about five years ago, when I recorded all my lectures and assigned them to watch on YouTube, freeing up class time for discussions and document analysis. But how would I do gallery walks, document analysis, Socratic Seminars, etc. digitally? Could I? Now with a semester of Distance Learning under my belt, there have been some huge advantages to being forced into this completely digitized world. First, digitized documents are amazing. So much of my course is document analysis. With digital documents, the copies aren’t blurry, the kids can zoom in if the font is small, and thanks to Google, they love to highlight and annotate the heck out of them. And Jamboards have been a godsend for collaborative analysis. I am debating whether I will ever go back to paper document analysis. Online tests have also been a game changer. I always steered away from online tests, due to fears over test security. Test days were big affairs in my class. The kids would put all their items, including phones, on the counter. I would go by each table and make them turn out their pockets to ensure no phones. I liked to joke that test days were more serious in my class than going through TSA. Because the students sat in tables of four, there were four forms of the multiple choice test and 20 versions (4 versions per period, for five periods) of the short answer portion of the test. The end of test day left me with 180 Scantrons, 180 short answer questions to grade, all with different forms, plus their notebooks, which they turned in on test day. I had to let that kind of control go this year and jump headfirst into online testing. And I am so glad this happened. It was the push I needed. The world of online testing has improved remarkably since the ten years ago that teachers at my school began to move toward it. It is SO EASY to grade and to make different forms with the click of a button. The multiple choice grades automatically and the short answer, I click the points and it pushes to the gradebook. A task that took me four hours now takes me 30 minutes. I know while the kids are at home, there is nothing to stop them from having notes on the side or on another device, but honestly, with tests that are based on historical reasoning skills, I don’t really care if they are looking up the name of an act, event, or person. I am more interested in if they can effectively use that information to support their argument. When we’re back in person, I can ensure they don’t have their phones and that Go Guardian is on to keep them from opening other windows. Without Distance Learning, I would have never made this change. Writing has also dramatically improved due to technology. I always made my students write essays by hand because the AP exam makes them write them by hand. However, with the AP exam going digital, I can now, too. It is incredible to see how the quality of writing has improved through typing. It is terrible to think that students in previous years may have been less successful on the AP exam simply because they did not formulate ideas as well with pen and pencil as they would on a computer. Block scheduling, too, has been surprisingly smooth. It is so refreshing to have time to analyze documents and follow it up with writing and peer editing - all in one period! Of course, I will be fine to return to our 55 minutes classes someday. I still don’t sit still well. Will I keep the course entirely digital when we are (hopefully) back to a normal year? Probably not everything. I miss the kids having a notebook that we build throughout the year, and will probably return to our traditional notebook for in class activities. BUT I am happy to never run a Scantron again!
• 
  2021-01-30

  High School Reflections on a Semester of Online Learning

  This is the assignment given to my high school juniors at GGHS in Southern California to reflect on their semester of quarantine. Assignments with the #gghsapush and #GGHS hashtags should be related to this assignment. GGHS serves approximately 2400 students, and has an approximate demographic breakdown of: 50% Latino, 39% Asian, 7% White, and 4% other. 66% of the student body is identified as socio-economically disadvantaged, and 23% are identified as English Learners. The school has been on Distance Learning since March 16, 2020.
• 20201-01-20

  Covid Rules

  During Covid-19 we had many rules and regulations. We couldn't go out to eat or shop anywhere! Nobody was allowed to stay open which affected their businesses. Places slowly adapted and stated opening up outside. To go anywhere it was mandatory to wear a mask at all times unless eating or drinking at a table. We were forced to stay home and school was online. Now school is open and we're wearing masks. The rules seems pretty dramatic since the virus isn't as bad as they say it is. Elderly people are affected by it the most since they usually have pre-existing diseases or just problems.
• 
  2021-01-25

  A Semester of Outfits

  I haven’t grown in height since junior high school, and, as a result, I have A LOT of clothes. As sort of a fun game for myself and my students, I do not repeat an outfit through the 180 days of the school year. When school shut down in March, I switched to permanently in joggers, since I no longer left the house. When we began synchronous Distance Learning in August, I knew it was really important for my mental health and to try and portray a sense of normalcy for my students to still dress just like I was going to teach in person in a normal year. Since I don’t get to see all my students five days a week due to our block scheduling format for Distance Learning, I decided to post my outfit to my class Instagram each day, as an “ootd,” just for fun. It’s become sort of an interesting keepsake of my pandemic experience. If you look beyond the outfits and into my eyes you can tell the days I was anxious, worried, tired about the rising case counts, the unknowns, the state of our country, and locally, the true fear of whether they would force us to return to teaching in person. But the pictures also capture that in between the ever rising death toll, wildfires, political discord, racial tension, Capitol riots, life had to keep moving forward. And even during a semester of turmoil, you can see a lot of pictures show joy behind my eyes... and not only when the Dodgers won the World Series, allowing me to retire my 1988 World Series shirt! A new semester starts today, we’ll see what the expression in my eyes says about the state of the pandemic and the world in the weeks to come.
• 
  2021-01-22

  The Push For Fitness

  If there’s anything I learned in the last 8 months, it’s that the world is a very uncertain and chaotic place. A week before quarantine, spending a quiet week alone for Spring break, was all I wanted in life. 9 months later and another quiet week could potentially be lethal. Even though life has been crazy and online school drives people mad, one thing I’ve managed to pick up and get into the habit of is working out. Everyday, no matter what it is, I set aside an hour and a half to at least stand and go on a run or do any form of exercise. Not only is this good for my body, it’s a great stress reliever from a long unstable day of online school, a great time of reflection and a great way to clear my head from the day. Even in the most chaotic of days, and even on days where I have a lot of work to finish, I spend an hour to clear my head, and most times, after a workout and warm shower, I become more productive than ever. I enjoy working out as it is a great way for me to have something to control when the world around me is changing in the blink of an eye. Me four years ago would’ve never expected or predicted that, I would enjoy losing my breath and being sore from my neck down on a daily basis. Not only does it feel like I have control over my life, but working out has become a hobby of mine, acting as a goal I can achieve in the background subtly while dealing with school and life as a 17 year old.
• 
  2020-01-22

  Diary of a Quarantined Teen: 2020-2021 Edition

  Here lies a photo of my monitor, which I believe represents my current experience as a junior in high school. Pictured on the monitor is classwork, the bane of many students going through distance learning. It connects to the pandemic as most, if not all, students are being forced to go online to complete classwork and connect to Zoom classes as we suffer through our teen years. The internet is where many have come to meet new people, find answers, and much more, which all starts through our electronic devices. Personally, my devices have kept me sane since the pandemic first struck, but also became a major source of anxiety. This miracle holds numerous games in which I can release my stress and anger through, such as Valorant and Minecraft. In addition, it allows me to communicate with my friends through Discord, something that most teens utilize. However, it is where I sit for hours starting from as early as 7:30 am, to as late as 3:00 am, just for school. This may not be the healthiest thing to do, especially since all of this occurs in my bedroom, a place that used to be my haven. What was initially my safe space became a source of a multitude of emotions, such as stress, anger, joy, and much more. There is no longer a true feeling of comfort in any place I can think of, which really is the most disappointing part of it all. But, it’s just part of being a quarantined teen, right? During this quarantine, I believe I have changed for the better in most aspects, though my mental health has reached the lowest point it has ever gone. I’ve made so many new friends, something that I believe is somewhat hard for me, so I consider it a significant accomplishment. Most importantly, I have learned to prioritize myself. Although I’m not quite there yet, big decisions take baby steps, and thanks to it, I feel like I’m slowly getting better mentally. Unfortunately, I have also lost and drifted from friends, and lost a few people in my life due to the virus. As much as I want to feel sorry for myself, to just cry and complain about the unfairness of life, almost everyone is going through something due to the pandemic, so the best I can do is to stay silent and keep on pushing.
• 
  2021-01-19

  The Happy Little Chef

  The media focuses a lot on the losses children are facing during the pandemic. And while I certainly would prefer that the virus was contained and my son would be able to attend school in person, take piano lessons with his piano teacher beside him instead of on a Facetime call, and play with a friend outside of his older sister, my six year old son is genuinely enjoying quarantine. I realize this is a privilege - we have a backyard, space, two working adults who can afford food and technology, and a live-in grandma who can help with any distance learning issues. But my son seems to be thriving in this much simpler and quieter life. We always did a lot together as a family, but we did not spend a lot of time actually at home. Now that we’ve been home together for over ten months, we have settled into this new life that involves my son helping my husband make dinner every night. And he LOVES it. It’s not as though he had never cooked before, but to be able to do it every night, side by side with his dad is an experience he did not have in our pre-quarantine life that was much faster paced and on the go. Many nights, the little chef will bring me a menu that outlines the dinner and asks for my order. He takes such pride in telling all of us what parts of the meal he was in charge of. He assures us he is both the owner and the “cooker” of the restaurant and that his daddy is his employee. When dinner is over, he asks to take my plate, and has recently become very interested in washing all the dinner dishes himself (no complaints here). I certainly long for the day that we can go back out in the world, but I feel very blessed that my son will be able to look back at this year with happiness, even in the midst of such a dire situation.
• 
  2020-11-02

  Cold in the Classroom

  If you have ever been in a middle school classroom, feeling cold is probably not the first thing that you think of. One might think of rowdy kids, perhaps non-inviting smells, stuffy air, but not necessarily the feeling of cold. After going home on March 13, 2020, I was forced to work remotely for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is still crazy to think how quickly everything changed from normal life to the furthest thing from it—just two days before the end of in-person schooling, I was still planning on going on the eighth grade Washington, DC trip! Anyway, going into the 2020-21 school year, because teachers were allowed to return to their classrooms (even though school would remain in distance for the foreseeable future), I decided that I would go into my classroom and work from there. I figured that it would help create a sense of normalcy in my own life while offering a familiar background to my students. After a few days of working from school without any students, I noticed how cold it was in my classroom. On a normal school day, I would turn on the air conditioning fairly early in the morning, being that the room would become warm and stuffy shortly after the students arrived. Even with it warm outside, I was noticing myself running the heater well into the afternoon. Without the heater, my classroom would quickly become unbearably cold! With brick walls and only a thin layer of carpet over a concrete floor, it is clear why it was so cold. I was just one person in a room that would normally have around 30—my body heat alone wasn't going to heat up the room! It is amazing to think that a silly little thing like the temperature of my classroom kind of got me down. No matter what I did to try and simulate normal life, it was just impossible for life to be normal, and that nagging cold was there to remind me of that fact. Just writing this down, I can feel the cold on my arms and legs, and I have an urge to go and get a blanket, put on a sweatshirt, or turn on the heater. Come to think about it, I can also feel the pain in my lower back from sitting in front of a computer all day! In addition to the sense of touch/feeling being noticeably different, I have to say, the absence of, shall we say, interesting smells has also been out of the ordinary for my middle school classroom. I really cannot complain all too much when it comes to my experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic; I am lucky enough to still be employed, I can work at home if I wanted to, and no one all too close to me has had the disease. A great many people around the globe have had their lives shattered in the past year, so I really should be counting my blessings. With that said, I feel as if the coldness of my classroom somewhat symbolizes the isolation that I (and many others) are feeling during this trying time. The simple fact that there are not 30+ individuals in the room is causing the cold and, again, it is a nagging reminder that the world is simply not the same as it was a year ago, no matter how much we wish it were.
• 2020-04-13

  School Bells and Silence

  In late March, families in Portland, OR were told to prepare themselves for children to finish their school year from home. While my husband and I don’t have kids, we live across the street from an elementary school and enjoy hearing the children play as we go about our life at home. I loved hearing their laughter and giggles as they lined up outside of their classroom doors or the screeches that filled the air as they tore out of the doors for some much needed recess time on the playground. Then, on April 13, 2020, the laughter, the hollering, the clangs of playground equipment stopped. Up until that point, I could set my personal schedule by the sounds of that playground and now those sounds were gone. The quietness that remained behind was made even more eerie by the daily bells that rang from the school’s outdoor intercom system to signify the start of the day, end of recess, etc.. The tones that were barely audible on a normal day due to all of the commotion on the playground were suddenly a very loud, and real reminder that the world was different. It took the school nearly two months to turn off those alarms and every single day for those two months, at 8:25, 11:45, 12:15, and 2:25, those bells echoed throughout the neighborhood reminding everyone how much our world had truly changed. The alarm bells are now off and have been for nearly 6 months. It’s very quiet at the school. While we’ve all gotten used to the silence, every so often a family will head to the playground and, for a minute as the sounds of a child’s laughter drifts through the windows of my house, I remember what it was like before COVID and am suddenly slammed back into the reality of what our day to day lives have become. I can’t wait to hear those happy voices again - it will mean our lives are back to whatever new normal is on the other side of this pandemic.
• 2021-01-15

  My experiences from virtual learning

  Ever since March 13, 2020, till December of 2020, I had to do school online, from home. During this period of time, I had many new experiences. I have never done school at home before, and I never want to ever again. We used this app called zoom, and we had big face times with all of my classmates for our classes. All I had to do to go to school was roll out of bed and log on to my computer. Which is not as fun as it sounds. Doing all of my classes at home was really hard, I could not pay attention no matter how hard I tried. I always had my phone right next to me which was a big distraction, and my bed was 2 steps away. Although it was hard to pay attention and I didn't like doing school virtually, it was still fun. I had all the food at my house accessible to me, I got to nap at break, use my own bathroom, and face time my friends and stuff. So even though I hated do school at home, it was a fun and new experience that I will never forget.
• 
  2020-01-11

  Silent Bells & Quiet Halls: An Auditory Experience of the COVID-19 Pandemic

  In almost every aspect of life, COVID-19 has put the world on mute. From canceled weddings and downsized gatherings to remote workspaces and quiet homes left behind by those we have lost, the overwhelming soundtrack of the pandemic is silence. When K-12 students in the United States transitioned to distance learning nearly 10 months ago, elementary, middle, and high school campuses were abandoned, leaving bells silenced and hallways quiet. From March to November, this silence came to define my work at Princeton Joint Unified School District in the rural town of Princeton, California. No longer did bells ring to mark the end of one period and the beginning of another, lockers no longer slammed shut as students rushed to gather their belongings, and students could no longer be heard gossiping, laughing, and playing during morning break. While this silence initially felt like summer vacation had merely arrived a few months early, the lack of auditory stimulation began to diminish morale and decrease productivity as work felt further removed from the students themselves, transforming human beings into pieces of data and names on a paper. I could often go an entire eight-hour shift without speaking to another person, frequently finding my voice raspy when I would pick up the phone for the first time in hours. Even among coworkers, passing conversations vanished and became simple one-line emails dealing only with the business at hand. As Zoom calls replaced in-person staff meetings and participants remained on mute, the noisy world in which I once worked fell even further away. When in-person learning became optional in November, the sound slowly began to return, but it had changed from what it once was. Growing accustomed to the silence over the long summer, I often found myself jolted in surprise at each unexpected bell or sound of students on the playground. The number of students has drastically lowered since we first closed in March, as many opt to remain home to avoid possible exposure, while lunchtimes are now staggered, and breaks are shortened to prevent spread, creating ominously quiet and often uncomfortable atmospheres. The unease and discomfort heard in students' softened voices displays that widespread uncertainty that has permeated every corner of society. It is my greatest hope that schools will return to "normal" for the 2021-2022 school year and that the sounds of carefree students once more fill the hallways and classrooms of Princeton Joint Unified School District. Silence has become an all-too-painful reality of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I look forward to the day that bells ring on their regular schedule, coworkers are free to converse with one another, and every student returns to campus. In images and articles documenting the pandemic, the overwhelming auditory silence that many of us are experiencing is often lost and forgotten.
• 
  2021-01-11

  The Changing Sounds of Public Education During the Covid-19 Pandemic

  My wife and I are both public educators at Hamburg Area High School, a rural school district in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused our district to fluctuate between in-person and virtual instruction. During virtual days teachers have been encouraged to teach from home to mitigate the risk of exposure to the virus. I conduct my American History classes from the office in our home, while my wife, a music teacher, performs virtual music lessons with her students in our dining room. This shift to virtual teaching from home has caused my classroom, which is usually quite traditional, to sound much different. While I attempt to educate my students on the finer points of American History, the sounds of young (and often struggling) musicians fill the air. Meanwhile, my two dogs also interject into class as they battle over toys and pillows. The Covid-19 pandemic has not only moved the location of public education, but also changed the way that education sounds. I recorded the following audio clip while my 3rd period AP US History class was studying primary source documents on the post-Civil War Reconstruction time-period (1865-1876) on Monday, January 11th.
• 
  2020-03-18

  Comfort in the Kitchen

  I have always loved cooking, and from a very young age, I spent time working through tough moments in my life with the comfort of flour, sugar and butter in the kitchen. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, I was a student teacher at a middle school in California, and finishing up my final quarter of my masters in education. I loved my job, my students, and my colleagues and I was heartbroken when I had to say my final in-person goodbyes to my first set of students. Just as I had in the past, I took my confusion, worry and stress to the kitchen, and began to procross the difficult road that I knew was ahead of me. One of the first recipes that I baked in quarantine was coffee cake because I had been talking to a friend, who had never tried it before. As I listened to my mixer beat the sugar and butter together, I could feel a sense of calm wash over me. Baking, even though it’s science, has an interesting paradox of being confusing and straightforward at the same time. I typically understand how the ingredients work together, and the process of following each step of a recipe brings a sense of peace. As I incorporated the eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, dash of allspice, salt into my mixture, the daunting nature of a global pandemic hit me. How was I going to adapt to online learning? How was I going to get a job in the fall as a teacher? How was I going to handle the next unknown amount of time? The smells wafting from my mixer comforted me, and even though the smell was confusing to my nose, I knew that the end product would be delicious and bring warmth to those who tried it. As I poured the mix into a pan and set it in the oven, a new sense of ambition began to bubble in me. If I could bake this wonderful cake, how hard could it be to face a pandemic? As I said this to myself, I knew how ridiculous it sounded, but I knew at this point I had to fake it until I made it. So as my coffee cake was baking I sat down and began to plan the next few weeks of virtual learning and by the time the timer went off, I had a rough plan of what I wanted to do. Taking the cake out of the oven and sampling it for the first time was glorious. I had worked hard to produce this thing, and I knew I could do the same with any task put in front of me during this pandemic. As I delivered baked goods to my friends doorsteps, while maintaining 6 feet of distance, and wearing a face mask, I hoped that a taste of coffee cake would bring the same comfort to my friends as it did to me in the tough early days of the pandemic.
• 
  2020-05-12

  Making this Moment in Time: My Covid-19 Reality

  This is my story and my truth regarding my moment in time in my new Covid-19 reality. This story was originally done in May 2020 on behalf of a contest I entered for the Bronx Community College Spoken Word Club. It expresses what I was feeling and going through during that exact time at the height of the pandemic.
• 
  2020-11-06

  College VS. Pandemic

  Being a college students is seemingly easy and hard enough at the same time. We go to class we start taking notes and we transition those notes into a study sheet or even into a paper. The important part of that is the going to class part. One thing that I have personally learned is that it was not easy to transition to online classes. I am a visual learner and it is a lot easier to ask questions on something you did not understand. The transition to emailing and hoping you get a response buy the time the assignment is due is something new to a lot of people. and this is not just for the schooling side of the pandemic this is also for the culture of a college campus. There is jsut something about being on a campus and knowing that every other person that you are seeing is going through the exact same thing as you are and you are in this fight together. Also, you create friendships in these environments that could ultimately help you with an assignment. It is hard to transition to being alone and trying to do these things by yourself.
• 2020-09-04

  Learning to be a Writing Center Tutor in 2020

  I chose to upload my research proposal because I am going to study how tutoring strategies work in an online setting. I would usually have more flexibility with this assignment if we were meeting in-person with out students, but I had to restrict my options to those that were easily conducted in an online setting. I thought it's important to note how the physical conducting of school is not only affected by out situation, but also the actual content of classes too. Most of my classes are working the pandemic into their lesson plans in one way or another. In my Media History class, we looked at artifacts from the Spanish flu in newspapers from 1918-1919 to understand how the flu affected their lives then.
• 
  2020-10-14

  The kids aren't all right: COVID-19-fueled stress eating, inequities, lack of fitness expected to boost obesity, experts say

  Social distance and virtual learning have taken a toll on children with many turning to stress eating for comfort. Additionally, children from lower-income households are at high risk for obesity due to usually having to rely on cheaper, lower quality food. These factors, coupled with lack of exercise, had led to a small uptick in childhood obesity cases, with more expected to come, during COVID-19.
• 
  2020-11-04

  The Reality Of Teaching During COVID

  No teacher was prepared for a transition to distance learning during a global pandemic. Nevertheless, teachers all over the world had to alter courses at the end of last school year, and the beginning of this school year. With very little time, adjustments were made to introduce distance learning. This allowed for teachers to keep teaching and students to keep learning. Although a plan for distance learning was created, no one knew what they were walking into. This has left teachers, parents, and students to pick up the pieces and learn as they go. In frustration many blame teachers for any disorganization or problems that have occurred throughout distance learning, but in all realness, they too are left to take this new style of learning day by day.
• 
  2020-11-01

  How I’m Baking and Drawing My Way Through Quarantine

  An essay I've written that talks about how I am coping with the pandemic, as well as some of the things I am struggling with.
• 
  2020-06-23

  Online Learning Leaves Students in Poverty Behind

  This article puts in perspective the effects of distance learning on families at or below the poverty line. Many students in poverty with food insecurity, family instability, and even homelessness are also lacking a quality education due to the pandemic and virtual learning. Along with these already existing problems, these students also lack some of the necessary requirements to learn at all including internet access and availability of technology. This is leading them to fall farther behind than they already were.
• 
  2020-08-14

  First Day of Elementary School

  After being home for so many months my granddaughter was excited about going back to school to see her friends and teachers. I was happy for her but also as her grandmother I was concerned/anxious about her being exposed to COVID0-19. While I was happy for her it made me sad because I feel like this is going to be the new norm for children who choose to attend in-person schooling versus online schooling. (This was an option we had in our school system.) But this picture also goes to show that even though we are facing a health crisis, we are still adapting and overcoming, and trying to make life as normal as possible for our children.
• 
  2020-03-16

  The Beginning of the Decline

  My six year old (shown here) and my ten year old began distance learning March 16, 2020. This photographs captures my kindergartner's first day of distance learning. She found it new and exciting but that feeling did not last long. This photograph is entitled "The Beginning of the Decline" as it was the last photograph I snapped of her before she would be diagnosed with anxiety. Arizona State University, HST485
• 2020-10-12

  Quarantine

  My experience during quarantine was not that bad because during the summer I was still able to play baseball and go on vacation. But something that was bad is my basketball playoffs were cancelled mid way through so we weren’t able to finish them. For my mom quarantine was a little bit stressful because she is a teacher and she had to do something new she never knew, and now she has a totally new group of kids.
• 
  2020-10-11

  No Summer in Wisconsin

  In January I had heard a few reports of COVID-19 starting to spread into the United States, but it wasn't until late March and early April that the whole thing became very real. I remember the day before UWSP officially announced that it would be sending people home. I was with all my friends in my dorm. I remember looking at one another and saying our goodbyes just in case we were all having to pack up the next day. I personally didn't like the dorms very much, but leaving earlier than I was expecting was particularly hard. The semester before I had gone home because of a death in the family. I was unable to cope with it and school. So the fact that I had to leave once again after having had two great roommates was a blow to my pride in returning. When I came home it felt very strange. Suddenly I had all this time off without really wanting it. My plans for the summer were originally to go to Japan for the Guy Healy Program, but that didn’t pan out. I didn't want to go back to work and I had some time before online classes kicked in. However, that’s when a long-awaited release appeared. On March 20th, Animal Crossing: New Horizons released on the Nintendo Switch. I ordered it to arrive the day of, and that game took up an enormous amount of my time. With classes ending and the summer beginning, there was still not too much happening. I put down Animal Crossing after playing it for a total of 655 hours (about 27 days). I felt empty and useless. I wanted to see my friends and enjoy the summer with them. I wanted to have an income but was still afraid to go in public. When I spoke to my mother about this she responded “The virus isn't happening anymore”. I spent most of my time sleeping and depressed. That’s when I decided to buy something I thought to be only for rich people. I bought an Oculus Quest AKA a virtual reality headset. I figured, since I wasn’t spending any of my money on going places, I’ll buy something to allow me to do so. As July began I grew frustrated with the limitations of my headset. Because of its limited processing power, I couldn't see all the places and people that I wanted to. So, that led me to my second large purchase. I bought a gaming pc (in my defense it was $100 off!) Immediately after placing my order, I got a job. I was very afraid of being around people, but I needed to get some of my funds back. I started working at one of the Dollar Generals in town and my goodness was it a shit show. To paraphrase: there was a new manager, numerous new employees, stricter rules, a coin shortage, numerous item shortages, I was the only employee who wore a mask every day until I left, and most customers did not wear a mask even after the federal mandate. I legitimately wished for death by the time August ended and had my medication dosage increased. Every day that went by was a day closer to me leaving and living in my new apartment in Stevens Point. On September 1st my roommate and I moved into our new apartment. I was so relieved and so happy to be far away from my reckless and conservative family. I was now closer to my school, my friends, and now I could plan my own meals! Classes began on the 2nd and they were entirely online, except for one. It was very strange waking up and not going anywhere. For the next few weeks my days went the same: wake up, eat breakfast, attend classes, eat again/nap, attend more classes, play games, do homework, go to bed. Over and over and over.. I started to feel like I was going a bit mad. Sure, I spent a bit of time with a select group of friends and went out to buy groceries, but I was starting to falter in my classes. I was sleeping through class, forgetting to finish my homework, and struggling to fall asleep. Feeling like I had nothing left in me, I made a few changes to my life. For one, I began eating healthier and taking my pills every day. I also had my dosage doubled again. Secondly, I started to work out a bit with a new friend of mine. Finally, I have been trying to fix my sleep schedule so I can have time in the morning to work on things and wake up for school. These last few weeks have by far been the craziest of them all. With the presidential election and Wisconsin's rising COVID-19 cases, it’s hard to find a sense of peace. I am home at the moment watching my little sister because my mother and step-father went to South Dakoda for their 10th anniversary. Last week I learned that my grandfather became infected, and today I learned that two of my cousins have now tested positive. The lack of fresh food at the house is driving me insane and I honestly just want to go back to my apartment. I can only hope that November won’t be as insane as I expect it to be. But hey, at least I have my 21st birthday coming up in December!
• 
  2020-10-11

  My Experience of Covid-19

  Covid-19 has impacted so many people’s lives and routines, including mine. I left my first year of college early to move back home, switched from in person classes to online, was jobless for a few months, was quarantined, etc. This year, I have felt nothing but drained and tired. Similarly, to man in the photo, I have no source of energy. I am struggling with online classing, struggling with time management, and struggling with being stuck in one place for so long. I am a social butterfly who enjoys hanging out with her friends, being on campus and experiencing life. However, everything has changed due the pandemic. Everywhere I go, I must always make sure I am being careful and taking extra precautions. I must go to work, wear a mask all day and interact with people, despite how worried I am about my safety. I am aware that everyone is struggling and that my experience so far can relate to many others.
• 
  2020-10-11

  Studying Abroad During A Pandemic

  The end of January was coming closer and closer. Soon, I would be exchanging harsh Wisconsin winters for the rainy winters of London, England. The year prior, I had been there on a two-week study abroad trip learning about art. This time I’d be spending four months living in the International Student House and going to university there. By the time we left on the plane, there were barely whispers of a possible outbreak of a virus across the globe. We didn’t hear much more about it until the end of March. It was everywhere on the news, and we began to receive emails from our university in the States that we might get pulled from our program. We hoped that wouldn’t be the case. The city of London was seemingly normal up until we left. One major change happened with the tube. It was decided that in order to attempt to slow the spread of the pandemic across the city, certain tube lines would close down. This, in fact, had the opposite effect as it caused more and more people to cram themselves into rail cars in order to get to work or to school on time. We eventually received an email from our home university stating we would have a weekend to gather out things and then fly out early the next week. In fact, that weekend I was supposed to fly to Krakow, Poland on a short trip. I stayed back because I had a sinking feeling that something like this would happen. Crazy enough, if I would have gone, I would have been stuck in Poland--my flight back to London was canceled because due to the pandemic. We left a city scrambling to collect toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and masks and returned home to find a similar state of affairs in Wisconsin. We had heard about how horrendous the lines at customs were in the United States airports that were still open, with some having to stand and wait six to eight hours to make it through. When we arrived, it was impossible to adequately socially distance while we waited to get our temperatures checked and then be interviewed by the TSA about where we were coming from. By the time we had arrived, the process of going through customs had become much smoother--we only waited for about an hour. After returning home, we had to self-quarantine for two weeks. We had to finish our university term online, much like the students back overseas who went online after the Easter holiday. It was an odd thing to finish up my semester abroad in London from my home in Southwest Wisconsin. After ruminating about it for weeks, I thought to myself that I was incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to live and study in London for two months and even though our trip got cut short, I still had an amazing experience and got to meet some really wonderful people during my time there.
• 
  2020-09-09

  Not Enough Time in the Day

  I am currently under the impression that there is not enough time in the day...or the week for that matter. School is in full swing both for me as a teacher and a student. After working a 9 hour day in my classroom teaching students online I come home and set up the wild setup pictured above. My large desktop computer is used primarily for grad school; to watch lectures, write papers, and send personal emails. The laptop on the left is my school computer and used to do tasks for my job such as lesson planning, distributing assignments, or as is the case tonight field the emails from the district and parents as the decision was just made to move into a hybrid in 10 days. The iPad on the right is my catch all notepad. I've started using Microsoft OneNote as a digital planner, note catcher, and meal planner. I thought that after this spring I would be so sick of technology that I would feel compelled to move to paper. However, as time has gone on I realized that this isn't coming to an end. This could very well be our new normal and it's time to embrace the change rather than dwelling in the sadness of what used to be. As I write this I am also running through an email I am going to send to my team of teachers tomorrow. A less appropriate thing to include in a school email is the line that continues to flow through my brain, "it's time to do the damn thing." We. Can. Do. This. This is not the time to feel sorry for teachers everywhere or to wallow in our never ending to do lists. Instead it's the time to prepare to SHOW UP for our students who haven't been in a classroom for 6 months. The kids don't care about content. They care about contact. We'll show up. We'll be there. We'll do the damn thing.
• 2020-03-25

  Covid-19 Through The Eye of A Teen

  My experience with Covid is very weird. My middle school shut down towards the end of my eighth grade year. At first, going to school was weird because the normal school day was cut in half. Also, we now go to school through a laptop that gives you the option to essentially not even be there.(Turning off camera and microphone). To add to the mayhem, the governor of New Jersey issues a statewide stay at home order. Our president also declares a national state of emergency. So, as I am proccesing this, I am not scared of the virus, I am scared for the future and how things will return to any sense or normalcy. And to be completely honest, I don't know if that will happen soon.
• 
  2020-09-07

  School, Not School, Starts Tomorrow

  This Tweet explains what is really happening with virtual school. While teachers are having to work harder than ever to convert all of their lessons into something that has a chance of working online, parents, and mostly mothers are expected to be available at a moments notice to aid in technology and learning.
• 
  2020-08-27

  The Good Stuff

  The COVID-19 pandemic has rocked our world. We face new and unprecedented challenges daily. Amidst the chaos, I am doing my best to remind myself to lean into little moments of joy. I am a teacher with 2 elementary school aged children and a baby. Teaching my own classes, while facilitating remote learning for my children, and caring for a baby is difficult to say the least. Did I mentioned that I'm in graduate school? This past week, just when I felt that it was all more than I could handle, I captured the sweetest moment between sisters. While I can't wait to get back to life and school in actual classrooms, I know there are parts of this experience that I will miss. Moments like this are definitely one of them.
• 2020-08-25

  Classes in Covid times

  In some ways, the beginning of classes in this new age of ours is now all that different than in the past: we spend a lot of time going over the syllabus and being warned against plagiarism. But even in these early days of the semester, when not much of real consequence has happened, the differences are also readily apparent. While most of my professors have opted for maintaining synchronous class meetings through virtual means and otherwise trying conduct online classes as similarly to in person ones as possible, those virtual means produce a distancing effect. We may be able to see each other to a certain extent, though not everyone chooses to use their camera, but it is impossible to clearly read anyone's body language or for free flowing discussion to truly happen. We may all be in the same virtual place but we cannot truly form any sort of community under these circumstances. This is not to advocate for in person classes to resume- I fully understand the reasons for circumstances being as they are-but rather to note the loss of intangible things.
• 
  2020-08-18

  5 hours on Zoom is too much

  Sitting next to my 6yo while she sits on Zoom for 5 hours isn’t working. The teachers assume that a parent is there ready to jump in at any moment, and if we aren’t problems bubble up. For example, I was working on Maya’s second day of school and I missed that she took a bathroom break and missed that her teacher scolded her for taking one. I emailed the school’s principal, because while I really, really want her to attend the bilingual school, I don’t think it’s possible with the current set up. I wrote an email and asked, basically, what would happen if she unenrolled and came back.
• 
  2020-08-20

  Working from Home and Preparing for College During a Pandemic

  Everyone had to adjust their way of living during this pandemic. COVID brought a lot of challenges with it, for me like for example with preparing for college while also working from home.
• 
  2020-08-17

  6 hours of Zoom for 1st grade, it's going swell (or like 💩)

  Distance learning started for my 1st grader. After seeing the schedule, I could tell it was going to be rough. She’s supposed to be in class just under 6 hours a day. 6 hours on Zoom M-F. I couldn’t handle that as an adult, so why would I expect a 6yo to do it? The district handed out Chromebooks, which are fun for the 6yo because you can touch the screen or click the track pad, but ultimately the processors are too slow. It took so long to load Google classroom that I gave her my laptop, even though I really needed it to get my own work done. Most of the day was spent listening and trying to get the technology to work. If other students are loud or disruptive on Zoom it’s a lot harder to ignore them because they can directly compete with the teacher if they’re unmuted on the screen. The online learning program crashed for over an hour, so she sat and colored while we waited to reconnect. Maya drew this picture of our dog, yes pooping on a flower, but whatever. We resorted to bathroom humor to make light of the moment. The whole time I felt so stressed because the first day was uncomfortable and a bit boring. By the end of the afternoon she was supposed to transition into “special areas.” Today was music, but she didn’t want to stay in class. She was sick of learning on the computer. I’ll also say that the music teacher was a bit obnoxious asking for introductions and really digging in deep to people’s summer activities. I was over it at that point too. I really don’t care if a classmate is at a cabin, why does she need to sit there and listen to all of this? It was already a long day, and she wanted to quit. I logged her out of Zoom early and we’ll try again tomorrow.
• 2020-08-14

  Distance Learning

  First day of distance learning Kindergarten!
• 
  2020-08-13

  Distance Learning Parent Conferences

  Unable to resume in-person instruction, for the time being, the first day of school for students at Princeton Joint Unified School District in Princeton, California looked quite different this year. Instead of having students on campus, parents were asked to attend a scheduled conference to pick up supplies, technology, and information. The white papers hanging around the perimeter of the gym list every student in attendance, and the items placed below each sign were left for students to use at home. Parents attending the meetings felt overwhelmed and frustrated by the inability to return in-person but recognized that the local school district did not make this decision. Over the summer months, distance learning strategies were completely overhauled to improve on the lackluster results of last spring. Teachers at Princeton Joint Unified School District will be offering live instruction throughout the day using several new platforms. Parent conferences will continue into next week before daily live instruction begins on August 20, 2020.
• 
  07/24/2020

  Claire Cunliffe Oral History, 2020/07/24

  Claire Cunliffe, a high school mathematics teacher from Baltimore, Maryland, compares the early implementation of distance learning procedures among public and private school districts. While Claire reflects on the positive response to distance learning among students at private schools, including the increased ability for students to self-pace, she expresses concern over the lack of funding and limited resources available for students attending public schools. Claire makes the argument that technological unavailability among minority populations is exacerbating the opportunity gap among urban students. Reflecting on the conflicting responses of city and state leaders, including Governor Larry Hogan, Claire offers suggestions for reopening schools that ultimately place the decision in the hands of parents and healthcare professionals, instead of politicians. Claire conveys optimism that distance learning practices during the COVID-19 pandemic will permanently reshape the educational sector by encouraging interactive approaches to teaching, promoting community building among students, and displaying the benefits of incorporating digital elements into the classroom curriculum.