A Call for Credit Flexibility

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Education Policy, High School, Online Teaching | , , ,

On the OSPI website, I found this statement (originally posted at the start of the school year):

“The continuation of the COVID-19 public health crisis has meant that many school districts are re-opening using either a fully remote or hybrid learning model.  However, there are currently no additional credit flexibility or waiver options for the Class of 2021 graduation requirements like those used for the Class of 2020.”

As the legislature reconvenes in January and as other policy-making bodies weigh the second half of this unprecedented school year, I hope that flexibility around graduation credits for the class of 2021 gets swift and decisive attention.

Specifically, I believe that individual high schools should be granted complete discretion to waive up to two credits, no questions asked even for core classes, with the opportunity to apply for individual waivers of up to an additional four more credits for students who faced particular identifiable challenges during remote and hybrid learning. Yes, that is six credits: An entire school year. On top of that, waive all other non-credit-count requirements associated with graduation pathways. Put an asterisk on their certificate if it makes you feel better, but grant the diploma.

It is the humane thing to do.

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Anxiety in the Highly Capable Classroom

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Current Affairs | ,

One afternoon we read the poem “Thumbprint” by Eve Miriam. We talked about the metaphor in the poem, comparing the uniqueness of the thumbprint to the singularity of the individual. Suddenly one of my fifth-graders “Edward” blurted out in panic, “What if I’m all there is? What if everything is just projected inside my head and nothing else is real?”

Calmly, I reassured him, “That’s a philosophical position called solipsism.” I quickly googled solipsism, showing him the definition and that the term had been around since the ancient Greeks. “This is an idea that people have thought about for a long time.”

“Oh,” he said. “Ok.”

“By the way,” I added as I walked him back to his seat, “questions about what you know and how you know it are part of a branch of philosophy called epistemology. If you are interested in questions like that, you might want to study philosophy.”

“Ok!” Now he looked interested instead of like his world was caving in.

Of course, the boy next to him said, “I want to study science!”

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Remote Attendance

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education Policy, High School | , ,

Taking attendance on asynchronous (no-Zoom-days) is presently my absolute least favorite thing about remote learning. (And my “least favorite” list is long.)

Because we in Clark County are experiencing a significant COVID spike, it seems like the earliest we’ll move to hybrid in-person learning for our secondary schools will be February (note: this is not the official line, this me reading between the official lines).

Depending on which period a student is in, they may have two or three scheduled zoom sessions with me each week. I’m fine using zoom attendance as Attendance with a capital “A,” but I’m struggling hard keep up on attendance for non-zoom, asynchronous (or “on-demand,” as our district calls them) days. OSPI has provided guidance around marking absences, and I understand the impulse to hold a base level of accountability.

Nevertheless, I believe that the BIGGEST mistake we are making in distance learning is our persistent systemic disposition toward replicating in remote learning the rules and practices of in-person learning.

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Learning and Leading for Equity: Just Keep Going

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Current Affairs, Education, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership | , , ,

By Guest Contributor and Tumwater High School English Teacher, Emma-Kate Schaake

Humble Beginnings

Three years ago, our equity team was the new kid in school and we had all the hallmarks of not quite fitting in.

We dressed a little differently; Black Lives Matter shirts and rainbow pins. We asked questions while our peers rolled their eyes, understandably exhausted on a Friday afternoon. We visibly perked at the mention of data as everyone else sighed.

Together, we read articles, analyzed school data, and challenged our perspectives. We wanted to examine our privilege, change our classroom practices, and dream big for the future of our school.

Year one, we hosted a staff professional development session on white privilege and, let’s just say, it didn’t go well. People reacted defensively and resisted the very definition of white privilege. They then shared that we wasted their time, because our school is mostly white anyway.

 We had high hopes for systemic revolution, but progress on the ground was slow. We were asking staff to dig deep and examine what they knew about their lived reality, which was inevitably uncomfortable.

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Conferencing without a Conference Week

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Current Affairs, Elementary, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment

In a typical school year, our elementary fall conferences run for three days at the end of October. I sit and talk with parents and students for half an hour at a time.

This year, however, our schools started 100% online, so our district decided to have a “soft start.” The first three days in September became our “conference days.” Teachers called every family to talk them through what to expect for the beginning of school and checking that every family had computers and internet connection.

Meeting parents on those phone calls, I made brief notes about their children. “She has severe social anxiety, especially on Zoom calls.” “He likes doing his work on the computer. Online learning has suited him.” “She has ADD/ADHD, so staying focused is hard for her.” “We have two other children in the online program, and we both work full-time, so he’s going to have to work independently.”

Moving our conference days to the first three days of school meant we lost them in the last week of October. No time set aside even to Zoom with parents!

But that didn’t change the normal reminders running through my head:

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Goals: 2020-Style

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Online Teaching, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership | , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tell me about your goals. What were they before Covid-19? What are they now?

I’m guessing they are somewhat different. Our priorities have shifted. At home, this is good – more time with family and pets, and far less time on our hair!

However, my educator goals have suffered terribly. Prior to this year, I had clear and powerful goals for my classroom, my students, and myself. In fact, I had three areas that I was independently researching or promoting, and I was really fired up about them, too. I was building a toolbox of my own to be the best teacher I could be to my students.

Here are my goals, pre-Covid:

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TPEP: New Student Growth Rubrics

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Uncategorized | , , , ,

We’re almost a decade into the “new” teacher evaluation program (TPEP), and this year OSPI has introduced a change that I think has the potential to shift the model closer to its intention: promoting improvement of teacher growth and practice.

Of course, the middle of a pandemic is a rough time to add yet a potentially non-essential change to systems and policies…or it is precisely the perfect time. That’s not what I’m interested in debating.

For background: State law requires that “student growth” be considered in a teacher’s evaluation. To assess a teacher’s impact on student growth, one or more of five universal rubrics are used to evaluate their impact on student growth (it is “one or more,” because it depends on where the teacher is in their evaluation cycle… it is less complicated than I’m making it sound).

To really simplify it: Teachers are assessed on the growth goals they set for subgroups of students or for whole rosters of students. We often refer to this as the “inputs,” or the elements we as professionals have control over (writing goals, choosing assessments, etc.). To be proficient for “whole roster” goals, our work must match this description:

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Hybrid Model: The Inside Story

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership, Uncategorized | , , , , , ,

My district was one of the first in our region to go back to school face-to face this year. We began a “hybrid model” on September 14, with seniors and K-3 going four days a week, and all others going twice-a-week in cohorts (Monday/Thursday and Tuesday/Friday). On Wednesdays we delivered online material and caught up with our work, while reinventing it simultaneously. Some of our students opted for full-time distance learning, but the vast majority excitedly prepared for the first day of school.

Our neighbor districts were watching us intently. Would we pave the way for others to follow us, or would we cause an outbreak in our tiny town?

One week in, “it” happened. A student, who later tested positive for Covid-19, attended the first day of school. Dozens of staff members and students were subsequently quarantined due to contact with the student, and the decision was made to suspend school until the 14-day quarantine period was over, giving the health department time to do all of the necessary contact tracing. Our schools and buses were disinfected, and our teaching staff pivoted to all online learning, something we were told was likely to happen from the start.

Not an auspicious beginning, you might say. But let me elaborate.

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Teaching is Political

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Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Social Issues | , ,

Recently, as a response to widespread use of The 1619 Project, a New York Times Magazine feature exploring the often untold realities of America’s long history of policies and practices endorsing and even promoting enslaving fellow humans, President Trump announced the establishment of the 1776 Commission, a federal focus on “patriotic education” which, it seems, will not address the negative or troubling realities of our country’s past.

Image Source: AP via PBS NewsHour

I am not afraid to show my bias against this commission. I’ve read some of the criticism of The 1619 Project. Some is valid, some is overwrought. None is sufficient to warrant our country’s ignoring of the fact of enslavement and the observable, measurable, identifiable historical ripple effect it had right up to this very second.

A good history (or literature) teacher will encourage students to interrogate what isn’t being said, whose side isn’t being shared, whose voice isn’t being elevated. What is absent is telling, always. What we choose not to teach is as political a choice as what we choose to teach. And to take it further, the deliberate omission of the truth is a much a lie as is the truth’s deliberate revision.

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I Taught a Lesson Today!

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Current Affairs, Education, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Web/Tech

It’s Tuesday, September 22, 2020. School started on September 2. We are three weeks in.

Due to health concerns, I moved from my fifth-grade classroom at a brick-and-mortar school to teaching at our district’s online academy. I get up and dressed for work each day. Then I walk down the hall to the study or the dining room table or the card table in the family room.

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