Part III (September 2020-November 2020)
March 17, 2022
The start of the new school year brought hybrid learning, a new teaching model which separated the student population with alphabetically organized cohorts that went to school on specific days. The new system seemed to be a step in the right direction, but an unexpected spike in cases forced the school back to distance learning.
Christensen: “I did have a moment of wondering if this was the right job for the time because, you know, not knowing what school was gonna look like the next year, I didn’t know whether I would have to be in person or whether I could be online. I didn’t know what any of that was gonna be like. So I didn’t, I couldn’t ensure that my safety protocols that I take myself would work. But I, I feel like during the summer, I don’t know that I was worried about COVID and stuff. But I also knew that we get tested at The Waters. When [COVID] was really bad a couple months ago, it was every week. But now I think it’s every other week or something. But we do get tested. And I do know that the people there are very on top of it. I personally was willing to take responsibility and be very on top of my personal hygiene and protection on that side of things.”
Sanger: “I definitely wasn’t anticipating things to drag out quite as long as they have. That first half year was really just kind of an emergency mode, I feel like. It hit me more the following summer when it was revealed we’d be coming back to in person learning and doing this hybrid model. And that was much harder for me, I guess, mentally and emotionally… knowing how these things spread and knowing how many kids are in the building and how much kids interact with each other and how many kids move from classroom to classroom, I just thought ‘this is going to spread like wildfire.’ I even wrote to the school board and said ‘this is a terrible idea,’ but I think in hindsight it’s actually worked out really well.” It felt like eternity. Like my freshman year of college [felt like] Groundhog Day. — Ian Alexander
Guevara: “It was really exciting at first just because I was so glad to see students again. When we went [back] to distance learning, that was really discouraging. I felt like I lost connection with my students. I didn’t know how to reach out to students who are struggling.”
Sanger: “I remember right before we went to distance learning, I literally spent two hours that day setting up this really complicated lab for AP Biology and then at 4 p.m. we got the announcement that ‘Nope we’re going to distance learning tomorrow’ and so I was like ‘oh.’ The next day I came in and I did the lab while filming myself and then posting a video of me doing this lab, so there was a lot of that, where you have this plan in place and then all of a sudden, it’s just kind of gets blown up and then you have to redo and rethink and rework.”
Alexander: “That’s when it really started to suck… It had been four months or whatever and you’re a freshman in college but it was all online because I didn’t go in person and so basically it felt like eternity, honestly. It felt like eternity. Like my freshman year of college [felt like] Groundhog Day.”
Diaz de Leon: “The emotional toll is the one that overwhelms me more. There are days that during the pandemic, it was hard to be over and over listening, I don’t have a job. There’s a point after these many years working here that these families are my family…when you are in a foreign country, and you don’t have your relatives and your support system, you have another support system, and I’m their support system and they are mine. And when they call and they don’t have a job and they don’t have money to pay rent, the children are getting rebellious and not attending school and failing classes. The car is broken. The bills are piling up. That’s overwhelming. More than time and energy, the emotional toll.”
Sanger: “I just see this sea of icons and that sense of just talking into a void where you just have no idea if anyone is there, if anyone’s listening. Even if people are listening, they’re not really giving anything back. You can’t see their faces, you can’t hear their voices, it just sucks all the joy out of teaching and makes it really hard. That image of staring at a Google Meet saying ‘Hello, anyone there?’ You know, that for me captures the essence of why last year was so hard.”
Stein: “At the end of the day, I think people just wanted to know what’s the out-plan. When are we gonna win? When are we gonna start changing some of these protocols? But at the end of the day, a lot of our decisions were guidelines provided by the Department of Health, Department of Education, or the CDC. And so we were aligned with all of those large organizations. But for the first time, those organizations were being questioned as well.”