Educators voice frustrations over distance learning
Many feel current online strategy is not sustainable
Distance learning in the Woodland School District has understandably gone off with some mixed results. While learning is happening, and students regularly show up to their online classes, teachers across the district have been struggling.
Tasked with filling up more instructional time, learning new platforms, and talks of unsustainability, especially at the elementary level, filled up the public comment portion during Thursday night’s Woodland School Board meeting.
Prominent issues were the use and switch to new learning systems and the district’s extra instructional minutes.
The state has a minimum for total instructional minutes, which is asynchronous and synchronous put together. The state also requires live daily interaction, but that does not need to be a video conference.
At the elementary level, district school schedules exceed the state’s minute minimum by over an hour. In past meetings, the district has mentioned that they will not do the bare minimum in terms of those minutes and have to account for learning loss in the spring.
These issues have some teachers at their wit’s end.
The first public comment read out by Superintendent Tom Pritchard was from Vicki Fu, a teacher at Dingle Elementary.
“I have tried my best to modify lessons and activities that have been effective in the past to be digitally appropriate.” Fu’s statement read. “Mornings have been filled with discourse and participation. The excitement seems to wear down by lunch as I usually only get 50% of my class logging back in for the second half of our day.”
“My students are aware of the extra hours I spend every night developing these lessons for them,” Fu continued. “Dingle parents are, and they have been flexible and encouraging. I wish I could say that I feel valued and trusted as a professional by my employers.”
“As we near our first month of total distance learning, I worry that these long school days and heavy workloads will negatively impact students and staff. I worry for my colleagues as we teach students remotely during long instructional days while using new tools and platforms that we have not been adequately prepared for. I cannot see this current state as sustainable.”
Plainfield Elementary teacher Clara Skaug’s comment came next.
“I teach fourth grade where we are required to provide 325 instructional minutes per day to students. Over the past three weeks, I have found this to be a grueling schedule for both students and teachers. By the end of the day, my class is burned out,” Skaug’s public comment read. “The long daily schedule has also left teachers little to no time to prepare for the future.”
“Creating effective lessons on this new platform takes more time than we are currently allocated in our day. I find myself taking hours of work home each night and over the weekend to feel minimally prepared for the next day of class. The current WJUSD distance learning schedules dramatically exceed state parameters for instructional minutes at all grade levels, harming students, and teachers. WJUSD should nor require a longer instructional day than is recommended by the state. Making the day
shorter would enable our students to focus on their school work.”
Becca Bernard’s comment, a teacher at Douglass Middle School, was read next.
“As we reach the end of week three, it feels more like the end of month three. I teach 12-15 hour days while also working 8 hours per day on the weekends. This is not sustainable,” Bernard’s comment read. “The learning system is less than functional. We are teaching students remotely during long days using new tools and platforms. Long school days and heavy workloads are a negative for students and staff. As teachers, we can see our students are also struggling. It is challenging to sustain attention and engagement.”
Board members listened to every comment while offering words of support.
“I expect things to run more smoothly as the technology becomes more familiar to you,” Board President Morgan Childers said. “We are listening, and we appreciate the hard work. I know you are working hard and working more than normal.”
While the teachers share major issues, what can realistically be done besides returning to in-person to ease their burden?
“A lot of elementary teachers are reporting that they noticed their afternoon attendance goes down, so they have fewer students coming back after lunch,” Woodland Education Association President
Jen Shilen said. “One thing that could be done is to eliminate live synchronous sessions with elementary school students in the afternoon. They are better learners in the morning.”
Trustee Deborah Bautista Zavala brought up concerns over families not having enough time to pick up student lunches during the break. This would allow families ample time to travel to a school site to pick up lunches.
“We have an awesome group of professional educators in our district who are committed to excellence,” said Shilen. “When they can’t provide excellence to their students, it is troubling. They are putting together high-quality lessons and experiences for the students, and in order to do that, they are staying up late at night and working all weekend. The cost of that is our teachers are not sleeping or taking care of their own families enough. That is what is not sustainable.”
The feeling with teachers is that a change in the minutes would feel like gaining a second wind. Having a choice of what learning system to use would also ease concerns.
Mari Sanchez, a transitional kindergarten teacher at Rhoda Maxwell Elementary, said that having to learn and teach her students how to use Canvas has added to her fatigue.
Sanchez has nine years of experience teaching TK at Maxwell and feels she has a good gauge of what online
system would work for the students.
“I’ve been putting Zoom meetings on Canvas,” Sanchez said. “It’s so hard to navigate. I feel I do better navigating through Seesaw. It just works better for younger kids. I feel Canvas isn’t as applicable or appropriate for all the grade levels.”
During a back to school night, Sanchez mentioned most parents wanted to keep it simple and basic as well.
“I miss nothing more than 24 four-year-olds being all over the place,” Sanchez said. “We are going to get through this no matter what, but the Zoom fatigue is a real thing, and we need to shorten the minutes to make it better for everyone.”
Sanchez mentions that some teachers say that once you learn Canvas and Zoom, they can be really valuable, but right now, she notes teachers are in survival mode and will have exhausted themselves have by the time that happens.
“As we move together as a community through this global pandemic, there are many factors that impact our lives which are beyond our control,” Shilen’s report to the board read. “Schooling has to look different this year in order to keep everyone safe. What conditions are within our control as a district? The tools we use to teach and the way our school days are structured are certainly within our control as an organization.”