OK, I admit that seeing photos of how educators the world over are wrestling with the same problem of how to school children and youth in the wake of a pandemic–is, in a word, addictive for me. So here are more photos from Germany, Netherlands, and Japan of schools that just re-opened.
With a virus about which much remains to be figured out and with no treatment or vaccine, how to care for health and safety of children and adults is primary. So questions need to be answered now as governments open their schoolhouse doors.
1. How many students to be allowed in a classroom at any one time?
2. How will students and teachers daily be protected by washing hands and disinfecting surfaces?
3. How to maintain physical distance during the school day?
4. Feeding students?
I could go on but will stop here. Readers can easily supply more questions.
So here are the photos:
A teacher welcomes students before the start of their high school graduation exams, during the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the Gymnasium Steglitz school in Berlin, Germany, April 20, 2020. REUTERS/Axel SchmidtTeacher Birgit Steinbach welcomes students before the start of their high school graduation exams, during the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the Protestant grammar school in Kleinmachnow, Germany, April 20, 2020. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke23 April 2020, North Rhine-Westphalia, Übach-Palenberg: Pupils, one of them wearing a protective mask, work on computer science tasks in the basic computer science course of the Abitur year at the Carolus-Magnus-Gymnasium. Barely six weeks after the closure of day-care centres and schools due to corona infections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the schools will reopen on Thursday for exam candidates. Photo: Jonas Güttler/dpa (Photo by Jonas Güttler/picture alliance via Getty Images)
I am also keeping a close lookout on answers to your fine, practical questions. If you run across U.S. districts that have asked and answered any of your questions, please let me know. I worry about the predictable budget cuts of teachers and ensuing larger classes as occurred after the 2008 Great Recession. The feds helped out considerably in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009). How much of the current money Congress has appropriated goes to states and districts for schools, I do not yet know.
I think we’re going to be lucky if we get additional federal funds needed just to be at baseline funding, given the huge hit that our state coffers have taken. So if we’re lucky, we’ll haev enough money to just have the normal amount of teachers in the normal amount of classrooms. I don’t see us having enough money to basically halve or quarter class sizes and keep kids in school full time. And as we both acknowledge, if kids aren’t in school full time, then how can their parents work?
Yep. I agree about funding but want to be wrong. Kids going to school on shifts sounds like a practical accommodation to the unknowns of the virus. Unless there is frequent testing of students and teachers in the upcoming months and tracing of those infected, distancing, masks, and disinfecting surfaces will continue. Chances of the testing and tracing are slim should schools begin over the summer or even September.
Pictures may be worth a thousand words. Many of these arrangements seem to be in large spaces or with limited enrollments. It occurs to me that none of these show studio or lab environments or “group projects.” In other words the pictures are an important way of understanding “accommodations” but they are far from telling the whole story, including how food service is managed, lines for the restroom, travel by bus, support staff for students who need in-school aides. Art teachers have a forum where they are trying to figure out how teach studio classes without sharing supplies and small tools, like scissors. Those issues are even more complicated in high school and by budget cuts, and limits of what parents can pay for, among other issues.
Right on target, Laura, for all of varied activities that go on in elementary and secondary schools. If you come across photos or articles from any nation that capture those different parts of schooling, please pass them on to me.
We’re opening in NZ on Monday. No distancing at all — because it simply isn’t possible. Mind you, we no longer really have it in the wild.
The idea of the kids coming in shifts is mental. Adults would struggle to work like that — there’s no chance kids will cope. And who looks after them when they aren’t in school?
Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice 
I keep coming back to the same two questions, which are clearly indicated in the pictures.
1) are all the students coming to school at the same time?
If yes, were more teachers hired?
If no, are parents not going to be working because the students are home, or are the students waiting in some other supervised area?
I can’t come up with socially distanced school solutions that don’t require either a lot more money or non-working parents.
I am also keeping a close lookout on answers to your fine, practical questions. If you run across U.S. districts that have asked and answered any of your questions, please let me know. I worry about the predictable budget cuts of teachers and ensuing larger classes as occurred after the 2008 Great Recession. The feds helped out considerably in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009). How much of the current money Congress has appropriated goes to states and districts for schools, I do not yet know.
I think we’re going to be lucky if we get additional federal funds needed just to be at baseline funding, given the huge hit that our state coffers have taken. So if we’re lucky, we’ll haev enough money to just have the normal amount of teachers in the normal amount of classrooms. I don’t see us having enough money to basically halve or quarter class sizes and keep kids in school full time. And as we both acknowledge, if kids aren’t in school full time, then how can their parents work?
Yep. I agree about funding but want to be wrong. Kids going to school on shifts sounds like a practical accommodation to the unknowns of the virus. Unless there is frequent testing of students and teachers in the upcoming months and tracing of those infected, distancing, masks, and disinfecting surfaces will continue. Chances of the testing and tracing are slim should schools begin over the summer or even September.
Hi Larry–there was an article in the Washington Post from April 27th: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/schools-reopen-fall-coronavirus/2020/04/26/d60e2f62-85b3-11ea-878a-86477a724bdb_story.html
Superintendent Hite of the Philadelphia School District discussed this recently too: https://www.inquirer.com/education/coronavirus-philadelphia-school-district-return-hite-mask-fall-20200430.html
Haven’t seen these articles, David. Thanks.
Pictures may be worth a thousand words. Many of these arrangements seem to be in large spaces or with limited enrollments. It occurs to me that none of these show studio or lab environments or “group projects.” In other words the pictures are an important way of understanding “accommodations” but they are far from telling the whole story, including how food service is managed, lines for the restroom, travel by bus, support staff for students who need in-school aides. Art teachers have a forum where they are trying to figure out how teach studio classes without sharing supplies and small tools, like scissors. Those issues are even more complicated in high school and by budget cuts, and limits of what parents can pay for, among other issues.
Right on target, Laura, for all of varied activities that go on in elementary and secondary schools. If you come across photos or articles from any nation that capture those different parts of schooling, please pass them on to me.
I don’t know how it will work here. Classrooms just aren’t that big in my children’s schools. This is unbelievable.
We’re opening in NZ on Monday. No distancing at all — because it simply isn’t possible. Mind you, we no longer really have it in the wild.
The idea of the kids coming in shifts is mental. Adults would struggle to work like that — there’s no chance kids will cope. And who looks after them when they aren’t in school?
Thanks, Chester, for the comment.