Change Is A'Coming (AGAIN)

No this is not a political post.  (Hurrah!)  And before I go any further, this post is NOT to undermine or criticize my local educational system.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I believe that we are ALL trying to do our best in a situation that is a complete mess.  And even as we move toward the light of hope, there is still a long road with plenty of bumps to deal with.  (LOTS of bumps that might often feel like mountains.)

With that said, we got ANOTHER email about some changes in the high school come 2021.  Yes MORE changes.  How am I ever going to get this down?  I need another fold out road map!  (That's what we used to use in the pre-Waze and Google maps days.)  I know as the situation changes, we need to evolve too, but...

It wasn't that long about that I wrote about the 5th day of school.  In that very article there were numerous other links to posts about other ups and downs that we have navigated during this remote/hybrid school year. As I write this, my son is scheduled to have 2 more in person school days in 2020.  Remote learning returns on January 4, 2021. Out of an abundance of caution (which in my opinion is the phrase of the year), in person hybrid school starts on January 19th.  So far, so good?  

However, when school opens again in January, instead of 4 classes a day (from 8:30 to 12:45), there will now be 6 classes a day.  Classes will now start at 8:15.  (This might be a challenge on the days where my son has choir/period 0 which ends at 7:55 and on a good day it takes me 10 minutes to get from our house to the front door of the school.  I'm OCD when it comes to being on time; something that I may have passed onto my son.  Choir days are going to be stressful.)  There will be 4 morning classes (just like there are now) which will end at 11:50.  There will then be a break until 1:10, which will give in person students a chance to get home and have lunch before their two afternoon remote classes begin. (Students and teachers will also have a chance to do one on one"meets" during this extended lunch period either in person or virtually.) Students will still be in the physical school for the same amount of time, but will have had two additional remote classes every day from home.  Instead of a day being pes 1-4 or 5-8 things get a little more complicated.  Are you ready?

While we still have Cohort groups of A, B, C  (there is a D group, but I'm not going to get into that since they are students who require special education/assistance and physically go to school every day) there are now A, B, C & D days.  On Day A periods 1-4 are in the morning, then there is lunch break and period 5 and 6 are in the afternoon.  On Day B periods 7, 8, 1 and 2 are in the morning, there is a lunch break and 3 and 4 are in the afternoon.  On Day C period 5-8 are in the morning; lunch break and periods 1-2 are in the afternoon.  Which leaves us with Day D where periods 3-6 are in the morning and after lunch there is periods 7 and 8.  Got it?

Now, my son is in Cohort Group A, so for the first week, he will go in Monday (Day A) and Thursday (Day D).  The following week he would go in Tuesday (Day C) and Friday (Day B).  I think I got that right...at this point to go any further would make my brain implode. (And I have to wonder if you are still reading here or if you have given up and vowed never to read this blog again...please don't do this.)  Can you understand why I need a map or maybe a diagram?  The school did provide this:

Now let me be clear; I think this new schedule might help move students towards a more realistic school day.  Some day (who knows when), they WILL all actually be going back to school together (like the good ol' days) and the school day will start at or around 8 and end at around 3.  There is a longer lunch break (because my kid likes to walk home and at this point how could I deny him some fresh air and sunshine?) and still opportunity to meet with teachers as needed.  (At this point I think practically every kid needs some kind of extra help.)  This transition is pointing towards the light at the end of the tunnel.  (Although the tunnel is extremely long.)  However, I don't know if changing the schedule AGAIN is going to be all that helpful...I know I find it confusing.  (But then again I find most everything to be confusing these days!)

Of course who knows what will happen between now and the end of the holiday break?  Who knows if we WILL be able to continue hybrid/in person learning?  There is, however, one thing that I AM pretty confident of...there WILL be more changes and my head WILL be swimming again.   We soon will be entering a new calendar year, but the pandemic has its own calendar and until that's completely eradicated I'll just keep well stocked with Tylenol!  (And maybe some of this as well: