ScrapHappy Saturday - Stil August

 Monday was the first day back for teachers.  It is surreal to walk around trying to stay away from people and not able to hug anyone.  I want to hug people!  Maybe not that much anymore though, because I am scared of everyone.

During yet another 2 hour ZOOM training session, I actually managed to get my desks 6 feet apart.  I have an unusually large classroom, but I was able to make it happen!!  There are 22 desks in there.  As long as all of my kiddos don't decide to show up at the same time, I should be fine.  Everyone gets to decide whether they want to come in person or learn synchronously from home.  That means I will teach the kiddos in front of me, while synchronously handling the e-learners who are logged in to a live-stream.  Sure, no problem!
So Wednesday and Thursday there was training to make sure teachers could handle that.  Wednesday the district provided a bunch of videos and Google Classrooms for teachers to work through self-paced instruction.  Then Thursday, our school based team did a live training in the same form we are asking the teachers to do with their students.  There were three of us.  One teacher delivered instruction, another monitored chat to answer questions.  I was the crazy lady running from classroom to classroom helping the people who couldn't even get in to the training.  I did that Wednesday all day as well.  If you couldn't find the training, or sign up for it, or log in to your silly computer, you called me and I came running.

Then Thursday afternoon I went back to check on our teachers who were having issues, and one of the rooms was under quarantine.  Well that just stopped everything in its tracks.  I had been in there two days in a row helping the teacher find the right menus and navigate the platforms.  Right next to her, because when someone can't use their computer you have to get up close and personal.  Well DAMN.  I don't usually swear, but dammit, dammit, dammit.  So 4 people from our school have gone out sick.  We don't know what kind of sick.  So we just wait patiently for the test results to come back to figure out if we need to get tested too.  Since we have been reclassified as "essential workers", we do not quarantine any further until we have symptoms or a positive test.  Dammit.
There is no reason to think that I have COVID.  I wear a mask and wash my hands, and only have the contact I need to do my job.  Unfortunately, what I need is to do is to sit next to every sick, fragile, elderly teacher at our school and help them use their computers to teach the kids who won't be here.  If I do end up sick, the contact tracing will be a nightmare.

What a strange week it has been.  I caught a couple of sunrises before things got really crazy and I stopped being able to sleep at night.  It is going to take a while to learn how to gracefully navigate this new normal.  I'm a bit worried that the positive tests will start rolling in as soon as the kids come back, but I guess that we will all handle those cases as they happen.  The kids are able to choose to stay home, but I can't do that until someone figures out that having us all come together in shared spaces in a state with HUGE community spread of a deadly virus might not be the wisest course of action.  I can see all the sides of the issue, truly I can.  I'm just a little stressed right now because I'm on a side with no good choices, in shared spaces with people who are going to end up sick.