October 19th marked the beginning of a new grading period, and parents had a choice to change their child's placement as at-home or on-campus learners. As a result, sixty more students joined us, bring our school to forty-six percent capacity. Classes were shuffled yet again as virtual and in-person teachers alike became hybrid--teaching students at-home and in-person at the same time--to safely space students in their rooms. The master schedule changed; students started going to music, art, and p.e. instead of following asynchronous lessons.
More than a few teachers were feeling overwhelmed. Attending to students in class and on a screen sounds easy if you're thinking of college lectures, but wrangling the attention of "virtual" elementary students who aren't necessarily used to sharing their onscreen time with in-school classmates, coupled with the distractions of home, is another matter. Newly grouped students meant repeating the first-day tasks of classroom expectations and getting-to-know-you exercises, which must have felt odd alongside the second nine weeks' curriculum. Specials teachers went from covering two classes a day of asynchronous lessons to a full day of in-person students.
Last Wednesday, with the support of my administrators, I made the decision to not have library this week. The master schedule was being worked on and tweaked up until the last minute, and I couldn't bring myself to ask my teachers to accommodate yet another new thing, knowing what this week would be like for them. I'm surveying them to find out who's comfortable coming to the library, and/or sending small groups to check out. Most of my classes will still be virtual, meeting the needs of the many hybrid and handful of virtual-only classes. Time will be built into the new library schedule to wipe down tables between visits. We're surveying students about their home libraries and building bundles of donated books to distribute. I need to set up space to teach in person again, too.
Next Tuesday will be my personal seventh first day of school, as I welcome some students and staff back into the library. There will still be book deliveries and online classes; I will become a hybrid teacher librarian.
