Since Wed. 3/18/2020, my daughters have done classwork over Zoom from our parlor floor table.
School has been out for a full week - since Monday, March 16. To be honest, I decided on Friday afternoon to keep my kids home regardless of any official announcement. As many New Yorkers may remember, Friday the 13th was the pivotal turning point for the mayor and for the DOE because that was when Healthcare Workers union 1199 SEIU joined forces with parents and the United Federation of Teachers, and officially endorsed the view that closing all NYC public schools was a responsible public health move. It wasn’t until Sunday night that the mayor made it official.
How Hunter Did Things
I have a 7th grade daughter at Hunter who has been in Zoom classes since Wednesday, March 18. Her twin sister, who attends school at LAB starts on Monday. Overall, I have been deeply impressed with Hunter.
Communication was in small doses, and easy to understand
Each of the half dozen or so emails sent by the principal and his staff leading up to the start date were concise and well-explained - giving the vibe of “don’t worry, we’ll let you know exactly what to do before we spring it on you, and it won’t be super complicated”.
They decided on a single platform: Zoom
Unlike some schools, Hunter chose to standardize all instruction on a single platform. About a week before DOE’s decision to suspend school, Hunter announced that they would be using Zoom as their online instructional platform. Teachers went to a two day intensive instructional bootcamp, and the administration requested all parents to fill out an online technical survey, asking questions like..
Do you have high speed internet at your home?
Does your student have access to a computer with a camera?
Can the student download software on the computer?
Expectations were clearly stated before classes began
Each student received an online itinerary with class names and unique Zoom meeting id links that very closely followed their regular class schedule. There was a “soft launch” on Wednesday that only included 2 or 3 classes. On that day, the expectations were kept low, and it was really just a chance for teachers and students to login for the first time as a group and confirm that everyone could see each other, speak and listen - and just sort of take the whole system for a test drive. The next day, Thursday, Zoom classroom instruction officially commenced. Even PE class was conducted over Zoom. The teacher even sent instructions for all the students to be in front of their cameras in uniform.
Overall, Hunter did an excellent job
Their clear communication, decision to standardize on Zoom, and soft-launch really went a long way in ensuring a smooth rollout with shockingly few technical glitches.
Some things they could improve
Frequency of zoom meetings may be excessive - students are in front of screens for an extremely long portion of the day, and I’m concerned about the long-term effects of enormous amounts of screen time
There has not been sufficient relaxation of expectations to adjust for the huge uptick in environmental stress
Parting Thoughts & Observations
I cannot believe how resilient my daughters have been through this. They’re each dealing with things in their own way. One of them plays with her cat endlessly, watches scary movies, and absolutely loves the fact that she doesn’t have to go outside. The other one misses her friends terribly, and has been catching up on reading for pleasure, and doing artwork. My wife, perhaps because she’s in the thick of things at an emergency room in lower Manhattan, is keeping up with the latest developments nonstop: new screening and triage protocols, advancements in testing, how many masks are being used/day, new ways of filling out patient charts, etc.
Each day, I think of how fortunate we all are to have a roof over our heads, a warm house, a fully stocked refrigerator, and two healthy parents. As a family, we talk about the news quite a lot; about what’s going on in northern Italy and South Korea, about the response from Governor Cuomo, Mayor De Blasio, and President *****. We play Jenga, watch netflix, and exercise in our back yard. I call my mom and dad (a lot), and crack jokes about how the pandemic has revealed to anyone with common sense the degree to which our diversions are so non-essential. Things like: Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, $800 3d-printed reproductions of your pet, pretty much anything that comes out of the mouth of a celebrity, the tweets of President *****.
We’re living through a catastrophe that is unfolding at a rate roughly a million times faster than climate change, and still, people are too stupid and willful to make small adjustments to their behavior for the public good, and ultimately their best interests.
I try and do my best to come up with a positive spin on things, while strictly adhering to a no bullshit approach with my daughters. It’s been hard, but I look to the incredibly brave people of Italy and South Korea for inspiration.