Live Okay. Hello everybody Welcome to Carolyn's Corner we are sometimes experiencing technical difficulties as we do this experiment with this new technology, a new way of communicating and reaching out, but hopefully this will go smoothly. so this week is Teacher Appreciation and like many of you I was just at the school picking up my son's materials from its class as we come to the end of the school year and many times. I reflect during the school year that one of the most important people in my life is my son's teacher who is making sure that he is learning math and learning how to read and write and do all of those wonderful things that are so important. for both his, you know, mental well-being and for his success as a person, so I am so pleased to have here some of our wonderful educators from the community and we're going to take a moment to appreciate our teacher. And also to hear from them about some of the challenges that they face and we're gonna think about sort of the challenges they face pre coro virus but also how this current kind of natural crisis has affected teaching in the classrooms and the students I know this has been a really really tough time for everybody. so without further ado, I'm going to start with Brittany Mcrae and she is a teacher at. And we're so glad to have you here and if you could just introduce yourself and then you know kind of touch on some of the topics we're just talking about. Oh thank you for having me and once again, my name is Brittany Mcrae, I am a first grade teacher at Roberts Elementary. This is my tenth year teaching I did a year in kindergarten and then the rest was first grade. So that's definitely my love of the younger ones. I. Joy in the little ones are amazing, just seeing their growth and development throughout the year is one of my favorite things to see and this is honestly my favorite time of the year. You know the later end of the year where you can see how they've really come into their own and they're just so excited to show everything that they've learned over the years before all of the craziness that happened recently I would say. You know someone who struggles are just the things that we've all heard about you know class sizes being able to really touch every single child the way that they need to and be able to hear them and respect what they need and give them that one on one attention. It's really hard to be that one -A amongst you know 25 plus students that you have in a class but you know we do our best to try to reach every single. Another difficulty is of course testing. I feel our schedules of curriculum or pretty much geared for testing, so we have to kind of needle our scheduling of how to teach things the ones to few things to make sure it is meant by that time period and sometimes the kids just don't get it and you know I feel really bad when I just have to tell them you know just just just try do your best but that's all you can do. So when we come up with our lesson, plans and schedule that's semester or the nine weeks we pretty much started the day of testing and work our way backwards to see how can we fit an enormous amount of material into this amount of weeks and time for review because they've probably forgot what you toss them and you know, so are some of the things that we struggle with. In my school, we are lucky to have a lot of technology. Every school is not that lucky, but we do and a lot of the time we have to switch what we're doing and put them all on the computer because taking a test on the computer is a lot different than pencil paper so that's a different type of teaching. It's a different type of learning that they have to do and you know with me being a first grade teacher. They are six years old and. It can be overwhelming for them so those are just a couple of things that I feel were a struggle beforehand and now with the you know cope with crisis. I think the technology piece really was put into perspective of how badly we need more support and more staff development and you know to really help us help them and help the parents. it was a. You know a lot of work, but you teaching is what I love and I'm here today. Wonderful so so you know how did the technology work? I mean we you know, we're blessed. I had my my mother in laws. You know old laptop that I could put my son on, but you know my sisters got four kids in one laptop and so I was you know all of them were in school. All of them had you know class work and so she was there with like this intense grid. you know trying to get them through everything. you know how did that work for different families that what did you see? I have. Where I never thought any of you, I can't see the student at all the entire time, so we would have the meetings and some kids that I have not seen since March 12, other kids they'll pop in pop out a week or so at a time there's a lot of chasing down asking questions, email and calling the you need help. What do you need because you know they would do the assignments and then they will disappear. A while and then they'll come back, there was a lot of struggle with that. I had you know the same thing where of multiple children working on one computer and after a while they started to participation with dwindle, you know and we would have to account for that and you know I just tell them to try your best and you know do what you can. I I didn't want it to become such a stressor. That was a stressor for the parents as well, even speaking for myself of my 12 year-old had her lap top and iPad trying to do her work while I'm on my laptop trying to do mine and help parents with technology issues and it's really hard to help when I can't see what's going on, it was a lot of screenshotting and emailing back and forth lots of. Location with our tech team to try to get help if it was, it was definitely a lot, especially in the beginning. Lots of tears on my end, I'm here to get a system. it was more of just trying to figure out a system and where there was none to begin with. Yeah now I wish I know that I know that for parents and you all are parents as well and so and you know with both parents are working these are it is it is it is challenging but we appreciate our teachers. But we're gonna have we're gonna have to think about how we do this going forward. I think okay. so next up we have Amy forehand, who is at Lilburn Elementary School so good to have you. thank you so much for having me I'm really excited to be here so just a little bit about myself. My name is Amy Forehand. This is my 10 year teaching in Georgia. I actually graduated from College and it was not. Major and I applied and was accepted to teach for America and they sent me with Atlanta. so I was like, okay. I'll go try out teaching for two years and I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the kids. I absolutely fell in love with it, so all 10 years have been all over Georgia at a charter school in Atlanta, public schools and now in Gwinnett, I live here in Lilburn with my very active two -year-old and husband and yeah so. before covid- 19, I mean, I can't say anything new Britney pretty much summed up everything. I wanted to say beautifully so thank you but before the pandemic class sizes was a huge concern for me. I also teach first grade I've taught kindergarten first grade and second grade, and so I'm really came to. I don't wanna use the word specialist, but that's really what I love doing the little kids It's very challenging when you have 20 - five plus children that are six and need very specific instruction and tactile. they need to be touching things in their active and they have this incredible imaginations and you want to foster that you don't want to kill it and just give them worksheets but at the same time when you have that many children at one point last year, I had 20 - nine first graders in my class and my. Had 31 and it's you can imagine the type of quality teaching that's going on where you know by the time you get the all of the carpet you've lost half of them cuz they've someone lost a tooth and someone found a spider and you know he's he does the things that we love about our job, but also it makes it so difficult when you have that many children that need you and then something else again. Brittany already said this the testing special. For the younger kids, I also teach at the school. I'm lucky enough to teach at the school that has a very high population, and that's one thing that makes my school just beautiful and special and unique, but it also you know raises questions about why is that we're taking six year olds that are learning the English language and putting them on a computer to test them in a language that they're not fluent in that and and. Testing them on a higher level thinking skills. We're not doing six plus four, you know we're doing it in word problems so even things like math where you think, Oh, you don't have to be fluent in English, you do there are a lot of new ones with the language and so pretty ovid those were two of my biggest concerns with where education was going post. I would like to say, Oh, it's a whole new ball game, but unfortunately. In our country, I don't think it's a surprise to say that there's a lot of inequity built into our society. our society is built on very traditional power structures and very traditional power roles and education is one of those structures so the covid-, 19 or the Corona virus has really shown light on a lot of the cracks in our foundation in those inequities talking about you know. The technology gap I would like to say I'm so worried about my children falling behind in reading, but the things that are keeping me up at night are to my children have enough to eat if they if their parents are lucky enough to still have their jobs. Is there someone that can stay home with them. That was already a problem that we saw a child care before the Corona virus so I'm not necessarily worried although I'm an educator, first and foremost. So yes, I'm terrified that my children don't have books at home and they're not reading every day, but what I'm really. Staying up at night worrying about is do they have food? do they have a steady shelter? Do they have child care and it those are so much bigger issues that are going on in our society, but as we know, education is connected to everything in our society. so that's kind of where my mind is now, especially closing out the school year and looking forward to next year. I'm worried I'm worried about a lot of the problems that I see right. And I would say you know both my parents were teachers and they would talk about that. a lot that you know we often go to the schools and we expect the schools to solve a lot of our social problems. When in fact, it's you know, it's just like having a living wage and not being thrown out of your House. You know regularly. it's about you know having some affordable housing and all of these basic social supports are what allow our education system to be successful and and so making sure that the families are supported in that way. so thank you. For sharing that I think we're all worried about that and so I just how did the teaching go You know post post coro virus and you know in in the school that probably has you know some some special needs you know that are that are unique to it. I'm I'm so proud of my school. I I'm so proud of the team I work on and my school in particular the second this happened, we said. Okay, We can either look up YouTube videos of other people teaching or we can film ourselves and it was a little awkward a little uncomfortable. I knew oh gosh, it's not just my students that are gonna be watching this. It's like their moms, their dads, their aunts, their uncles, their older brothers but we just from the Get-go decided the best thing that we can do is try to give our kids some consistency and we divided up the subjects and every one of us filmed ourselves doing lessons many lessons and then we try to do zooms as quickly as possible to try to at least. Touch base with our kids live It was hard attendance was very spotty. I think for my last live session, I only had six kids log on but you can only control things that you can control and I knew from looking at our online platform. I knew I had kids that got on at 10 o 'clock at night, so they could watch my YouTube video at 10 o 'clock at night. They may not have been able to do the live zoom at. So, yeah, I mean, I'm very proud of the lessons that we did put out, but so much of what we do When the younger grades is we'll just teaching in general. I'm sure upper grades is like this also it''s responding in the moment to your child's needs. and so much of that is authentic. I don't wanna say on the fly, but you're seeing what the child is struggling with and meeting them where they are at that moment so because we were giving them lessons on a computer, they were going off and doing it. Own and I wasn't there to help support them and that's where I feel like 80 percent of my teaching is the most it's really impactful and that unfortunately was taken away, but are many lessons were fabulous. That's great. That's inspiring. I was gonna say there's probably an age to right where you know they're much more able to handle the online learning. They're a little more self directed my son's in second grade to start to the end of second grade, you know, and he was. He was an optimal, but it was okay, You know, But first grade kindergarten, you know they're just you know they're just. I wanna touch things and they wanna you know, move things around and they're restless. They can't sit you know in the same development mentally that's where they should be is touching things and being tactile and so to then put everything on the computer. It was hard and it was awkward and we tried to be as intentional as possible. but we realize it's it is a limited platform for younger children. Yeah. So. We got I could spend all day talking about this about these things but moving on, we also have a Norine Freeman who is an administrator in the Meadow Creek cluster, and so I think can give us some bigger insight. so an overview of how things were going and then and then what what were the challenges before? and then what happened? Okay? Well. Thank you for having me I was really enthused about. Participating because I always have so much to share because I'm I'm not far removed from teaching. I'm a teacher first at heart and you know I teach College part-time as well. so I'm always you know listening to I'm a teacher educator. What's coming up the pipeline. You know hope that can I support my teachers I came to Ktwelve education 1414 years ago prior to that I. At the higher ED, I was Rutgers in New Jersey work for the medical school in Newark and I served on the panel and then I transferred down to Georgia because they were recruiting for teachers that spoke a second language and where you know our students could see people that look like them and sound like them. so I made that transition and I've been within that clusters since I've been there because that's my need I love teaching and learning with a passion I teach all day long twenty-four seven ah I am that administrated at with going to a classroom and all you need help with reading group but level are they and come up with a teaching point and ah you know you strategies to help the students get to at least no there ah you know they do their work sounds ah what is the main idea I am I am that type of teacher I will pull it up I will teach writing something I'm that hands Type of and and I I don't I come with from a perspective of love because I love it. So when I presented you get oh my God just let her do her thing. Amy can tell you she sees me a lot. I take my high heels off and I put my sneakers and I'm running and I could you know add to what Amy said based on the students that we serve in our population pre pandemic. Echo some of what she has what she mentioned but one of the things I always. I think people forget is that within our cluster we have 8500 Second Language Kids. Our school has the highest percentage of Second Language Kids within that cluster. Our school is 70 - five percent second language and also 95 percent free and reduced lunch so we are looking at like Amy, said Trying to teach. teach them to content um while we are trying to focus on that social emotional peace because if we always have their fed and they feel safe they will learn ah I think our roles within that cluster ah struggles depends between an educator and asocial work at some point um with second language case you know they tell you it's about seven years to acquire language that's not true I'm a second language, so I can tell you I can decode in one language and sometimes it doesn't transfer so with the testing piece like Amy said and Brittney that that's being one of discontent for me, but I know it's one thing that has to be done. but I think it's not what it's how it's done when you begin school the first day and you begin students the second day that's. Wrong with that where did we lose the part about getting to know your students before assigning an as an assessment to them, so you can put them in a frame. work of you are level A B C or D, that doesn't represent the whole child. I think about our Second Language Kids we have to teach them language acquisition skills content also how to assess using a. A device that they've never probably interacted with I've never seen you know one of the things I think assumptions are made is that all second language kids have a written print they don't. Students that come from you know the interior in South America and they don't have a written language. They have an oral way of transferring what they say, so I think a lot of assumptions are made with that. most of what we had. I wanna say pre pandemic it kinda exacerbated in the right now because we got to see like any, said the inequity and Having access to workable devices, some of them try to use their cellphones if that's all they had as well as the inaccessibility of providing them with affordable Internet access right and that's a question while you're on it from the phone, What are the issues with home Internet access and you know access to basic technology? you might need to have. I can tell you within our cluster. I guess once the assumption was made. Everybody will be fine and they'll be able to respond and they recognize that over 200 students probably did not log on okay and it's wise that we all know they have a cellphone, but they didn't have Internet so immediately we were they provided opportunity for students who did not access the DLD at all the digital learning to provide them with a lona device that they could participate and if they didn't have the access to technology to the Internet a little bit. In the hot spots with Xfinity had an AT and T and then some low-cost options that they could purchase despite all that some parents still did not participate because I will tell you quite a few of them undocumented don't have a credit card are not able to they're not literate so that they can navigate that way. if we were at school, you know we can parents and our representative can you know communicate with them. And walk them through, but like you said what we do, we need to have that touch. We need that one to one so this takes away the you know all the personal and schooling for some of our parents probably had not been a favorable experience. it might have been threatening uncomfortable. It might not have been the favorite time so you could see where they struggled more and they tried. you know they try but they. Quite a bit poverty like I said our children, you know they need to eat despite having a high level of you know, socioeconomic students, you know free and reduced is how they eat. It's not how they learn so we ensure that we have one of the highest attendance policies as well because they come to eat and they come because of the culture that we have established for them that they are emotionally. They're also physically safe. you know I teach us. I always say it takes a special teacher to work within that cluster because you're not just teaching you are serving using yourself as that instrument the minute you walk in the minute you get up, you start thinking about how can I help my kids? do what needs to be done because when they assess them, the results of the assessment represents me the teacher so I. Take issue with with that class sizes yes, it agonize me as an administrator when I have to we just completed class sizes for next year and I have to tell my second grade teacher that you have 29 and I'm not looking at you when I say that and I expect you to move them from point a to point. Alright. I think some of the expectations are unrealistic, I do believe that the powers that be make a lot of assumptions and they believe that what we do in the classroom we could probably go into their homes and dictate how it should be done, but we can't and I think one big misconception or one thing they haven't even addressed or thought about is the culture of the communities that we serve. Okay. Education and number one priority for some it is for some. it's not we know when immigrants come to our country and I speak as an immigrant that we know education is supposed to be the greatest equalizer but here in the pandemic you got to see the it was not equal. mm hmm. You know there was a lot of inequity in terms of how we. With our parents, so we know we have a predominant Hispanic, but we need more. We have Bosnia. we have we have in our in our school. We have 45 languages spoken wow. So how do you communicate with just like the main seven and hope that the information is disseminated to everyone else through osmosis? I get very passionate and emotional because we. To put that we I would say the powers that we tend to put everyone in little boxes and expect them to fit you're gonna get a question from somebody out there who's saying how can people help some folks are watching and they're like you know, I'm a retired learning specialist is there something we can do to help support yes, most title one schools have a parent Center a component we. in need of volunteers to because often with title one schools, you have to have additional support in terms of like E, I P so if we can get the stakeholders to come in and be consistent in volunteering to you know read with kids and and do it as many times as possible, The more you expose them to literacy. the more they have an adult that has a high expectation for them so that they can do something to you know to please they will learn. They don't have that at home, so that's the piece that the public can help by coming in here so I'm sorry so if I were to direct this person to Meadow Creek cluster, what would they just Google? is there a place where they can't they can I'm making a plug they can contact the parents and at Lilburn Elementary School on Meadow Creek School, one of the schools in the class, but my school first so that I. Levels can have some support we will take anyone. We have a couple reverence and priests and they come and they read but they do it every week and we want more of that. you know our kids need help. Okay. Alright. let me just get to a couple more questions here too. So let's see going back one I want you know, someone said teachers are our heroes. I would strongly second that so thank you for what you're doing. another question is. to talk a little about the general curriculum for ESL and our students who are ESL, which is English as a second language for those who are not familiar with the education degan out are they still required to take the same test and complete the same work as other students and I think that's something Amy. you're talking a little bit about and then Norine. I have a feeling you have a lot to say about that well and eal administrator my goal well, let me let Amy let me. I let her go I'll I'll speak from purely just a teacher's point of view. so first of all, I'm not endorsed I'm just a Jenna teacher and last year 23 out of my 20 - four students were eal and some of them were not learning English as a second language. It was a third or fourth language and like Noreen, said Our school is. I mean it's truly it's beautiful. It's amazing And in my classroom, I think my first year of teaching I had eight different languages spoken so it is truly a very unique diverse community that we serve and that makes it so much harder like to to to make sure that we're welcoming families this year. For example, I had one student where it was listed for languages spoken at home. It's just that other Asian language. I was like I don't even know how I would get a translator for that. I mean I don't know like so yes to answer the question. Then there are so right there the logistics of trying to support 23 first graders in a classroom. I have 140 - five minute segment with an ESL teacher and she's amazing and she pushes in and we are just completely instinct. We've worked together for five years. She knows my craziness and I know hers and we're just we don't miss a beat but then for the other. Remainder of the day, It's just me making sure that these children are getting everything that they need and it is overwhelming because yes they are held to the same standards, which is interesting because they have We descriptors which they show alright and children have to take an assessment to show what level of English acquisition like what stage they're at and then this just. Kinda tell us okay if they're like a stage two, let's say for learning English. These are the types of things that are appropriate to ask them to do but then when we're assessing them, we don't take those descriptors into account so as the classroom teacher, one of the modifications that I might do is give heavy visuals heavy manipulatives. these are things that that on the tests they don't they won't do so I almost feel in some ways like I'm setting children up for failure when I'm able to modify and meet them where. Language needs are even something as simple as explaining vocabulary words, children on a test. we look at me and say you know, can you tell me what this word means I sure can't just do the best you can so yeah, it's it's difficult. It's difficult when we're teaching one way and assessing another and they're not necessarily needing each other and I'll let norrie and then take over Brittany wanted to add you have. Eal students before I take over them now, you're no. I'm really of we have one yes, but it covers the whole school so she is definitely spread and we are pretty much quite like our whole school is all indoors to I think mainly just to alleviate that stress for her cuz she has a lot of students to see but like Amy was saying with the testing even for. My average, you know english-speaking students, the test language is different than regular conversational speech, so even with the teaching you're having to teach them the wording for the test to help them, you know so they're having to do double duty of learning what it means in regular each and then also well. This is what they're talking about. If you see this word on a test, you know. It's a lot for them to handle, which is very unfair. I feel okay. Yeah. Noreen. If you can say a little bit about this and I do wanna circle back to like you know how do we go forward with you know a virus and what are we gonna do if this situation continues, but yes jumping on the ESL testing and yes, I'm like Britney, says the Access test native English speakers would on that test as well. we're not able. To give them any prompting because you want to see where they are with language acquisition and to add to what Amy was saying when you think about the descriptors of where the behaviors of a child should exhibit based on where their level is the Scriptures do not align with the strategies that we have to implement to get them to master the standards or you can get to proficient so that they can be successful. An assessment without having test of this location strategies which mentions I just made a whole flow chart it's it's tough alright we have ah fifteen sau teachers and our building for fourteen hundred students and my game is said each ah teacher has to have six segments to ensure that they saw they they satisfy their arm certification so you have each It's 45 minutes and then we try to double dip them by having a CI at the end of the day, and we also try to double dip by all of these Moti. What is this the the continuous quality improvement where every the whole school does the same thing at the same time and I will see you I focus is reading of course and vocabulary, so we also have support from the intervention like about 30 minutes. Another teacher would go in and support them, so we try to double and triple dip them based on who we serve. not every school does that, but our kids need to get it over and over again and it's it's you know, teacher effect is is is a big factor in student's success, but it's a lot of weight for a teacher to carry to try to get them to the language and the content take the assessment and how to navigate the assessment portal so I can spend it with everything That's. huh, Yes okay, That is good something to work on and to the next step to the community. so circling back though to sort of where we are now and how we're gonna make it forward. so one question is is there a discussion that the school year will start earlier than usual and in earlier than usual before Thanksgiving, anybody know anything about any of that No at this. we don't even know if we're going to have the summer school session to help these kids to catch up we're waiting on the governor's decision, which will trickle down to the district, but if they do, I don't think we are ready we are fully prepared and we could start the bull-running in August. If that's the case, maybe okay. Yeah we'll be. No, I would like to know too. Yeah, I don't know we're rolling out our summer camps and there's no we're trying to figure out what we do next and I can only imagine children and families you know where the parents are working all day. You know what are what are we you know and it's hard. It's hard as administrator telling your teachers because that's what we are there to support our administrators. I mean that we don't know it hurts me to tell them I don't know right. Well. I just I think part of it's the nature of the crisis, too. I don't know that we're we don't know what comes next. We don't know how this is gonna play out. But just one other so another question is and this is for everybody. You know what Can volunteers so let's assuming this goes on right and so there's a lot of talk that you know, we're gonna go back in the fall and we may go right back into the digital learning time-space. what we'll start off. you know what could volunteers do to help you all you know during this time and help make that digital learning smoother and I'll I'll start with Britney It''s been on. ESL You've got so much Airtime, Oh no. honestly, it's just a matter of being there to support. I mean, honestly, it's it's hard because we don't know what social distance and how much it's actually going to be able to to do I know for me just being able to meet each kid One -on- one was definitely a challenge. You know I was. I have a two year-old as well so. I had you know 30 minutes and that was it and she was all over the House so just even having that support to have another person to be able to read with them even if it is through them, they just they need to read they need to read they need to continue to write as much as possible, so just even having another person to support that the teacher would definitely help. So that that might be something you know, I don't know if you guys can go to your schools and say you know we need to really if we do that, we really need to be our volunteer programs and you know have everybody in the community Lean in and you know volunteer to help you know the kids do reading one on one and have some one -on- one time with someone any thoughts on that Amy and then we'll unser of what I mean. I guess my thoughts are going a little bit bigger. I would really like to see people from the community get involved with their local school boards. I would really like people to show up to meetings and start asking questions and demanding this. the fact that we have this many students and we need more teachers in the classroom and looking at why that is and I don't know I think I think. Sometimes teachers may not be able to speak our minds as really I mean we're in it. We're grateful for our jobs but I would like other people from the community to coming and sharing their concerns or thoughts advocating. Yeah, the resources that you all need. Yeah okay and and I just you know that's a big thing. you know if we're gonna continue with this kind of digital process right-I we need to make sure. Have access to computers that need to have Internet. They need to have maybe a place to go and you know for a couple of hours. we're really gonna have to think about it. strategically. I will say one of the interesting things about the digital world and we're kinda learning this on the campaign is that you know previously, we always thought of ourselves as geographically bound, You know you go to an event you drive there. you're at this place. you see people and now we're like wait a minute. There is no geography anymore. We can be anywhere and so There may be opportunity in that right Maybe opportunity there anyway, Norine. What is your what are your thoughts about the future here and but what volunteers can do instead of what you need like now, we that the world is flat right. Yeah. Yeah. and it's. I mean, would you like that with the country? you know there, you go all sorts of stuffs. We haven't even thought about yet. huh. I think that we said volunteering yes. but we partner up with a lot of religious based you know organizations that can come in rally a-team of you know we have a lot of retirees women's group that come in and just like Brittney said. We need them to read with our kids also the the. Stakeholders need to echo the same concerns that we have to the higher ups. we're in the trenches, you know we're running and trying to help them survive every day, but if someone from the outside could come and see what we do and carry that message back. I think sometime you know you keep harping from the same nagging. but when somebody else does it, they get it like when you tell your kids to clean the room and you know you you sister walks into the clean room. We need that support. that's one way you can do the stakeholders and the community can support teachers because we're doing the best we can with what we have, you know, but we need them to come in and partner with us in the schools. Anyone can volunteer to go through a process and we identify which classrooms need either someone who's good in math. The one who can you know good in writing Reading Reader's Theater. We have beautiful Media centers with areas identify where they could come in the kids need that it''s a hunger for them to have someone to read to them and for someone but for them to reach you, you know so we do need the community's help we really do they need to come into our schools. Excellent. Okay. I'll note We need all of you watching to be engaged. so thank you guys so much for coming on and for doing this thanks to everybody who is watching it we will be back next Tuesday. Technology at 60 'clock to talk about another you know community issue and I just wanna say again we just so appreciate our teachers. We so appreciate all of you guys and what you're doing for the community and for your students. so thank you so much. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. We appreciate Thank you guys