We are back!
Last week, school resumed for students in my board for two days (on Thursday and Friday). Tuesday and Wednesday were spent frantically trying to prepare. I am back in the library, as a teacher-librarian. I am surprised and delighted to share that I have more open collaborative time (aka Partners Time, if you are an old TL like me and still occasionally use the title of the 1982 document) than ever before. Despite this return to what should be familiar territory for me, there are still a lot of hiccups and uncertainties. This is also true for teacher-librarians new or returning to the position. I've tried to help as best as I can, both on our board's Google Currents community site, as well as via private emails and on the Facebook group devoted to school library professionals (run by my dear friend, Ruth Gretsinger). People are desperate for clear explanations and solutions, but a lot relies on consultation with administration and site-specific decisions. That's not comforting, unfortunately.
Even though I've been trying to be a source for potential answers, I still have a lot of questions. Here are some of the main ones, with my attempts at resolving them.
How do I sanitize and disinfect objects quicker?
Our students need a chance to play together, but we still have rigorous standards to maintain about cleaning touched objects. Providing individual buckets of supplies works when we are talking about pencils and erasers, but not loose parts or toys. On Friday, students spent 30 minutes playing and I spent 50 minutes afterwards cleaning those toys! There's no sink in the library. Attempting to wash my Lego led to wet shoes, pants, and very damp Rubbermaid bins. Thankfully, our wonderful new caretaker Quentin saved the chicken wire I was going to get rid of and suggested I could hose things down on the wire in the big sinks. Hopefully the Lego isn't small enough to drop through. I will be consulting with the kindergarten team to see how they handle this time-intensive job.
How do I avoid visual overstimulation when all the students' cameras are on?
Last year, I taught Grade 6-7 and then Grade 5-6. When we were online, they didn't have their cameras on most of the time. I know this makes some teachers feel lonely, but I realize now that I got used to "less is more". Now that I am doing a lot of primary prep, and many of them are virtual, I find myself getting completely overwhelmed at the sight of 27 kindergarten children jumping on sofas, playing with robots, picking noses, eating snacks and doing all sorts of other things. When they need to perform their "what is media" actions, I found it difficult to observe so many of them simultaneously. I tried to have students turn off their cameras and turn them on when needed, but it seems like it's part of the primary online class routine to keep cameras on. The wonderful DECE Jen Cadavez is helping me consider different strategies to use to help me manage.
How do I get to class on time between online and in-person?
My schedule was engineered and designed in a special way so that we would avoid back-to-back classes of students. This is great for health reasons, but tricky when I need to take back an in-person class when an online class is waiting for me. I don't think this will be a huge issue; many of the teachers have been very understanding about me being a bit late.
How will I have time to shelve books?
I learned that volunteers are not yet permitted in the building. My students know that Pat McNaughton was the backbone of our school library when it came to organizing and shelving books. In consultation with my principal, I am adopting the most stringent of guidelines, and I am quarantining the books in huge Rubbermaid bins for a week after they are checked in. I am technically the only one permitted to handle the circulation computer and scanning wand. Maybe I will see about whether or not Pat can come in after school when there are no students, or if we should lower the amount of books that students can be permitted to take out.
How do I share photos ethically and in a timely manner?
If I was a kindergarten parent sending my child to in-person learning, I'd want all the reassurances I could possibly get. I took photos of the kindergarten students playing with Fisher Price toys (which was the calmest part of the period, to be honest - many of our youngest learners will need a lot more time to get used to the "routine" of school, since there's been no opportunities to practice things like lining up, adhering to an institutional schedule, and other restrictions). I want to share these photos with the parents, but I don't know if I can send a mass email with a slideshow of all the images, because I don't know if they've signed media release forms. Sending photos individually may take a really long time. I don't have an answer to this one yet.
How can I use technology when the most useful items have all been distributed elsewhere?
We have no more Chromebooks to spare for in-school learning. As it was, I was scrambling to locate all the teacher laptops and ensure everyone had something that could possibly work. I still have some old iMacs (the white ones and grey ones we won back in 2008 [I think] in the Best Buy Best in Class contest) but they won't run Google Classroom or anything that takes too much power or has too many images. Word processing, maybe?
When can I bring in Cola the skinny pig?
Students have already been asking to see our resident school library pet. I've read the Program Guidelines and Operational Guidelines published by the board, but I don't remember seeing anything about pets - it's probably a low priority.
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