ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — Social distancing and wearing face masks are only some of the extra tasks teachers will take on for the 2020-2021 school year.
The coronavirus may also make some teachers teach in two worlds: the online forum and the brick-and-mortar classroom.
"I’ve been involved in education for 38 years," Lee DeWitt said. She is an experienced teacher in St. Johns County at Mill Creek Academy.
This year, COVID-19 is making teaching, "Absolutely challenging," she said.
It's challenging, even for a teacher who has known the classroom since she taught our own Jessica Clark in the 1980s.
She smiled and told Clark, "It was your 5th-grade class, I was your teacher."
Now that 24 percent of St. Johns County students will be learning online or virtually, teachers are wondering how it will work. Who will teach in classrooms and who will be online?
Because of that, some teachers such as DeWitt and her colleagues are getting creative. She described an idea she and other teachers have proposed to her school's administration.
"For students who are doing online learning, while I am teaching a math lesson, my co-teacher will be with the other students doing a reading lesson," DeWitt said. "When it’s time for reading for the distance learners, she’ll go in and do the distance learning for the reading, and I’ll go and do the math lesson live in brick and mortar."
Wednesday, during a contract negotiations meeting, Justin Vogel, a teachers' union representative told the district that one school has suggested teachers will do online teaching during their planning periods.
Some teachers, such as Vogel, do not like that idea.
He told the district staff, "I don’t know how else to say it. No. Absolutely No!"
He continued, "These kids need a different lesson and that’s fine. I’m willing to do it. I can do it. I have the skill. I’ll have the training, but I need the time. Please don’t’ expect the people to do remote distance learning during their planning periods."
There’s no district-wide plan yet for assigning teachers to instruct online or in a building or both.
DeWitt said, "It’s something I’ve never had to do before."
However, if this veteran teacher has made it this far in nearly 40 years, working around all sorts of obstacles, dealing with revolving changes in curriculum, and putting up with a lanky, curly-haired fifth-grader in the 1980s, this is one more challenge she will overcome.