The American Mind

Back to school

William Hillman

(9/2020) Or maybe this year not back to school, but back to the kitchen table and a laptop. For those parents facing this new challenge of virtual learning – my whole-hearted best of luck and God Bless you.

I have one son in Catholic elementary school and one in public high school. We are a week out from the first day and the public school district still has no idea how they are going to handle this. In the last 7 days, I’ve received on average 3 emails a day from the school administration, principal’s office, and councilors. The emails are all confusing, give incomplete information and at times, contradict other emails.

Below is one recent email exchange I had with the high school’s administrator concerning the attendance and new schedule of my son’s technology classes. All regular school classes will be held virtual for the first few months. Previous communications laid out that first year students of this technology program would be taught virtually, while 2nd and 3rd year students would attend on specified days for full day instruction. My son falls into the category of the former.

Edited for space and brevity.

Administrator - hidden in a long rambling email, "we have changed the scheduling so students will only attend for a half day instead of full day. "

My email reply – "Does this change only apply to 2nd and 3rd year student, and 1st year student will still be virtual? Or will all students now be attending but only for half days? Please clarify. The emails and communications from the school are often contradictory and always confusion. Sorry for the complaint but there seems to be a lot of time and energy telling us things we really don’t need to know and little emphasis of things we do need to know."

Administrator’s reply, - "Yes that is correct." The email continued, "you need be patient, we are under a lot of stress and everything is constantly changing. We are doing the best we can."

Me – We are all under a lot of stress and things are in a constant state of flux for all of us. That is why clear, concise communication is so important. We have now had 4 email exchanges and I still don’t have an answer to the simple question is my son in school or learning virtual. You responded YES but gave no indication to which of the two scenarios your yes referred to.

This is a public school that spends roughly $30,000 a year per child. It is the highest cost per student in the state and one of the highest in the country. The school buildings are more like resorts than schools. With all their money and expertise, they never got virtual learning running last spring. It was a complete disaster and all indications are that this fall semester will be no different.

The teachers are afraid to teach, and the kids know it’s all a big scam. I spent most of the spring semester fighting with my oldest son to do his schoolwork. If someone was not standing over him, he would switch his computer to a video game and all the schoolwork would go undone because he knew something we didn’t.

The school had put out an edict that all students would pass the spring semester with a grade no less than their highest grade in the previous 3 semesters.

One recurring fight was over my son’s worst class, organic chemistry. He had been struggling all year in this class, so I kept a close eye on his progress. The teacher ran classes several times a day and was online each night to provide additional student help. Each Friday the students had to take an online test. Of all the teachers, this chemistry teacher tried. While other teachers’ weekly assignment would require nothing more than the student sending the teacher an email saying they were "OK" (this is not a joke), this chemistry teacher followed through on the curriculum that the students were expected to learn in his class.

Despite our best efforts he fell further behind. I finally had to hirer a tutor to help him prepare and pass the final exam. The exam was intense. Each student in the class had a unique exam (I assume he does this to keep students from passing answers class- to class). It took 6 hours to complete. The completed exam was then scanned and returned. Within an hour his grade of 80/100 was posted. This confused me. How could the teacher grade that many exams that quickly? I sent the completed exam to the tutor and asked him to review. The tutor ( a PHD in organic chemistry and teacher at a local college) told me all the answers were correct. This pissed me off. I emailed the teacher asking to know which questions he got wrong. He never replied.

I expressed my outrage to my son. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Dad, everyone got an 80." He continued, "I got an 80 in my Spanish final and I never took it. I barely did anything in Spanish this last quarter and I got an A.

It would later be confirmed by several acquaintances who worked for the school that the district administration had told the teachers to just handout grades whether the kids earned them or not. A version of "everyone gets a trophy".

I believe the chemistry teacher fought this and tried to do something unique during that time. He tried to teach. Unfortunately, he buckled to the pressure of a system that is more concerned with the possibility of hurting students’ feelings than they are in actually educating.

They didn’t learn anything, but more importantly we can say we didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings

Currently, the teacher’s union is pushing for a repeat of last spring. They have requested that teachers run classes virtual from home, not from their classroom. Away from supervision. Away from interaction with councilors, and department heads. They want to be able to "teach" from the beach in Florida. They also want to do away with performance reviews.

My other son attends a Catholic grade school. Their cost of education per student is less than $8,000 per child per year. All schools in the state were shut down on Thursday March 12th. The teachers and staff held working meetings over the next two days. An action plan was put together. Classes resumed via zoom Monday morning 8:30 to 3:00 and continued for the rest of the year. If a child missed a class or assignment, parents were required to send an email of explanation to the teachers. Learning continued without missing a beat and no-quarter was given.

I have full faith and confidence that this school performs in the best interests of the students. This school does not have a teacher’s union.