School District of Philly "excited" about return to in-person learning in the fall

It's nice that the School District of Philadelphia is "excited" about the full re-opening of schools. I get it. No doubt many of our students and their parents are as well. Teachers, too. Bet.

JUST IN:

In a statement responding to new CDC guidance, the School District of Philadelphia says it's "excited about the full re-opening of schools." #PhlEd pic.twitter.com/ahnwgGRmOn

— Avi Wolfman-Arent (@Avi_WA) July 9, 2021

What I hope isn't lost in all of the district's excitement and giddiness is the fact that we are emerging from a once in a lifetime global and deadly pandemic. Just as with the teaching and learning that occurred since March, 2020, we've never done this before. Be merciful.

What I hope isn't lost in all of their excitement and giddiness is the fact that we're still experiencing a great deal of racial, political, and social unrest in addition to that once in a lifetime global and deadly pandemic. I wrote about that here and broached it in almost every meeting I attended for the SBTL* part of me. Be merciful.

What I hope isn't lost in all of their excitement and giddiness is the fact that many of our young people will be returning to classrooms without some of their classmates and friends. I tweeted about that. Be merciful.

As if the past year and change hasn't been traumatic enough, for many of our kids, going back to school in the fall w/o their friends/classmates who've been killed may be...a lot💔🙏🏾😢

— Stephen R. Flemming, Ed.D. (@kellygrade6) July 6, 2021

What I hope isn't lost in all of their excitement and giddiness is that fact that "social-emotional learning/SEL" (the term is getting a little trite if you ask me) isn't a "thing" to checklist. I heard someone from another school begin a sentence with, "Once we did our SEL, we...[did whatever came next in class]"😐Be merciful.

Preliminarily here's what I'd like to see:

• PD - For professional development, lean on school-level educators and students, the ones who've experienced all of this March, 2020 - present, granularly. Those building-level educators of course include teachers, but also support staff who've taken on teaching roles. Yup. That happened throughout the district. Oh and pay those who want to do it. Heard there's some federal money floating around. For students, give them credit. Feature them.

If you haven't taught students during this challenging era, don't professionally develop me for a time such as this. You can't. 

• Flexibility - Be very flexible, understanding, and empathetic in everything. Don't just say it, be it. Don't know how? Ask us, those for whom you have job-related expectations and we'll tell you how.

• Listen to and talk with educators, students, and parents at our locations, in our spaces, often. Come to us, in-person, since you're excited. No surveys, emails, forms, questionnaires except maybe as a follow-up.

My hope is that we have learned something during this tumultuous time period and that this new learning will translate to new doing. 

Fin.

For now.

Be safe!

*School-Based Teacher Leader