Education Week - September 8, 2021 - 17

dents in quarantine, having new students in and
out of the building every day has been " hectic, "
said Pagett, in Atlanta. She teaches in person,
with a livestream option for students who are
quarantined at home.
" It's hard to keep track of who is out, why
they're out. So most of us just turn on our
Zoom everyday and we're not sure who's going
to be at school, " she said.
She's been trying to stick to activities that students
can do at home or at school-like comparing
the melting speeds of ice on different surfaces-and
she's recorded herself giving voice
instructions for students to listen to. But only
about 65 percent or 70 percent of her students
who are out are signing on regularly. They had
the option to pick up laptops at the school, but
not everyone did. " It's kind of a mess, " she said.
The situation has left some teachers overwhelmed
and exhausted, only a few weeks
into the school year.
" It's a really icky feeling being in the classroom
watching all of this happen like a slowmoving
train wreck, " said Vaughn, referring
to climbing numbers of quarantined students.
Models exist for continuous
instruction
At the same time, some districts have found
ways to provide continuous instruction for students
at home.
Arlington Heights School District 25, in Illinois,
has set up a " quarantine academy " for
students who test positive for COVID or who
have been in close contact with someone who
tested positive. (The Illinois State Board of Education
requires that students in quarantine
must have access to a remote option.)
Academies are organized by grade band,
with one dedicated teacher each for early
childhood, grades K-2, grades 3-5, and grades
6-8. A fifth, special education teacher supports
students across the different virtual classrooms.
All core content is delivered through
synchronous instruction, while classes such as
music, art, and physical education, as well as
lunch and recess are asynchronous. Students
rotate in and out of the quarantine academy as
needed throughout the year.
Tracy Recklaus, the grades 6-8 quarantine
academy teacher, said the set-up is " way better "
than concurrent teaching, in which one
teacher works with both students in the classroom
and students on a live video call. " I have
the full attention of the kids in one place, and
I can attend to that, " she said.
Recklaus and her quarantine academy colleagues
worked with the district's learning
coaches and content area leads for a few weeks
before the start of this school year, designing
lessons that could be easily differentiated to
meet the needs of multiple grade levels in one
group.
For example, studying a poem of the day
in English/language arts: " You can unpack
a poem at every level, and the brilliant thing
about poetry is you can interpret it in a billion
different ways, " she said. Recklaus also
plans to focus on skills that are relevant
across grades and that students often need
reinforcement with from year to year-like
scale factors in math and science, or differentiating
between mean, median, and
mode.
Even if districts don't have the staff to set up
quarantine academies, there are still ways to
improve the instructional experience for students
at home, said Dusseault, of CRPE.
Clear communication should be a priority,
she said-explaining exactly what will happen
once students go into quarantine, and what
options students will have to stay connected
with the classroom. Houston Independent
School District does this on its website, she
said, with a separate landing page to answer
students' and parents' questions.
Providing some kind of live instruction is
also important, said Domenech, of AASA:
" The best model would be where the district
can revert back to providing remote learning
with a teacher. "
Students should at least have access to staff
during the week, Dusseault said, to review assignments
or check in on progress. Districts
could use tutors for this purpose, she said-a
strategy that Fulton County schools in Georgia
put in place by the end of August.
" I think what we did learn in the last 18
months is that relationships absolutely drive
student engagement and well-being, " Dusseault
said.
Out of the Trenches.
Into the Future.
Author Gary Marx
explores the 21 Trends
impacting education
and our future.
To order this book
www.edweek.org/go/21Trends
Go Figure.
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Tools from the St. Louis Fed and
FRED Interactives is a graphing teaching tool where you and your
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Information Literacy | Nominal & Real Wages | GDP
Get started at: www.stlouisfed.org/fred-interactives-1
EDUCATION WEEK | September 8, 2021 | www.edweek.org | 17
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Education Week - September 8, 2021

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