Opinion: Colonial School District Goes Virtual

Opinion: Colonial School District Goes Virtual

8/7/2020

by Brian Coll

The fact: Last night the school board voted to go “virtual” until November 30th and then reassess.

Here’s the opinion: This is my opinion, it might be different than your opinion, and that’s okay. Brian Coll is writing this.

I feel for the teachers who want to work, in person. I feel bad for the students who want to learn in person, I feel bad for the parents who want things to go back to normal, I feel bad for the school board, who didn’t expect a world wide illness to take over how we move forward as a community and a country…. the school board, and I could be wrong, doesn’t get paid… they do this for the love of the community and the school children and our education system. To anyone who feels teachers shouldn’t be paid, or paid as much, I disagree with you. I watched teachers go from working 9-12 hours a day to working 12-18 hours a day starting in April, and I expect them to be doing the same at the start of this school year. Each teacher became on call to 20+ students and their families for close to 24 hours a day. Think about it…. if you have a job, do you want all of your customers to have your cell phone, texting and e-mailing and calling at all hours of the day, this is what is happening to our teachers. I respect them for the job they did in the spring.

Can the on-line or virtual learning get better, more fine tuned, yes I think it can. Teachers and staff have had a few months to think about it, and another month now to put it into action.

Parents… I am a parent as well. I know, I know… not one of us reading this is in the same position. We all have different jobs, we all have children in different grades and different learning levels….. I feel for every single one of you. There are single moms out here with a job (that can’t be virtual) and a couple kids and no support system….. There are families with 2 working parents, maybe one of them can work from home, maybe they can’t. Most of us weren’t cut out to be “teachers”, you know what we can do, use the tools our teachers and school district is going to give us and do the best we can do. We can do our best, to help our children… give them a chance to succeed. We can use real life in addition to the classwork. I can only speak for my kids, but they loved the nature walks and hikes we took in the spring and through the summer.

While we are all in this together, we aren’t. Every single one of us is going through something different. You know what we can do, be kind. Our kids see our actions and behavior.

Sports….. as someone who played sports my entire life, damn this sucks for our student athletes. Maybe this is a time we can utilize our parks which are open, get some pick up games going. It won’t replace what can be done through the schools and yes, I know this has much bigger impacts on the student athletes who could have used this season to showcase their skills in hopes of a college scholarship. I feel for all of you.

Do I think the school board made the right decision? I think that will be determined down the road. It could be determined as soon as some other schools open up and an outbreak occurs. In my opinion. If the Colonial School Board, saves a life, of a teacher, a student, a staff member, than yes, they did the right thing.

Mental health…. this is important and a fine line. I personally felt the affects of being away from people, family and friends and such. I think this is the time to reach out to friends of our students families and consider some joint learning, or time with much smaller groups in controlled situations. This could help all of us. Once again, just my opinion and every person is in a different situation.

I could go on…. and like everything, this has been an ever changing situation.

I want to thank all of the teachers, school board, staff, parents and students… I want to wish my fellow parents the best of luck as the school year starts. Parents…. I’m just one guy, but if it gets really tough, I can have a catch down at Sutcliffe Park with you or a kid or two.

One again, this is my opinion. It doesn’t have to line up with yours. I will respect your opinion. However in the comments on Facebook. Please, please don’t attack people for their opinion. Attack comments will be removed.