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Having intentional time set aside to work with our counterparts has become even more critical.  We can often feel like with are teaching in our own silos, so dedicating that time to collaborate, vent, brainstorm, etc. is vital.   I would love to see it expanded to more intentional time for cross school collaboration to occur.

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Our teaching team has always been collaborative, but this Covid-19 experience has enhanced that reality. Generally speaking, we have an open door policy and encourage teachers to pop their heads into other classrooms to see what is going on and offer their perspective where applicable. I agree with whomever posted about trust - it has been wonderful to lean on the trust of our administrators at KMS, who know that we will do our best for our students. I know there has been some complaining and dissatisfied people griping on Facebook, but more often than not, I receive support and praise from parents than anything else. I think they understand that this isn't easy for anyone. In light of that, muting the noise on Facebook - and ignoring it completely for weeks at a time - has helped my own mindset tremendously. It's easy to focus on the negative when that's all we're seeing and looking for; it's just as easy to look for the positive, but it might take retraining our minds to do so.

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Throughout the past year, we have had to jump through hurdles and obstacles and switch out of our comfort zones. In doing all of this, we have realized that we can't do it alone. We have structured cohorts now where a team of teachers works with the same groups of students and we meet often to discuss what issues or solutions we may have. We have Zoom PTC with our parents together as a team. We share 20 minutes between all subject and specialist teachers. It has been more collaborative and more parents have attended with the flexibility of technology. Parents have voiced that they like this style of conference because they can speak with all teachers in one meeting and hear all perspectives. We have students grouped by academic needs, which helps us drive our instruction and personalize it to our groups. We build connections with our students because we have 70 minutes with them each period. There's more time to go deeper into lessons or provide instruction. These are some of the benefits from the dramatic changes that occurred in the past year.

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Changes that work:
Staff meetings/trainings can be held over zoom on occasion.
Hybrid approaches in which some lessons, meetings, trainings etc are held face to face while having the option to zoom in.
Communicating with parents over DoJo or other platforms.
Working from home is possible and potentially more efficient. For example, in-service days in which some work could be done from home should be an option for teachers and staff. Let situations like that be up to our professional judgement.
Parent-Teacher Conf – parents who work on the slope or away from home could join in a PTC over zoom, whatever facilitates involvement.

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It’s time to really look at true standards based learning when we return. Yes, we can point to a failed rural model in one district, but that doesn’t paint the whole picture or really fit the dynamics we have on the peninsula.  Returning to school in the fall could allow teachers and admin to break students into cohorts by academic needs/ level.  We have an opportunity to turn an archaic education system that hasn’t provided the necessary results into a system that really focuses on student growth and needs.  It is time to stop thinking one teacher can meet the needs of all students, especially in larger classes.  This is where students fall between the cracks. The opportunity will be there to incorporate this method or a similar method that takes work off the teachers (only focused on one set of standards as opposed to a whole curriculum) and allows for focused education for all students when we return in the fall.  We’ll see if people are willing to try for a better AK education or be content with the current model which for years has provided sub-par performance.  Big choices.

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Our 5th grade team chose to split up the subjects and walk to each others' rooms to teach - somewhat like a middle school model. Because of this our time for each core subject is 45 minutes as opposed to an hour or longer.
I've realized that this is an excellent amount of time, and that in order to utilize it best, half the assignments I had planned or think I "need to do." This has cut down on extra that may have been helpful but isn't necessary. It's much less stressful, and we are able to dig much deeper into the subject instead of more broad. We also split up the extra subjects (art, science, and tech/health/mindup) and chose one of those to teach as well, allowing us to really see how we can improve the lesson and make those changes for our planning next year. It started out as stressful and difficult, thinking that I never had enough time. Making the shift to work with what I have now though has been an immensely enlightening experience that I will take with me into next school year.

School-wise, many teachers have also cut way back on what they are doing and sticking with what they know. The district rolled out ner literacy materials for this year K-5, and teachers made the conscious decision to stay with what they know they can do well given the crazy circumstances of this year. The decision was well thought out and intentional.

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One thing that has been of tremendous value has been leaderships trust in teachers to be innovative and choose the resources that they use to teach. For example, not requiring every teacher to use My Math. Trusting in each other's professional judgement has made it a safer environment to take risks with your practice and try out something that you typically may not have tried in the pre-pandemic classroom.

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One thing I have valued is the ability to slow down and connect more with my students at the high school level. Sometimes we live so fast paced with large classes and lots of moving pieces but I am appreciating the focus of connection this year. It has made the most profound impact on me since students returned to my building and we get to discuss life again - not just delivering content through the computer.

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My second grade counterpart and I have always split duties and planned together.  We have always shared ways with our school how beneficial a working relationship like this can be.  During this time when the playbook seems to be changing daily, we have grown and adapted our situation together.  One ball that we're continuing to juggle is making sure our remote students' needs are meet while doing our in-person teaching as well.  Together we have shared that load.  It really hasn't been easy at all, but if we were both trying to do this we'd never be not working.

I know the district has given some leeway as far as our new literacy materials for K-5 and I appreciate that we've been able to adapt as we need to during these challenging times. I do think one of the silver linings is that my teammate and I have tried to take on as much as we can and learn how to implement it with few students in our classroom. I feel more confident going to the future that I have had a soft opening of F&P and that I believe I will feel more confident using it in the future when our classroom looks a little more typical.

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Since last March everyone has had to be flexible and I think that is especially true for educators and our students. For example, this current quarter we were completely remote during the first week, then had cohorts coming in 2 days per week for the next 2 weeks, and this week we are back with everyone 5 days (with the exception of a couple of students remaining remote). As a result, my plans have had to change at the last minute at times. I have leaned heavily on my colleagues for ideas to adapt quickly. Since last March, I have learned how to implement so much technology (I think we all have) from Zoom and breakout rooms, to EdPuzzle, Nearpod, Jamboard, and much more. These tools will forever  alter my practice for the better. However, technology is not always the solution. Yesterday for example, I had too many students to accommodate them in my small classroom and keep them at an appropriate distance. I had made plans to do station rotation and utilize breakout rooms on zoom which would have worked well with half of them being remote, but with everyone here in person I had to change that up. We moved out into the hallway and used old school white boards. And some groups had remote students working with them through zoom.
I think we will all come out of this challenging time with a lot more tools in our tool boxes!

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One thing I've deeply valued here at the alt is our ability to adapt quickly to students' needs. This is partially due to the small staff size, but I believe a lot of it is due to having regular conversations about how to best fill gaps in students' educations. Our students are often included in these conversations as well, which makes it feel like more of a community effort.

When we returned from distance learning, our staff did an inventory to see which students were likely to pass their classes. We had many discussions about students who were in danger of not passing, and established new plans and procedures to create stopgaps that were known by everyone in the building. Having everyone in on these discussions means that we can all better support each other, as well as the students. All of us can now check in with any student about their work in our individual class, or any of the other classes, and provide another layer of support to help get work done. We've seen a lot of improvement thanks to the new plans we put in place, and I know it's because of the intentional change we made in our instructional design and our staff communication. - Meredith - KAHS