It’s Time to Take Stock of COVID-19s Ongoing Effects on High School

From the Perspective of a Teacher’s Husband

In August 2020 it became obvious that the 2020–2021 School Year would be unlike any other. Ever. My wife is a High School Music Teacher, but has been saddled with additional subjects in addition to her normal Vocal Music classes and General Music classes. Her Principal decided on a split schedule of four classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and three on Tuesday and Thursday. This means that two days a week my wife has no planning period which means more working at home just due to scheduling.

Mind you, this means that teachers have their students for over 1.5 hours on MWF, and over two hours on TuTh. For their entire careers, these teachers were trained and planned based on having their students for 50 minutes per day, five days per week. Imagine you are a runner who has trained their entire life to run a set pace for 50 minutes, 7 times per day, 5 days per week. Your body and mind would get very used to this and would even build up defenses to protect your ability to achieve this. All of a sudden, you now have to run 1.5x that three days per week, and over double that the other two days per weeks. The effects on both the teachers and students are predictable.