Day 1 - Mask mandate rescinded!!
This is the generic symbol for a city charter high school and it’s what I’ll be using from this point forward when the majority of my blog post happens to address my Tues/Thurs teaching assignment…
Governor Newsom’s statewide mask mandate expires today and you no longer need a negative test to visit a hospital or nursing home. But the sun-setted mask mandate is confusing…masks are still required in K-12 schools, on public transportations, and in healthcare settings for vaxed and un-vaxed alike. If you’re UN-vaxed, add a mask to your Sunday best outfits for church. Covid cases throughout California are on the decline, although still “High” in LA County AND my College No. 1 class was just quarantined.
All of this is so confusing because there are whisperings that LA County Dept. of Public Health’s mask mandate is still in play because the number of Omicron cases in LA County still registers as “High.” Most people continue to mask in my zip code.
I really need to know if I had Omicron in January…
2/15/22. Tuesday
My first day of class with my high school students. It’s raining.
5:00-6:20 – Up and I’m moving quickly because I don’t know, yet, which times will work best for traffic flow, arriving on time to Inglewood, walking to class, etc. I go downstairs to say good morning to the dog, but she doesn’t stir, so I microwave my coffee, grab a bag of ice, and go upstairs. Today, I weigh 96.5 – a 1.5 pound weight gain in a mere 7 hours. I sit in the shower, lean my head back against the tiles, ice my eyes and drink my coffee. Lotion. I wear leggings with my thigh-high brown boots and a professional blouse. I end up getting several compliments on this outfit throughout the day. I grab all my bags and I’m out the door by 6:20 a.m.
6:20-7:30 – Traffic. Is. horrible. Clearly, I’ve left too late and I’m in the soup. I listen to The Daily and The Best of Both Worlds, eat my overnight oats, and put my make-up on in the car.
7:30-8:00 – I make it to Inglewood by 7:30. There are several parking spaces available, thank God. I’ve taught here before, but I’m not sure if/how the process has change so I don my mask and enter the Office, where I’m told I have to take my temperature every time I enter the Office by stooping down and scanning my forehead into the vertical thermometer. I also have to sign in every day. In violation of HIPAA, the thermometer screams “Temperature NORMAL!!” What would happen if I actually had a fever? Would the thermometer scream, “Get Out!” ??
-I teach at a Charter High School for POC [people of color] and it’s clear this high school has been elevated a few notches in that it now has its own floor in the building, complete with a new principle. I’m happy to see she’s a black female and I mean that genuinely.
In the Before Times [Spring Semester 2019 – January/February], I dealt solely with a white, incompetent, academic counselor, who was disorganized and had no idea what she was doing. She didn’t give me keys to my classroom for 5 weeks, forcing me to retrieve the key from her, personally, at her office, two days a week at 7:30 a.m. She was rarely there on time, which meant I was routinely late to class…I hated working with her...sometimes the computer/projector I used for my slides was gone with no explanation and the speakers didn’t work consistently, which was an issue every time I wanted to broadcast media content, like a video or a podcast. She was my point of contact for everything, but I almost never interacted with her if I could help it. The TWO emails I sent her were never returned and books didn’t arrive for 8 weeks, at which point school was shut down. Throughout all of it, I continually wondered, “Why is this white woman representing and allegedly advising all of these black and brown kids on a daily basis? Shouldn’t they have a black academic counselor?”
It appears she’s no longer my point of contact, thank God…
I check in with the new principal on the new floor and she had no idea I was starting today. This is so typical - it’s like subbing. HOWEVER, she’s aware that I was supposed to start teaching at some point – she just didn’t know the day - and assigns me to teach in Mr. G’s’ classroom during his prep time. She calls Mr. G. to fetch me and we walk to his classroom. This is where I’ll report at 8:00 a.m., every Tuesday and Thursday.
The classroom is very tech-savvy, with a huge smart board where I can blast my Google slides. I do a quick test and the speaker system works! There’s an econo-size Hepa Air Filter running at full blast the entire time and the students’ desks look like mini-space ship capsules – the desk and chair are “one piece”, connected to each other, and surrounded in “pexi-plastic” in that each student is contained in their own bubble.
The students. are. lovely. You can tell they’ve been programmed. Every time a student enters the room, they grab a Clorox wipe and wipe down their little space station desks before taking their seats…they’re like miniature robots, in a good way. They raise their hands before speaking. They don’t get out of their seats without permission, even to go to the bathroom. One student asks me if he can step outside to blow his nose. They’re all masked and they wear them, too; only one student has a problem with slippage. They don’t talk when I’m talking. They’re not asleep, they pay attention. And best of all…I have just 13 kids! If this was my class load at College No. 1 or 2, it’d be canceled, BUT College No. 2 can’t cancel this gig because the High School is the client, even though College No. 2 is still paying my salary.
There is only one student who was on his phone the entire time…I’ll address that on Thursday.
It’s a chaotic first day, as most of them are, and the students still don’t have access to Canvas because of the 3-week delay at College No. 2 that happens with the Dual Enrollment kids every semester. This has been an ongoing problem for years – it’s unclear why they can’t fix it. The students pass a paper around with their personal email addresses so I can reach them until they have access to Canvas. Then I lecture for 30 minutes and play a 10-minute video.
9:30 – 10:45 -And just like that, class is dismissed. I exit the building, head to the parking lot, and find I’m completely blocked in!! Staff park in the middle spaces, then ring the outside edges, bumper-to-bumper, so there is no way to exit. The Security Officer thinks he can maneuver my car, though, and he jumps in, narrowly missing a parked vehicle by approximately 2 inches. I find all of this so irritating and secretly I’m highly pissed, BUT I’m pleasant and good-natured about it with the Security Officer.
Driving and traffic. is. horrible. I listen to The Accused.
-While en route, I call B.’s referral, Dr. Jenkins, and request an antibody test. They can get me in TOMORROW! This is incredible. At my regular Medical Group, ANY appointment takes at least 30 days and for more urgent matters, like a sprained ankle or an Exacto knife cut, I have to go to Urgent Care. I can’t believe I can get a blood draw tomorrow until I realize this office only takes PPO insurance – they don’t take HMOS, the poor-man’s version of insurance, which is what I have. For this next-day service, I will have to pay out of pocket for the appointment, the blood draw, and the labs. The office visit is $60 and the receptionist says she doesn’t know how much the labs will cost.
10:45-11:15 – I stop by Dr. Jenkins’ office and request the name of the Lab…it’s Quest Diagnostics.
11:15-11:30 – Driving.
11:30-12:30 – Home and I bring all my bags inside, heat up some of my spaghetti-squash lasagna, and read Floating Feathers.
1:00-3:00 – I take a nap. When I wake up, I note that the roofer called an hour ago; this is the second roofer with the cheapest bid. I return his call and he informs me that he had a break in schedule and wanted to send his guys over NOW to repair the roof, but unfortunately I missed the window. This is AFTER I texted him previously and said that I was only available on M, W, and F. Today is Thursday. The roofer says his guys will be here on Friday.
3:00-3:30 – I live-chat with an autobot on the Quest Diagnostics website and am informed that the cost for an antibody test will be around $70.
3:30-9:30 – Blog posts
10:00-11:00 – I do a 15-minute Insanity Max – Ab workout and a 30-minute Insanity Max – Core Cardio workout.
11:00-1:00 – I upload my blog posts and listen to Chapter 8 – Part II, Chapter 9, and part of Chapter 10 for Specialty Class 1B. There are significant edits that L. will need to make. I have a few tortilla chips.
1:00-2:00 – Nighttime routine. Bed. I set my alarm for 7:00.