Feeding the Hearts, Minds, and Bodies of America’s School Children in 2020
In 2018, I had no idea I would be preparing to teach American History at an inner city public school during a world wide pandemic. I had just finished my Masters Degree in Education, and I had three good years of full time classroom teaching experience after spending nearly 30 years as a school administrator. Thanks to Verizon, all my students were given an iPad with full time internet access.
Then the Corona-virus pandemic hit us. On Friday, March 13 this year I said goodbye to about half my students for the last time in person. The other half had already decided to stop coming to school earlier in the month. They were all graduating and moving on to high school.
Getting school work done was going to be a challenge especially for those students without Internet access or computers. Even at our school the technology gap existed in houses where there was no access and the iPad didn’t function well. And then there were all those kids who had no food to eat, and who were worried about their families because of the virus, or because they lost a job — or both.
In the first weeks after schools closed the SFUSD Student Nutrition Services went into high gear generating “grab and go” bags of food for students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. According to SFUSD communications on March 30th, 2020:
“Many of our school meal sites had an overwhelming demand and were unable to serve everyone today. Last week, we served 9,000 meals on our busiest day and today we served over 24,000 meals. While our ordering quantity was increased for this week, we have doubled our quantity going forward. As the COVID-19 crisis continues in our City, we want to ensure that we are able to provide free meals for all children.”
On their web site today, SFUSD Student Nutrition Services states: “During the normal school year, we serve over 37,000 meals per day at 136 schools across San Francisco.”
When the summer came, I decided to volunteer with the SF/Marin Food Bank. I began helping sort and deliver food to a growing number of needy families and individuals. Many times I went back to my school to support the SFUSD Student Nutrition Services through their connection to the Food Bank’s volunteer system. Volunteers choose the schools where they worked and my school was always popping up as a “needy.” Volunteers moved bags of food to the front so the staff could distribute it. The work is hard and the atmosphere is challenging. The last day I volunteered they gave out 850 tickets. Each person got two bags of food per ticket representing five days worth of food.
Every time I volunteered the line wrapped around the block and we had more people than the number of tickets available. When we ran out of food bags, Student Nutrition Services staff went to work collecting more food from the kitchen and always seemed to have something left for the last few people.
This past week it was time to start school remotely. We started up on time but meeting online through digital classrooms. About 10 percent of my students didn’t show up for the first week of school. Many had broken technology, no internet access at home, or one of any number of other challenges that made it impossible for them to get to class.
Along with two other teachers, I helped distributed about 70 laptops and 30 WiFi Hot Spots in the first two days. None of us could teach on the days we distributed equipment so our students had to do independent work in the first week of school. We have two more days next week to distribute more technology with the hope of getting 100% of our students to class.
But the challenges will be real for all of us this year. For many of my students just getting enough to eat will be a challenge. They will also be challenged by the technology gap, the language gap, the economic gap, culture and racial gaps, and all the other challenges oppressed groups face in America.
As of today, I’ve heard from 139 of my 145 students. I don’t know how they will all do in class when we get there together. These late students tend to struggle in a regular classroom and will likely have even more difficulty in the digital world. Once again, teachers will be called on to help identify these students and try to find ways to support them from a distance so they can succeed.
Just another year being a school teacher in America.
