Face-to-Face Instruction Returns March 22

Face-to-Face Instruction Returns March 22

Governor Steve Sisolak (above) announces CCSD schools to reopen mid-March. Teachers are worried this is a step in the wrong direction. (Image: Fox 5 News)

On February 10, 2021, Governor Steve Sisolak of Nevada announced his plan to reopen schools in the Clark County School District. It has come to be a very controversial subject amongst students, parents, faculty, and teachers.

Schools have been closed in CCSD since March 15, 2020, for grades K-12. As schools plan to reopen, both students and teachers are preparing for face-to-face instruction. Katelyn McClain, teacher at Northwest Career and Technical Academy in Las Vegas, tells us about the changes she has gone through in the past year and what she hopes to see in the future.

Q: Have you seen the Governor’s plan?

A: Yes.

Q: Alright and after seeing it, do you think that is it going to work?

A: My honest opinion is that I don’t know. I don’t think that it’s fair to put kids through this with a month and a half of being done, but unless we push to go back to some form of “being in person”, then we’ll never get back to the ways things are supposed to be.

Q: Are students required to have the vaccine?

A: Students aren’t required to have the vaccine because we can’t make them do that, but teachers are subjected to random Covid testing, which I don’t think is right. I mean, being pulled out of class and them being like “Alright Ms. McClain, we gotta pull you out of class to test you for Covid.”, and if we say “No”, then we get sent home with no pay. That’s the way that it works. I don’t know, I think that’s kind of bizarre.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to change about the plan?

A: I’d like to change the way that they have the schedule because the way that it works at our school is that you are either in ‘Red Week’ or ‘Black Week’. In Red Week, you’re at home learning online; If you’re in Black Week then you’re in person and you’re learning, but you’re learning two class periods for an hour and fifteen minutes, and the other class periods I only see you in the afternoon with a new group of kids for half an hour. So, why would I send them into school for half an hour, every-other-week? And now I have to change the curriculum, and they’re learning more at home right now!

Q: What’ve you heard from your students about coming back?

A: From what I’m seeing, my students don’t want to come back. They’re so burned out, they’re so tired of this. They just want to call this year done.

Q: What’ve you had to change about your teaching since going virtual?

A: I have started a YouTube channel, we’re on Twitch now. So, we stream on Twitch, we do a lot of cool shows. We do two live shows a week and then the other classes do the other shows and we have 12 different shows we do a week. We have almost 300 followers on YouTube, which is cool, almost 500 on Instagram, which is cool. We reached a partnership level which Twitch which is just cool because now when people subscribe, Twitch will pay us money.

“I had to learn how to be outside the box. I’ve taught students how to use tinfoil to be a reflector and how to use a shower curtain or bed sheet to diffuse the light, like a soft-box, or we use colored binder dividers for the different colored gels and I showed them how to use a lot of home-made stuff.”

Q: How do you host school events?

A: We did a virtual Homecoming, which was two and a half hours and it was fun and I’m in charge of the graduation this year which they may or may not have in-person. We’re doing an in-person Prom this year, but the way the Prom works this year is you get to sign up with your friends for 30-minute increments and there can only be 25 students at a time. They’re gonna hire a D.J. and we can’t charge anybody so we’re gonna make no money and it was the weirdest conversation I had.

Katelyn McClain, Media Communications

Q: What’re your own plans/goals for opening your classroom?

A: I’m just gonna show up and hopefully, if they show up, we’ll have a good time. I asked today for more gloves in my classroom so that way I can sit down at their computer, do whatever, and then change my gloves.

Q: Is there anything you would like to add?

A: When you see a teacher, you can’t be like, “Oh, how’s your vacation being at home?” because that’s how I feel like teachers have, where parents are like “oh, I guess I have to teach my own kids”, but they’re mostly upset because now they have to watch their kids. Well, I’m sorry that I can’t watch your kid from your house and I’m sorry that I can’t make your kids come to my class, but I know that teachers are doing everything that they possibly can to make sure that our kids are cared for and taught, but we can only do so much.