This goes out to everyone that feels like teachers are just “sitting at home doing nothing,” during this quarantine. Stay with me, if you can. /1

We have students for live lessons Tuesday-Friday from 8am until around 1-2 pm. During those lessons, we’re navigating on Zoom, assuring that all of our students are being as successful as possible. /2

On Monday? Free? WRONG. We are in meetings with our teams all morning, district or staff PD in the afternoon, while we’re ALSO preparing videos and lessons for students to work on withOUT our live support. We’re also conferencing with parents and communicating with students /3

All the while, we’re implementing new curriculum, trying to organize Google Classrooms, and helping students with tech issues. We’re also organizing lunch pickup. Supply pick up. Laptop pickup. All to better the digital divide or students face. Taking care of the whole student./4

While this is going on, due to massive amounts of “new”-ness to this school year, our union is hard at work ensuring that our staff are in situations where they can succeed, all while putting out fires and calming nerves. We even established a new teacher mentor program! /5

Oh...and we’re still grading and providing feedback on all the kids work. I’m currently grading 125 responses to text questions from A Tell Tale Heart and Rikki-Tiki-Tavi. All while grading other assignments. /6

ATTENDANCE isn’t easy. As a middle school teacher you have to meet up with your team and individually go through and see if any kid showed up throughout the day (we have 95% attendance so far!! Woo) /7

Oh! Can’t forget about the students social/emotional well being, because you all say “do you even care about the kids mental health?!?” News flash- we always have. You just used to have a problem with it (“stick to reading and arithmetic!!”...ha! Classic hypocrisy!) /8

So we schedule time in the afternoon for them to relax and process their thoughts and feelings. We team up with our WONDERFUL social worker to make this happen! Just this week, I worked a total of 61 hours. /9

So, hey, if you think we should be in work because the virus is a hoax and #herdimmunity...well I can’t really help you there. But if you’re one of those people saying that while also peddling out the misinformation that teachers are lazy right now...well.../10

You’re absolutely, 100%, without question, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, VERY, VERY, EXTREMELY...

Wrong. /Fin.