Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by.

When the pandemic closed schools in mid-March, one of the myriad question marks that loomed was if or how the Advance Placement Exams would proceed. As it became clear that schools would not reconvene for the remainder of the year, that question mark loomed larger. I teach AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2.

The College Board decided to proceed with the exams, albeit in a highly modified format. Exam content was pruned. College Board offered online lessons intended to prepare students for the content and format of the exams.

From what I gathered via Twitter, most instructors jumped on board on did what they could to coach their students for the exam via distance instruction. From what I could tell, there was considerable highly admirable and herculean distance learning being implemented in the AP Physics realm.

I chose a different path. It was never clear to me that many of my students were aiming to take the exam. At my school, students are free to enroll in AP courses without being required to purchase the exam. Survey results of whether students were going to take the exam in light of the pandemic, most of my students chose neither "yes" nor "no". They chose "maybe".

In AP Physics 1, I continued teaching the course content: Waves, Electricity, and Circuits.

It seemed wrong to allow AP Physics 1 students to be allowed to go out into the world not knowing what waves were.

So I puttered along with my non-onerous, asynchronous lessons delivered and collected via Google Classroom, making my way through waves, then electrostatics, and electric circuits.

What about my students who intended to take the exam? I instructed them to join the College Board's online course webinars. I unlocked the practice items available to them in AP Classroom.

The point is that all of us who teach the College Board's Advanced Placement had to make a choice of what to prioritize: exam preparation or course content.

I chose course content. From what I could glean, I was alone in this choice. That didn't bother me. I didn't blog about it then because I wasn't looking to win converts or initiate a spirited debate. I trusted everyone to make the choice best suited to their situation.

The presumption of the College Board was clearly that we would jump on board with exam prep in these challenging times. From what I could tell from their communications, The Exam wasn't everything, it was The Only Thing.

In a normal, face-to-face year, I would have completed those topics prior to the exam and would have ended the year (post-exam) with what I call "Light Desserts". That unit covers plane mirrors, prisms, rainbows, double rainbows across the sky, mirages, why the sky is blue, and polarization. Not this year.

In AP Physics 2, I had completed virtually all principal instruction. We were ready to go into exam prep mode, for the Exam That Was. I directed AP2 students intent on taking the exam to join the College Board's webinars, too. And assigned the others a few enrichment activities.

It is not clear that my choice "has made all the difference", but it was the choice that I made. And it still seems like it was the right choice for me and my students.

A summer of miracles has been scheduled

I'm posting this as a documentation of the moment we are in here in the depths of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

School districts have closed out the quarantine-crippled Spring 2020 semester and with it, an unprecedented school year.

Now comes decisions on what to do for the rapidly-approaching start of the 2020-2021 school year. Tax revenues have been decimated and school budgets stand to be slashed. But families are weary of quarantine and eager to get children back in schools. It turns out the economy of the nation cannot reopen unless children are back in schools.

But the pandemic continues, claiming over 1000 lives each day as of this writing. Packing bodies into close quarters on school campuses, where social distancing among school-age children is operationally impossible is a coronavirus's paradise.

Most district's are just now entering into deliberations on how to handle the beginning of the school year. My district hasn't announced the logistics, other than to confirm that the school year will start in accordance with the negotiated calendar date of August 13.

Full in-class face-to-face instruction lies at one extreme; full distance learning lies at the other. A hybrid model of physically-distanced small groups of students attending each class perhaps once a week is being considered, despite its minimal value as day-care.

Such a model would have the instructor deliver one in-class lesson per week while also providing four more days of distance learning, preferably asynchronous instruction. But what—exactly—to teach, and how? Across the entirety of a large, suburban unified school district?

That's what brings us to this. I see it as my district's call for miracle work to be done over the summer. Full disclosure: I do not work miracles, so I did not apply. I anticipate putting in many hours of uncompensated work over the summer to prepare curriculum on my own.

But if I were keen to collect $4000, all I would need to do is

• Attend 4-6 hours of pre-training
• 
Develop 45 physics lessons to be utilized within the first four months of the school year that
· provide background information and introduce new content to prepare students for in class or synchronous learning.
· 
build skills associated with the essential standards, allowing the teacher of record discretion on how to integrate the lessons with their distance learning environment.
· Also, these 45 lessons will include implementation recommendations, supplemental and supporting resources, formative and summative assessments.

For our nine high school district, there will be one physics practitioner responsible for the design of these 45 lessons. I wish that person well.
___

SIDE LETTER OF AGREEMENT (SLA) Between
SAN JUAN UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT (District) and the
SAN JUAN TEACHERS ASSOCIATION (Association)

Summer 2020 Work to Prepare Lessons Aligned to Essential Standards 

Background
In any typical year, we may face challenges of getting all students to reach mastery of all standards. Given this unprecedented time, we believe that it will be even more challenging to cover all of the standards in 2020-2021 as we would during a typical school year. In an attempt to reduce stress and address this reality, while still trusting professionals and believing in professional autonomy, we have recently convened joint teams of practitioners and administrators to draft guidelines for ‘Essential Standards’ for each grade level and core academic content area. Within this work, essential standards represent the minimum a student must learn to reach higher levels of learning. In order for a standard to be identified as “essential” it would either be a power standard or building block standard that is necessary for students to master in order to be:
❖ successful later in the year
❖ successful in the next grade or course level
❖ successful across other domains or content areas

Intent
● To utilize the expertise of San Juan practitioners and support their colleagues by creating, developing and providing a bank of lessons that are accessible online so that in-person or synchronous learning can focus on differentiation, relationship building, assessing learning, etc.
○ The bank of lessons will be available for practitioners to supplement and support their focus on the essential standards guidelines.
○ These lessons may be used to help practitioners use alternative methods of instruction (for example flipping the classroom).

Agreement
Scope of work (Elementary):
The goal of each practitioner or team of practitioners is to curate content and create lessons to support the implementation of essential standards guidelines up to winter break.

Scope of work (Secondary):
The goal of each practitioner or team of practitioners is to curate content and create lessons to support the implementation of essential standards guidelines for the first semester.

Expected deliverables for essential standards include:
● A fully prepared unit of study ​which can be delivered in an asynchronous manner
○ Lesson plans housed in the San Juan Google drive (each practitioner/team will develop 45 lessons in total, by content and grade level, to be utilized within the first four months of the school year).
■ The focus of each lesson in a unit of study is to:
● provide background information, and introduce new
content to prepare students for in class or synchronous learning. (The in-class or synchronous learning is where the classroom teacher can differentiate for individual or small group practice, collaboration or extention of the concepts being taught.)
● build skills associated with the essential standards, allowing the teacher of record discretion on how to integrate the lessons with their distance learning environment.
○ Implementation recommendations
○ Supplemental and supporting resources
○ Formative and summative assessments

Practitioners selected will:
● participate in pre-training (4-6 hours in total, dates and times TBD)
○ Technology and platform integration
○ Review lesson exemplars/templates
○ Calibration of deliverables
● collaborate weekly with the district's professional learning support teams to ensure coordination of efforts and deliverables

Selection Assignments
Both parties value all subject matters that are taught in San Juan Unified and believe that a comprehensive education includes music, art, physical education, health, and electives. Unfortunately, during this crisis both funds and time are limited. The parties realize regrettably that the assignments below do not reflect all subject matter, courses and grade levels. These grades and subjects were identified because they align with the implementation of core content within the essential standards guidelines. As funding and time allows, other grade levels and content areas may be added in the future.

The parties agree that eighty-two (82) practitioners will be hired from the SJTA bargaining unit for the purpose of facilitating the implementation of Essential Standards Guidelines.

A. Elementary - Grade level and subject teams are set as follows:

a.
i. English Language Arts ( 2 practitioners per grade level K-5)
ii. Math (2 practitioners per grade level K-5)
iii. ELA and Math (2 practitioners from TK :1 for ELA and 1 for math)
iv. Social studies (3 practitioners- 1 per grade for grades 3, 4 and 5)
v. Science (3 practitioners - 1 per grade for grades 3, 4 and 5)
vi. ELD (2 practitioners supporting K-2 and 3-5)
vii. Special Education Support (2 practitioners supporting K-2 and 3-5)
viii. Dual Immersion (4 practitioners covering K-8)

B. Middle School - Grade level and subject teams are set as follows:

a. Grades 6:
i. English Language Arts (1 Practitioner)
ii. Math (2 Practitioners)
iii. Social Studies / History (1 Practitioner)
iv. Science (1 Practitioner)

b. Grade 7:
i. English Language Arts (1 Practitioner)
ii. Math (2 Practitioners)
iii. Social Studies / History (1 Practitioner)
iv. Science (1 Practitioner)

c. Grade 8:
i. English Language Arts (1 Practitioner)
ii. Math (2 Practitioners)
iii. Social Studies / History (1 Practitioner)
iv. Science (1 Practitioner)

C. High School

a. English:
i. Grade 9 - ELA (2 Practitioners)
ii. Grade 10 - ELA (2 Practitioners)
iii. Grade 11 - ELA (2 Practitioners)

b. Math:
i. Integrated Math 1 (2 Practitioners)
ii. Integrated Math 2 (2 Practitioners)
iii. Integrated Math 3 (2 Practitioners)

c. Social Studies / History
i. World History (2 Practitioners)
ii. US History (2 Practitioners)
iii. US Government (1 Practitioner)
iv. Economics (1 Practitioner)

d. Science:
i. Biology (2 Practitioners)
ii. Chemistry (2 Practitioners)
iii. Physics (1 Practitioner)

e. World Language:
i. Spanish1 and 2 (2 Practitioners)
ii. French 1 and 2 (2 Practitioners)

Specific Responsibilities
Create and curate resources for essential standards guidelines for instructional staff:
● A fully prepared unit of study ​which can be delivered in an asynchronous manner
○ Lesson plans housed in the San Juan Google drive ○ Implementation recommendations
○ Supplemental and supporting resources
○ Formative and summative assessments

Term
The term shall be June - July 2020.

The deliverables noted above are due based on the timeline below:
o Fully prepared units of study for August - September are due no later than July 22, 2020
o Fully prepared units of study for October - December are due no later than July 31, 2020

Eligibility
● Be a credentialed teacher with permanent status.
● Must have ‘met’ standards in two most recent evaluations.
● Understanding of unit and assessment design aligned to standards.
● Ability to collaborate with colleagues and work effectively in a team environment.
● Demonstrate exemplary teaching ability, as indicated by, among other things, effective
interpersonal communication skills, subject matter knowledge, and mastery of a range of
teaching strategies necessary to meet the needs of pupils in different contexts.
● Current school year assignment (2019-20) involves providing direct instruction to
students (​preferred, not required​).
A member interested in being considered for the Essential Standards Guidelines Summer 2020
work shall:
● Submit a completed letter of interest to ​summerschool@sanjuan.edu​ by Friday June 12, 2020 which shall include:
o Relevant experience
o A list of references including at least one administrator and one colleague
o A sample distance learning lesson that has been taught sometime between March 13, 2020 and June 5, 2020.

Compensation
● $4,000.00 stipend to be paid no later than September 30, 2020 
This SLA will sunset on July 31, 2020.