I'm in the @UFT Tier 6 Pension FAQ with Frank Panebianco and Leah Lin: will live-tweet here. Big change in April was that it only takes 5 years now to be vested in our pension: going to learn more now! Being vested in the pension means you can collect a pension allowance at retirement and possibly collect health insurance benefits. But once vested you can't take your money and put it in another private account. @uft

Something happier: a friend's friend has a 2-year-old son who may/not have a speech delay. I remembered my mom told me (in Chinese, she doesn't speak English & I'm not fluent in Cantonese) I didn't speak until about 2 & when I went to a special school. So I decided to ask Mom: 1/ (all in Cantonese)
Me: When did I start speaking?
Mom: 2 years 9 months [which is really late!] You would only scream & cry. So we took you to a nonprofit at 184 Eldridge (home to @UnivSettlement) & they helped us find you a person who does what your cousin does (speech path); 2/

My school is about to lose 16 teachers to excessing next year due to budget cuts. Yes, it's due to lowering enrollment in Sunset Park as families move out of the neighborhood, and yes, this is absolutely devastating for our school. So many tears today. Sixteen. Thank you @alexaforcouncil who represents my school's district for voting against @NYCMayor's budget & to the @NYCCouncil members who voted no on @NYCSchools education cuts. I know enrollments are down but whole school communities/cultures are about to be rocked w/ this cut.

I've met so many wonderful people over Twitter, AND during quarantine/thruout the pandemic Twitter has been a lifeline for connection. It's been a gift to build the Twitter community I have. I get sad whenever I hear ppl trash Twitter as a platform cuz Twitter's given me so much.

https://twitter.com/heymrsbond/status/1536773461317648386

I've never met many Twitter users in person like @weslowik @ProfHsieh @Mike_Jung @mrsjjee @eapelosi @WreckaCenter @DavidLove26 thx for gassing me! Met ppl like @Mssarahmssarah @mjacobs324 @poetpedagogue @LoveHeatherLee 1st over the pandemic & thru Twitter: so grateful for y'all.

You know that feeling where you want to cry all day? Yeah, that's me. I'm so tired. Being anyone involved with @NYCSchools is tiring right now. There's not enough time to vent and grieve and rage and cry over how destructive all this is, while also trying to fend off a pandemic. Students/staff coming into school with fevers, leaving schools to pick up the pieces. Students/staff across @NYCSchools needlessly exposed. The workload is completely unsustainable made that way by a bad staffing deal by @NYCMayor @UFT.

It didn't have to be this way at all. 2/

Late night tweet: the reason why teachers are continuing through this is because we know there is an end to this pandemic. If this were to last forever, many of us would have already resigned this month because the workload and fear and almost-hourly changes are unsustainable. 1/ I'm up trying to write down all of the ways teaching is different now, and there's a whole new set of responsibilities that I hdidn't understand until just now. The relationship building and social emotional should be #1 during a pandemic, but everything else is so much. 2/

Week 1 of in-person done (even tho I only saw students once this week cuz of my schedule). Like most @NYCSchools this week our schedules will likely change this week due to changing DOE guidance & students going fully remote, meaning some students likely will switch classes. 1/ Multiple days this week I received a "potential case" email and then an email immediately following up saying there's no confirmed #COVID19 case. It's jarring, especially as my school is one zip code over from the "Brooklyn Cluster" of rising cases in NYC and @NYCSchools 2/

Tomorrow my school, alongside NYC K-5 & K-8 schools, reopen in-person on a hybrid/blended schedule where students go in on avg 6x a month. Last week pre-K, 3K, & students with special needs in District 75 returned to NYC public school buildings. Thursday grades 6-12 go back. 1/ I am exhausted. I have no regrets about the advocacy we've been doing to stop an unsafe school reopening and am worried, as we know so many schools don't have what they need. I'm excited if I meet my students this week in-person (I say if because... 2/

I hope this lesson planning for remote teaching into the night stops soon, and that I can get into some groove. I usually will work straight through at school to finish, but we get kicked out at 3:10 nowadays, so I'm thrown off my prep & plan game (alongside everything else). Also, planning math for a bridge class (4th/5th) remotely is so much work, even after teaching 4th/5th for the past 5 years. I'm working with a remote teacher who doesn't know the math curriculum like I do so I have to make the materials even more prepped than usual.

I was just about to start a Zoom meeting with my students, and then FIRE DRILL. With staff only in the building! As other colleagues left their kids on Google Meets and Zoom by themselves... When you think things can't get more absurd... One of my colleagues told their students they had to leave the Google Meet because of the fire drill/false alarm (you can't just end the call on Google Meets for everyone like Zoom) leaving the students hanging, and a student proclaimed, "I AM THE TEACHER NOW" #returntoschool2020

In these times, I am so grateful to the teachers and educators who teach others to be better people and who are always striving to be better humans ourselves. That's the reason we teach: cuz "teaching is the greatest act of optimism" (Colleen Wilcox). And why we keep fighting. I would not still be standing and speaking out without the hundreds of other educators I've worked with over the summer to stop an unsafe school reopening plan. You all give me strength, ideas, challenge me and make us safer. I would have lost hope a long time ago without y'all.

It's like a therapy session when I reread 15 Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture. We've all learned these things from being alive; unlearning them has made me and our community so much stronger. Thanks @sylviaduckworth for making this accessible and @DrKYSR for sharing! @mochamomma shared this resource that is a longer explanation of each of these white supremacy culture traits and ANTIDOTES for each at cwsworkshop.org/PARC_site_B/dr… ! It takes a long time for these things to sink in and to fight the white supremacy culture living in our bodies 2/3

Spent the day mostly in my windowless classroom from last year (ventilation issues much?), throwing away student work from b4 schools closed March, packing away their stuff, & moving the rest to my new window-full classroom. I am exhausted. #returntoschool2020 #NotUntilItsSafe Didn't bring my books cuz I dunno if kids will touch/read physical books this school year in-person. Everything will live in the Google Classroom it seems. Don't know a safe and effective way to teach special education students from 6 ft away. #NotUntilItsSafe #returntoschool2020

Truly no words on how furious I am at my union @UFT. Educators are forced back into schools buildings 9/8, a few days after UFT said it was unsafe to go back, then after striking a backroom deal w/ @NYCMayor. @UFTUnity shame on you. People will die on your watch. #wewontdieforDOE Still haven't gotten our school building inspection report even tho @UFT Prez Mulgrew promised we'd have it today. People are saying it might not come til Saturday. We're supposed to go in-person Tuesday. @UFTUnity what you agreed to is not okay. #OnlyWhenItsSafe #wewontdieforDOE

While I'm preaching self-care, I also need to recognize all the education advocates who've been fighting so damn hard to stop an unsafe NYC schools reopening. There are too many to tag: y'all give me strength which then lets me keep going. Here we go: @JiaLeeNY @joelfrominwood .. Thanks for fighting w/ me @ronnalmont @AfrocenCHICK @DrKYSR @Liat_RO @hotdogsandrew @OTforbtrschl @onlydramatic @LeftInSchools @BxEU4J @japaspanglish @VenderAmanda @gracedodgestaff @safeschoolsny @MOREcaucusUFT @AQE_NY @marriabau @NYBATs @Blm_edu_nyc @MoniqueDols #OnlyWhenItsSafe

Right now to my knowledge my teachers union @UFT isn't fighting for full remote learning in the fall. They're fighting for classrooms where windows open up four inches for "ventilation." Yeah, when our classes are next to a highway. "Car exhaust or #COVID19?" #OnlyWhenItsSafe 1/ My teachers union @UFT fights for #coronavirus supplies and procedures in place. Haven't heard about bathrooms having enough soap. About school supplies/materials, esp. during a budget crisis where Gov. Cuomo has withheld 20% of state education funding and 2/ #OnlyWhenItsSafe

Gonna try and take a deep breath because this work and organizing around stopping an unsafe school reopening here in NYC has been completely exhausting and we educators didn't think this was how we would be spending our summers- literally trying to save the lives of New Yorkers. Take deep breaths, hydrate, sleep well, write, be w/ loved ones. I've done all these things and nothing stops the dread/anxiety of this unsafe school reopening plan which WILL get people sick and dead if we don't stop it. All the speaking to reporters, marching, doesn't stop it.

Soo...I may or may not be on NBC Nightly News tonight, doing what I've been doing all summer- stopping unsafe school reopenings? 6:30pm EST/5:30pm CT? Seems that may be derailed by NASCAR on NBC lol, sigh. I guess we all need sports in our lives...

Just thinking to myself

It would be so much easier if @NYCSchools just called full remote. They're gonna go full remote anyway at some point

My teacher friends in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, their teachers unions and communities fought back and won

@UFT get it together So damn tired and demoralized

I was talking to a former @NYCSchools teacher who resigned last week

She left because she didn't want to be part of an institution criminalizing students anymore

And we're going to be traumatizing them further if we go back into school buildings

I’m a Teacher in New York. I’m Doing My Job by Fighting an Unsafe Reopening.

Teachers routinely go above & beyond call of duty, but hastily reopening schools during a pandemic puts students, families, & all of us at risk.

Read my @newrepublic interview:
newrepublic.com/article/158799… "What worries me most about schools reopening in the fall is that more people will die. Right now teachers are feeling like we’re rushing toward a reopening that isn’t well thought out." Read more of my @newrepublic interview: newrepublic.com/article/158799…

Listening to "Nice White Parents," a new podcast about public education, specif. in Brooklyn, NYC, with @serial @chanajoffewalt. This line just came up: "integration without talking about race," which just totally shook me. How can we talk about integration without talking race? Finishing 1st ep of "Nice White Parents" & the social worker at the School of Int'l Studies talks 5 years ago. I'm pretty damn sure she is the awesome social worker who works now at my Brooklyn school, which means she left that school...? Did I just ruin a plot point for myself?