The Times, They Are a-Changin'

And yet, the more things change... well, you know the rest.

Our school district - yes, the one I work for but am not working at the moment because of the below - is on Day Five of closure and Day Three of distance learning. We're doing it all online, except as noted below. There are links to give your opinion or ask for help or volunteer all over the www.nsd.org website, so I'm not going to include those here.

• Of the 23,500 students, 16% are free or reduced-cost lunch recipients, and my more robust fellow bus drivers (I'm basically healthy, but considered high risk as I'm asthmatic) are delivering lunches prepared by some of our awesome food services staff. 
• There are problems with adults working and needing childcare as although we are their parents, we aren't as a whole trained to be their teachers past preschool age (click the link)
• There are issues with SpEd students not getting (some or most of) their services as some of them can't do the thing online because they need more hands-on support by trained professionals - see above re: childcare - (click the link)
• The district was able to get tech out - chrome books and even hotspots - to those who needed it

All of these things are being addressed but it’s slow going, and parents are stressed to the max, especially, from what I see, parents of SpEd students, and parents of elementary students. I'm fully aware that as challenging as Lizzy can be, I'm lucky she's still easier to teach than kids who are used to having at least two trained adults to themselves all day at school! Not to mention that my two are old enough to stay home alone, Abby can help Lizzy with math, Lizzy can help Abby with spelling, and they get along well most of the time.

It’s not great, but it’s not terrible either. It's early days yet. And most importantly to most of us, the kids aren’t carrying Covid-19 home.

Our Superintendent of Schools for NSD is awesome. I want to be her when I grow up.

Snoozed and/or blocked (on Facebook) otherwise-respectable folks over the following in the past couple days - they're not all coronavirus/Covid-19-specific, but I think that the third one is politicians trying to take advantage of a panicked population:

• People who shy away from Asian folks or food because of Covid-19 or who make “jokes” about these things. Racist AF.
• People who assert that “only sick/old/immunocompromised/otherwise unhealthy people get this.” So? Ableist (and ageist) AF.
• People who believe asshole politicians who are carefully quoting out of context to convince you that your kindergartners are being indoctrinated into teh gay. I guess? Read the actual bill instead. Homophobic and transphobic AF
• People who don’t bother with hygiene when out or vaccinations (yes, I *know* there is no vaccine for Covid-19; but we can’t trust you to do the right thing for the rest of us). Irresponsible and selfish AF.

Now, you may ask, what am I doing about this? I'll tell you. 

I'm not exposing my vulnerable asthmatic lungs to the general public and thereby risking overloading our already screwed up health care system - such as it is with insurance companies in charge as I am intensely aware since Laston's death - with one more patient. Lizzy has one parent left; I'm not risking this  I am accomplishing this by:

• Ordering groceries and other necessities online and either having them delivered or picking them up outside the grocery store. Then I'm not handling icky cash and I'm only dealing with one person at a time instead of a store-full.
• Doing a lot of cooking at home instead of going out. 
• If I have to go out, I'm staying in the car as much as possible. Drive-thru is my friend.
• Same for other things; I don't want to hang out in public and get a haircut or color, so we're using Overtone hair dye/conditioner at home. I'm not qualified to cut
• Supervising schoolwork in the cloud for my two.
• Incorporating (even more than usual) day-to-day "lessons." Today we're making beer bread and beer bottle chicken (using Corona beer because we freaking can).
• Listening to WHO; I trust the CDC themselves, but I feel they are being hampered by the Con-men in Chief and their cronies. So I'm taking what the CDC says with a grain of purple unicorn-sweat salt dried under the full moon by a flock of virgin camel-bears.

Basically, what I'm trying to say here is that we need to be empathetic to each other. I see some parents who cheer for our school district's choices (I think they're great but I see the problems) without taking into account that this is not easy-breezy for everyone. I see those for whom it is hard (for many reasons) having no patience left for the folks who do have it easier. I see every extreme from panicked buying of toilet paper to the don't-care-until-I-get-sick group. 

I'm not trying to tone police here, or I'm tone policing everyone, I guess.

I just want to get through this with minimal loss of life and sanity.

Be kind to each other.

Please.