Dealing with COVID-19: An Interview with Kris Weis
Dealing with COVID-19: An Interview with Kris Weis
We were recently able to have a phone interview with Kris Weis. Kris teaches 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math at Beal City Public Schools and while she isn’t a Music Educator, she’s still a teacher who’s trying to figure out how to stay connected to her students and their parents during the COVID-19 crisis when schools are closing down throughout the country.
The most challenging thing for Kris so far has been the uncertainty of the entire situation since it’s impossible to know how long they’ll be out of the classroom. This makes it difficult to help at-risk students as well.
Currently, Kris is staying in communication with both students and their parents thanks to the school’s decision to go remote district wide. This helps teachers have the resources they need. To communicate with students regarding lessons and assignments, she’s using Google Classroom. To communicate with parents, she’s using email.
The district has provided wifi hotspots throughout the parking lot so students and parents can download their work if they don’t have wifi at home. Students were also given the opportunity to sign out classroom devices such as Chromebook and iPads if they didn’t have devices at home.
All of the teachers in the middle school have a weekly Zoom meeting to stay up-to-date with each other. This meeting is hosted by the principal and is a great way to share ideas and to continually find ways to get more organized.
She’s dealing with the uncertainty regarding the rest of the year by having confidence in her 8th grade students. She can also collaborate with the 9th grade teachers next year for the students that need help. For her 6th and 7th grade students, she knows that she’ll still be able to work with them next year.
Her recommendation for other educators on how to stay encouraged during this time is to find ways to be impressed with your students and take comfort in knowing that you can help to keep normalcy in their lives at a time when everything is crazy. Make sure you’re touching base with them daily.
We’d like to thank Kris for taking the time to meet with us about how she’s continuing to teach during these challenging times.
Over the upcoming weeks we’ll be sharing more stories about how music educators are dealing with the current situation regarding COVID-19.
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