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[starsandspears]

Olmstead Testimony

Lois Curtis is a passionate and accomplished artist. These days she is into singing and songwriting. She is also known for her portraiture. Her pieces have been displayed in her home state of Georgia and she even presented one of her pieces to President Obama in 2011.

Lois did not start out wanting to be an activist. All she wanted was the ability to live in the community rather than the institution that had been her on-again-off-again home since she was 11 years old. The state of Georgia agreed that she, and her co-plaintiff Elaine Wilson, could live in the community, but failed to provide the funding necessary to make their move a reality. In other words, the State of Georgia essentially told the two women that they were not worth the state’s investment.

Their court case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The court argued that it was unconstitutional to withhold the resources necessary for the women to live independently. It further stated that preventing the women from living independently was a violation of their civil rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

When asked what she wished for all the people now living in the community because of her effort, Lois said

“I hope they live long lives and have their own place. I hope they make money. I hope they learn every day. I hope they meet new people, celebrate their birthdays, write letters, clean up, go to friends’ houses and drink coffee. I hope they have a good breakfast every day, call people on the phone, feel safe.”

In other words, Lois wants what anyone wants, disabled or not. She wants her tribe to be valued members of their communities. Lois stood up to the state of Georgia when it said that she was not worth the effort. She sued and won.

Access is a civil right. It is Lois’s civil right, and it is also the civil right of every student in BCPS, regardless of disability. 

That access to education sometimes requires adult support. You have heard me and others advocate for these temporary and undervalued employees time and time again. They make 12.50 an hour for a skilled job. A hard job. A worthy job that provides access for our students.

Their job requires a high school diploma with experience working with students with disabilities “preferred.” So imagine my surprise upon seeing the advertisement for school safety officer, another job, with similar requirements (a high school diploma and security experience preferred, but not required) that pays $25 an hour, literally double that of the AAA.

The message Lois and company got from the state of Georgia was that they weren’t worth the investment. I have to ask, what message is BCPS sending our students with disabilities and the adults who work with them with this pay gap?

Access is a civil right. Please do right by all of our students. Pay all of our support staff the wages they deserve.

https://www.blackartinamerica.com/index.php/2019/10/29/lois-curtis-the-artist-and-the-disability-hero/?fbclid=IwAR3QMb2K5i2aLD2jPNTagrY9kKjx2njn3Qr4-aUR5llR7F-7BnP_C718o7g

[starsandspears]

It’s been a week

So, the internet went out county-wide at 8:15 last Thursday, and did not come back up until 2:15, which makes hybrid learning a little bit more of a challenge. It’s particularly frustrating because we’ve been predicting this outcome since the re-opening plans were announced.

Bandwidth is not a BCPS-only issue. Howard County responded to similar concerns by proactively widening their pipe in order to increase capacity. 

Part of BCPS’s current solution is to temporarily block all in-person students from accessing Google Meets from inside the building, without fully considering the logistics of that solution. Due to considerable history of being an afterthought when it comes to most things, including technology, I am considerably nervous about Monday.

I feel like I’m screaming into the void right now, but I had to write something to someone. I’m not even sure who I’m writing to right now.  I am sure you are receiving many letters and phone calls and comments regarding the current internet situation, and the plan that was put forth at 7:00pm on Friday. I am writing to you to highlight the experience of the educational support professionals who are working alongside the teachers, administrators and related service providers.

When I read that part of the plan was to block the students from accessing Google Meets from inside the building, I felt an immediate sense of dread. I felt dread because as an educator who is not a teacher, I often fall through the technological cracks, and one of those cracks is the very real potential that my account will be one of the ones that is blocked, because I am not a teacher, and those in charge of making this plan clearly have not thought about the logistics of the many people who work inside and outside the classroom.

Lest you think this is an idle thought and not a real possibility, let me chronicle my 5 years of experience in BCPS.

When the students and teachers got one-to-one computers, the paraeducators and other instructional support personnel did not. We were not teachers, nor we were not students. So we did what educators always do: we adapted. We learned how to use programs by looking over students’ shoulders. We found and set up desktop computers in the backs of classrooms and used them beyond the point of obsolescence.

And, when we got sent home in mid March of last year, as the amount of time we were closed lengthened and lengthened, we watched and waited, missing our students. When it became clear that we were not going back into the building, we begged, borrowed, or bought computers, or joined classes from our tablets and cellphones so that we could stay connected to the students we spent years building connections with, some of whom we knew we would not see in-person ever again.

We waited, again, at the beginning of this school year, for computers that were back-ordered, second (or third) in line behind all of the students in need of devices in order to access their classes. 

In November, we thought we saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Our computers were set to arrive in time to receive them after Thanksgiving break! But that light turned out to be the oncoming train that was the ransomware attack. 

Suddenly, those computers went out to teachers who urgently needed them to reach and teach their students, and we were, once again, left waiting. Only this time, with the added uncertainty for the many of us who were using our personal computers in order to do our jobs: Were our computers affected by this horrible attack? Were they safe to use?

Baltimore County, to its credit, never penalized us for not being able to work due to lack of a working computer. However, many of us felt the pull to continue to work using our personal devices. We did so in order to support stressed-to-the-max teachers who were required to teach using unfamiliar technology with 2 days notice and after having lost years to decades worth of work. We did so in order to stay connected with the students who desperately needed consistency and routine.

We received our long overdue Chromebooks in mid February, and I am grateful to have a working BCPS-issued computer. They are decent devices, powerful enough for us to log into Google Meets and support our students. However, teacher devices they are not. For one, it is not possible for me to print to a network printer from the Chromebook. Also, as a paraeducator, if I am asked to briefly cover for one of the teachers I support, I am unable to follow the best practices for hybrid teaching because my Chromebook cannot project and use Google Meets at the same time. And, when we have internet issues, I have zero access to any of my documents, because *everything* on a Chromebook is network-dependent.

Our students rely on us. They rely on us for consistency if the teacher is absent. They rely on us for academic support in the form of provision of legally-mandated accommodations and modifications. They also rely on us for social emotional support.

I love what I do. I want to continue to work effectively using the tools and resources provided to me by my employer.

I’m asking you, please don’t leave us out of this discussion.

[starsandspears]

BOE Letter

Dear Board of Education of Baltimore County:

During the last meeting, I see that there have been many letters and public comments urging you to consider 5 day a week school for all students before the end of the school year, and citing the new CDC guidelines as permission for this to happen. I am writing to you, once again, urging you to consider *all* of the CDC guidance in your decision making process.

The CDC’s guidance document lists tiered mitigation strategies by levels of community transmission. As of 3/28/2021,  Baltimore County’s total number of cases per 100,000 residents over the last 7 days was 186, which puts us solidly in the CDC’s red zone of high community transmission (Table 2) . Under those conditions, the CDC allows for 3-foot spacing among cohorted elementary students (but not middle and high school students under our current hybrid model). Importantly, the CDC also makes clear in Table 3 that this spacing increases the potential number of close contacts and therefore increases the complexity of contact tracing.

And while the CDC cites a preponderance of evidence that reopening school buildings is generally safe and does not drive community spread, each of those studies comes with qualifiers. And one consistent qualifier is that in-person learning be prioritized over other activities, including in-person dining, sports and extracurricular activities. The Journal of the American Medical Association’s position paper concludes that schools can operate safely provided there is “a commitment to implement community-based policies that reduce transmission when SARS-CoV-2 incidence is high (eg, by restricting indoor dining at restaurants), and school-based policies to postpone school-related activities that can increase risk of in-school transmission (eg, indoor sports practice or competition).”  The CDC itself said in its study of Florida high schools “Success in preventing the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into schools depends upon controlling community transmission and adhering to mitigation measures in schools, particularly masking, physical distancing, testing, and increasing room air ventilation”. That study also acknowledged that many outbreaks that did occur were sports-related, with the majority being associated with football and wrestling. 

The truth of the matter is that Maryland and BCPS are not, in fact, prioritizing in-person learning over other activities in order to limit community spread. A week before St. Patrick’s day, Governor Hogan increased capacity limits in bars and restaurants, despite the fact that COVID cases were already on the rise. Now, over 2 weeks later, Baltimore County is seeing a precipitous rise in cases. This mirrors a rise in cases nationwide that has prompted concern from experts, including the head of the CDC, Dr. Walensky. I am therefore very concerned that at the same time that you are receiving letters exhorting you to pass motions to return students to the classroom 5 days a week, you are also receiving letters exhorting you to increase the number of spectators at sporting events, and the re-opening document presented at the last board meeting indicates the commencement of in-person extra-curricular activities on April 12.

I acknowledge that there are no easy answers. I acknowledge that the best place for students is in the classroom, learning face-to-face. But only when it is safe to do so. BCPS cites social emotional learning as one of the pillars in its reopening plan. I would argue that with community spread at the levels they are now, the uncertainty brought about by potential school closures, quarantine for potential exposures, and, especially at the high school level, potential for serious illness, hospitalization, and death among students and their caregivers does not, in fact, contribute positively to the social emotional health of students or staff.

Sincerely,

Jean A. Milstein

Paraeducator

[starsandspears]

Food for Thought

To all the teachers out there who are struggling with the idea of what, if any action to pursue in this time of disrespect, disorganization and disunity, here’s a story that might help you decide.

During the last full week of school, my middle school held an end-of-year field trip extravaganza. We ranked, in order of preference, a series of activities, from art classes to day-long field trips. In 7th grade, I chose to go to the beach. In eighth, I decided that I wanted to learn how to rollerblade. I remember these field trips not because they were the best trips of my teenage life. No, I remember them vividly because I never got to go on either trip. I didn’t get to go in 7th grade because I was laid-up with an ill-timed case of the chicken pox. In eighth grade I was perfectly healthy. The teachers’ relationship with the board of education, however, was not.

 In 1993, the country was emerging from the cloud of a recession and the first Gulf War. And, for the third year running, the Montgomery County Board of Education’s budget omitted cost of living adjustments for teachers. The implications of this was, at first, mostly lost on 13-year-old me. I hadn’t realized exactly how acrimonious the talks had gotten. I definitely didn’t know that the MCEA went as far as to vote to authorize a strike in the fall of 1993, a move that had it come to fruition, would have disbanded the association for two years. I do not remember a teacher’s strike my first year of high school, so I am assuming that the district eventually blinked.

When the talks first broke down that spring, teachers at various schools, including mine implemented a series of work-to-rule actions, and that is what precluded us going on our day-long field trips.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I do not like abrupt changes in plans, and my ability to deal with said changes has only improved with age. I won’t lie and say that the action didn’t hurt. If it hadn’t hurt, I probably wouldn’t have remembered any of it, and I wouldn’t be writing this right now. 

Somehow 13-year-old me, despite all her self-centeredness, knew that the teachers participating in the action were not doing so out of malice, spite, or laziness. The teacher I remember being the most vocal about the whole thing was my algebra teacher. But even though it stung to hear him speak about working to rule, and although the disappointment grew, I never once got the impression that he took any pleasure in hurting students. 

I didn’t get that impression because it was crystal clear from the beginning of the year that he cared, and that he had my back. Eighth grade was the year that I moved up in math class. Eighth grade was the year I decided to prove to the school system that I could hack advanced math despite my learning disability. There were plenty of teachers and counsellors who were less than supportive of the idea, but the actual teacher of the math never said a word. He worked with me to make sure I understood what was going on. Unlike other teachers I encountered later on, he never questioned my accommodations or modifications. He simply worked with me where I was and did what was necessary for me to become successful. I carried that notion of quiet support and patience with me as I saw him advocate for better pay for him and for his colleagues. I’m not sure I grasped completely what I do now -- that he was doing what he was doing precisely because he cared greatly about his students and colleagues -- but I understood enough to not be angry at him for taking the actions that he deemed necessary.

So as we go forward into uncharted territory, and as some of the largest school systems in the country grapple with the realities of bringing students back into school buildings during the middle of a global pandemic, let us remember a few things. First, our students are watching us, and they take cues from us.  If you take action out of concern and care, and communicate the why, your students will, on some level, understand. Some might even have your back. Second, there is no such thing as “the union.” It is not a monolith. It is not a vending machine into which we feed our dues and out of which advocacy magically spews. it is a collective of which we all are a part. If you want to see something happen, speak up, speak out, and be the voice you want to hear.

[starsandspears]

BOE Letter IV

Dear Dr. Williams and the Board of Education of Baltimore County:

I am trying to put into words my growing unease regarding the plan BCPS put forth returning to the building this year. My question to the Board is: does the hybrid plan as it is currently written truly have the students' and staff's best interests in mind?

The county has been laser focused on social-emotional learning and the ostensible well-being of students. With the plan put forth by the county, I can only think of the "what ifs" and inherent uncertainty and unpredictability of a hybrid model during the height of a pandemic. 

We have been assured that the data indicate spread of COVID is no worse in schools than it is in the general community, and that schools are not drivers of community spread. However, the data are far from uniform and it is a far different claim to say that schools do not contribute to community spread than to say that COVID does not spread in schools. The former argues that keeping schools open does not worsen the situation in the general community; the latter is an argument that I've seen conflated with the former, but is simply untrue. With mitigation measures, attending schools or working in them is, at best, as risky as going to the grocery store, not less. Statistically, there will be cases and isolated outbreaks, especially as more transmissible variants of the virus become more prevalent in the state.

My questions are as follows: What about the anxiety and uncertainty of playing the waiting game when staff or students are exposed to COVID in the school building? What about the inconsistency that will be brought about by the potential return to virtual learning when a classroom exposure occurs and all students need to quarantine for 2 weeks? What about the students whose grandparents and only caregivers must make the difficult choice between childcare for a consistent but not daily schedule, and exposure risk? What happens if one of those students brings the virus back to their sole caregiver? The vaccine is in short supply. Few teachers will be fully vaccinated by the time we go back, fewer caregivers will be, and almost no students will be. 

Additionally, as it stands now, the majority of general education students would return to school buildings in April. The BCPS calendar shows a maximum of 49 instructional days between April 6th and June 24th. Of those, 12 are Wednesdays, and therefore asynchronous days for the majority of students. That leaves 37 additional instructional days, of which half are virtual. Therefore, the students will be in the building for no more than 20 days. I have to ask you, is that schedule worth the upheaval, rearrangement of all bell-schedules and routine? For 20 days maximum of in-person instruction for the majority of general education students in grades 3-12. 

 Hybrid instruction will bear little resemblance to school before the pandemic. This plan has teachers teaching all 3 cohorts of students (hybrid in-person, hybrid virtual, and all virtual) simultaneously, without additional equipment such as web cams or area microphones. Instruction, therefore,  will be delivered by teachers whose attention is split between students in the classroom and those at home, learning virtually. This raises the following questions: first, how will the county provide support to teachers so that their attention is not split? Second, will the county be recruiting extra staff to monitor students so that the teachers can focus on delivering instruction? And, most importantly, will these tradeoffs truly be worth the risks of in-person learning?

In addition, BCPS is still recovering from the ransomware attack that knocked the entire system sideways. At this time, we do not have full access to all systems necessary for an in-person return, and although we have been reassured that the network will be restored, we've also observed the rocky and ever-changing logistics of the computer re-imaging process. If the school system cannot accurately predict demand and inventory for teacher's computers, forgive me if I'm somewhat distrustful that the county will successfully navigate the logistics of cohorting and transporting students.

 In fact, I would point to the inconsistencies in the language of Phase III of the reopening plan to bolster my argument. Phase III is to include "Students in Grades 3-12 with special needs served outside general education," according to the Cliff's-notes version of the plan on the BCPS website. The email sent to staff states that these students include those in cluster and regional programs, including Learning Support for Students who are Deaf and Hard-of Hearing (DHH), Social Emotional Learning Support (SEL), and Social Communication Learning Support (SCLS). But, at least at the secondary level, those programs encompass students with a wide variety of needs, including those who spend the majority of their time in general education classrooms. Additionally, many of the students who attend classes outside of general education do so with peers who are in Phase IV of the reopening plan, and therefore will not return until after spring break. Many of these students thrive on consistency, and the constant changing nature of their class setups will be disruptive and result in loss of instruction.

Finally, due to the ransomware attack, BCPS has temporarily lost access to their internal network. I sincerely hope that the network will be up and running by the time staff report to the building, as this is critical infrastructure not only for provision of virtual instruction, but also for the normal operation of the school buildings. Classroom telephones do not operate without a functional network, and lack of telephones is clearly a public safety issue. Furthermore, I would like to know if BCPS has determined their network to be robust enough to support the simultaneous video meetings necessary for this hybrid plan to work. When high-stakes testing occurs in the spring, it is not unusual to have network issues due to load, and I'm not sure that the county has considered how much load hybrid will entail when every staff member is working from the building.

As a support professional, I look forward to the day that I can return to the building and safely and successfully work with my students, but only after BCPS addresses logistical concerns, and, I would argue strongly, only after faculty, staff and community members are vaccinated.

Sincerely,

Jean A Milstein

Paraeducator

Parkville High School

[starsandspears]

BOE Letter III

Dear members of the Board of Education of Baltimore County:

I am writing to you in order to highlight the needs of the support personnel who work closely with students with disabilities when considering a return to classrooms. Support staff such as paraeducators and additional adult assistants must be included in any plan that brings us back into the building. 

This includes accounting for us when assessing how many adults and students are allowed in any given classroom at any given time. This includes providing spaces for us to do our jobs when we are back in the building. This includes providing us with the technology necessary to do our jobs. And this includes provisions for PPE once we return.

Teachers are not the only adults present in classrooms. Support staff such as kindergarten aides, Additional Adult Assistants (AAs) for students with specific disabilities, and paraeducators who work with a wide range of students are all present in both general education and special education classrooms. All of these adults need to be accounted for when considering classroom sizes as suggested by CDC guidance. All of us -- teachers, classroom aides, paraeducators, and adult assistants-- need access to physically distant spaces in order to plan, eat lunch, and generally serve as a home base for operations.

Additionally, the ransomware attack laid bare the need for paraeducators and other adult assistants to access BCPS-issued technology. Many of us have been using our own equipment in order to do the job that BCPS hired us to do. We have waited patiently for backordered computers to become available (and there had been a light at the end of the tunnel before disaster struck and the county was, once again, short working computers). Since the attack, many of us are presented with an unpalatable choice: continue using our personal devices with no guarantee of safety, or decline to log on using those devices and add to the stress of teachers who may have lost everything they’ve ever done for the county. (And, I might add, that while paraeducators are not to be penalized for not owning our own devices, that is not the case for the AAs, who are considered contractual employees, and are not able to work at all without personal devices). We need access to computers in order to do our jobs effectively.

Finally, our jobs as paraeducators and AAs require us to work closely with students. We often use engagement techniques such as proximity control (standing physically close to students) in order to manage attention. We also provide scribe and verbatim reading to students of all ages and abilities. Some of us also provide physical supports such as helping with dressing, personal hygiene, and toileting. These accommodations all require us to be within 6 feet of students for longer than the 15 minute time frame indicated by the CDC as a “contact” when it comes to contact tracing of the virus, and we work with the students who are most likely to have difficulty adhering to both mask and social distancing requirements. Additionally, the staff members working most closely with these students, and are most critical in terms of students’ access to curriculum and classroom success are Additional Adult Assistants (AAs). As noted before, these staff members are contractual employees with no access to BCPS benefits and no protections should they become ill. We need access to additional PPE and monitoring in order to assure our safety upon student return to the building.

Support staff often feel forgotten and neglected in the county decision making process. I am asking you, the members of the Board of Education of Baltimore county, to keep in consideration the needs of all school staff when deciding how and when to return to the school building.

Sincerely, 

Jean A. Milstein

Paraeducator

Parkville High School

[starsandspears]

I’m tired

Right now I’m tired. I’m tired of the pandemic. I’m tired of watching metrics creep up. I’m tired of weighing the pros and cons of every single social interaction. I’m tired of considering the onslaught of half-baked theories and unpublished and unfinished manuscripts being reported as gospel. I’m tired of watching the vaccine trials knowing that at some point the other shoe will drop on one of them.

I’m tired of uncertainty. I’m tired of hypocrisy. I’m tired of listening to people who have never set foot in a school building proclaiming that we must do so, and do so now, as cases in Baltimore County are rising.

I’m tired of people who insist that hybrid instruction is somehow a panacea for student disengagement and seem to think that going back into the building is going to be any semblance of what used to be. 

I’m tired of having to explain over and over again to students that the reason why we have class this Wednesday is because we are off for election day. I’m tired of the confusion and meltdowns that result from this news. I can only imagine what the reaction to a hybrid schedule will be.

I’m tired of news that comes out on Friday nights, in which committees who don’t seem to understand statistics throw together a plan based on logic and metrics that contradict each other and quite literally don’t add up.

I’m tired of folks who are the decision-makers asserting that it’s perfectly reasonable to meet virtually to decide when we go back in-person. I’m tired of the hypocrisy of citing lack of provision of health care the county as a reason that folks might not want to return, when the successful return to in-person instruction at the schools that the county is pushing to open next week depends on the vital services of contractual workers who make 11 dollars an hour, do not get health insurance, and are not represented by any union. I’m tired of members of the same body asserting that meetings are not possible because they can’t talk to each other *while wearing masks* while requiring teachers to *teach* wearing them.

 I’m tired of hypocrisy. I’m tired of ignorance. I’m tired of misdirected indignation. Most of all, I’m tired of the complete lack of empathy and respect we have for each other.

[starsandspears]

BOE Letter II

Dear Members of the Board of Education of Baltimore County:

I am writing to you to once again voice my reservations regarding BCPS’s re-entry plan, calling your attention to specific logistical issues that must be addressed before our return to the school building.

In my letter to the Board of Education back in July, my first question was:

How will the board ensure that schools adhere to the guidelines stipulated in the Maryland Recovery Plan for Education? Part of the concern that I raised in regards to that question was that the CDC’s and the Maryland Recovery plan’s guidelines were not strongly worded, and were full of language like space desks 6 feet apart “if feasible,” and wait 24 hours after disinfection “if possible.” My concern was, rightly, that given those wiggle words, the plans would not be adhered to, because they were written to not be followed.

My fears have unfortunately been realized with this latest push to get teachers and staff back into school buildings as soon as possible. We have already been informed that while the Maryland Together :Maryland’s Recovery Plan for Education document published in June stipulated that Local School districts must follow safety protocols established by MSDE (bullet point 8) including “Physical barriers and guides- install physical barriers such as sneeze guards and partitions, particularly in areas where it is difficult for individuals to remain at least 6 feet apart (e.g. reception desks),” BCPS will not be providing such barriers. Instead, the decision for purchase of such barriers is being left to the discretion of individual school administration teams, and will be funded out of discretionary funds. This decision both contravenes the stipulated guidelines and creates equity issues between schools.

Given this decision regarding physical barriers, what other guidelines cited in the recovery plan will also be pushed aside?  Adequate ventilation is a must given the increased evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is spread by airborne transmission. What is the status of ventilation systems in BCPS school buildings? Some classrooms and offices do not even have windows that open. As we begin to bring faculty and staff into school buildings for the majority of the work day, these issues must be addressed in a timely fashion. It is unfortunate that the school construction bill from the most recent legislative session was vetoed, as the construction would have worked towards remediating these issues.

Additionally, how does the board plan to address the current lack of technology provided to paraeducators? Page 12 of the reopening plan supplied to MSDE by BCPS states that paraeducators will be provided with devices in order to support virtual instruction. However, due to a global shortage of computers, we have not yet received those devices. Currently, many of us are still relying on our personal devices in order to support instruction, and most computer labs have been replaced by one-to-one devices. The desktop computers that remain do not have webcams or microphones.  Are we expected to supply our own computers for in-building instructional support? As per the ESPBC master agreement, the board shall be held liable for property loss of up to $1,500. What happens if our only home device is valued at more than that maximum?

 Finally, where will faculty and staff without designated classrooms be housed once we are required to work from school buildings? As a paraeducator, I work with 4 different teachers throughout the school day. We have one designated resource room for over 10 people. There is not a one-to-one ratio between staff and spaces. As the guidelines stand now, only one person is allowed to teach from one classroom. Will this change? If so, I reiterate my point regarding ventilation. Additionally, if teachers are sharing rooms in order to provide virtual instruction, they will do so with cloth face coverings, which creates an additional and unnecessary  barrier to understanding and learning that would not be present if we continued with the current plan.

I am asking the board to please consider these issues in deciding how and when faculty and staff re-enter our school buildings.

Sincerely,

Jean A. Milstein

Paraeducator, Parkville High School

[starsandspears]

Here we go again

I’ve watched over these first two weeks of school. I’ve watched teachers work their ever loving [rear ends]  off to make online learning happen. I’ve watched as folks teach their hearts out to circled letters on a screen, hoping for a reaction or two in chat, the only indication that we’re not talking to ourselves.

I’ve seen grace and humor when the best-laid plans get blown up by technology glitches. When LMS images disappear, or, as happened yesterday, all of my files temporarily disappeared from my Google Drive. 

And yet we soldier on, doing the best for us, doing the best for our students.

And in the background are the constant and terrifying drumbeat of political machinations, aspirations, and decisions being made by people who are not in our offices, our living rooms, or our dens. Who meet virtually to decide that we should return in meat space.

Who decide, less than a week before we are to go back to work, once desks have been cleared off, whiteboards purchased, software packages learned, that the plans as written are suddenly unacceptable, that metrics are suddenly such that we can (somehow) pivot a system with over 111,000 students, one of the 50 largest systems in the US, to a hybrid system overnight. 

 And to do so at a time when we were fully committed and engaged in the laborious process of setting up for the year was no accident. It was done when we had no spare bandwidth to give to the outrage required to fully counter the new and unreasonable demands. 

But, nevertheless, we persisted. We persevered through the noise to make the first two weeks of school happen, only to have yet another bombshell dropped in our laps, in the form of a mid-day email from our Superintendent with a half-formed re-entry plan that requires all teachers to report to buildings starting in October. 

How many times are we going to have to go through this pivot and panic? How many times are we going to have to split our already stretched-to-the-max resources to figure out childcare, transportation, PPE (cloth face masks not being provided, and plexiglass shields not being on the purchase list)? 

I get it. We’re in a state of emergency, and plans change. But we had a plan. We had a plan that let teachers and administrators and support staff look toward the future and plan for the future. And now we have vague aspirations, incomplete understanding of programs, and unreasonable estimates of workload.

It’s not an accident that this keeps happening. It just highlights in big, bold letters how little respect for the professionalism of educators the general public and public officials have.

[starsandspears]

9/11

“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in”

“Barring any unforseen disasters, we should be done by 1:00,” I wrote to the manager of the other lab, referencing our shared equipment. It’s strange what gymnastics my brain goes through in times of uncertainty. Denial, sure. When I wrote that line, we knew that something terrible had happened in New York, but smoke was not yet billowing from a hole in the Pentagon.

It was a little after 8:45.  Our volunteer had traveled from western Pennsylvania for his second visit to our clinic, called, he said, by his Quaker faith to further our knowledge of mental disorders. He had traveled over 2 hours to get here. We didn’t want to send him home. My fellow research tech reached out to the psychiatrist who usually did our physicals, but he was unavailable, which should have been our first clue that something was seriously wrong.

Paralyzed and confused, we sat there awaiting further instructions. I don’t know whether it was my colleague or one of the nurses on the unit who finally turned on the TV in the room, but pretty soon all notion of completing the experiment was forgotten as my colleague, the volunteer and a couple of other random staff crowded around the tiny black-and-white screen, a vestige of when this had been an inpatient unit.

We all gasped in horror as the buildings collapsed, sending throngs of panicked people running towards the camera covered in white ash, the whole scene rendered even more surreal by the tiny plastic screen.

We admitted defeat and sent our volunteer home. My boss joined my colleague and I in the lab to wrap up a few loose ends. We stayed, the three of us, much longer than we should have, crowded around the computer screen in the cramped lab space, unraveling the stubborn bug that prevented the correct stimuli from being presented on the screen, the blue light of the monitor the only source of light remaining. Finally, we cheered as the colored circles flashed on screen in quick succession. It was as though our lives depended on this small victory.

By the time we’d finished, there was nobody left in the clinic. My colleague and I walked down the bed-lined hallway— the hallway that an hour ago had bustled with uncertain energy, nurses not trained in trauma anxiously awaiting news of whether we’d be receiving overflow patients, but now felt eerily quiet, the only sound the echos of our footsteps as we made our way to the elevator.

Outside, I squinted into the glare of the sunlight that blazed down upon us in stark contrast to our moods. The sky was clear blue and empty. Devoid of clouds. Devoid of air traffic.  The streets were also mostly empty. The entire NIH campus had shut down as we squinted at the computer screen battling invisible bugs; the metro station was dark, too, having shut down not long after campus had, leaving my coworker’s car or a long 5-mile walk my only options.

After I got home, the last fiber holding me together broke. It was a Tuesday. It was CD-release Tuesday, and I was going to find my new releases, world ending or not. By some miracle, Tower Records had not yet closed, and I completed my transaction dazedly. My little Dodge Neon didn’t have a CD player in it, so I stayed glued to the live coverage that blanketed the airwaves (no escape possible), while the sun continued to shine as if nothing had happened.

[starsandspears]

This is personal

Three years ago, I watched someone I loved and cared for die of acute respiratory distress syndrome, the same syndrome that kills people infected with the sars-cov-2 virus.

 What it is is a slow and painful waiting game. It’s learning words like extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and understanding that it means that your loved ones lungs are damaged, potentially beyond repair. It’s titrating levels of consciousness so that the doctors can assess how much prolonged oxygen deprivation has affected cognitive function without causing massive discomfort. It’s tubes and wires and literal blood pumping through machines. 

 It’s disorientation and blood pressure dips, and heart arrythmias and chirping alarms.

It’s making the journey from the hotel to the hospital as the sun is rising in order to arrive in time 5:00 am visiting hours in the cardiac critical care unit.. It’s walks through long winding hospital corridors that become less maze-like with practice.

It’s celebrations of incremental successes tempered with terrifying regressions. It’s adrenaline fueled wrong number phone calls at 11:00 at night for pizzas you didn’t order, and 3:00 am phone calls in which you learn your husband has lost his mother.

And the thing is, we were together, all of us. Family, friends. Strangers, even, offering up pizza and drinks from ICU waiting room tables.

I can’t imagine going through what we went through alone, talking to semi-conscious loved-ones through computer screens held up by nurses in full PPE.I can’t imagine not being able to hold hands or touch shoulders, not even being allowed into the front doors of the hospital, risk of contagion too high.

 That’s  a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and I will do everything in my power to make sure I play no part in it happening to friends or loved ones. So forgive me if I’m a little bit touchy right now. Without a vaccine, treatment, or insight into who winds up with a sniffle and who winds up in intensive care, it’s all about risk mitigation. And right now, I am decidedly risk averse.

[starsandspears]

Food for thought

For those folks saying that spread of COVID-19 in schools won’t be a thing in the US:

1) A review of the literature on COVID spread in schools by the University of Edinburgh from May states in its opening paragraph “Despite librarian-supported duplicate searches by experienced reviewers, no high quality studies directly addressing the study question were identified.” So, while there is mounting evidence that spread might be less severe in younger children, the evidence is not rock solid.

2) There is a study out of Korea that indicates that children 10-19 years old not only spread the disease, but might do so more readily than adults.

3) Only around 8% of Korean teenagers 15-19 participated in the labor force, as compared with 34% of US teens.

Do we *really* want to see how this plays out in US high schools?

[starsandspears]

Open Letter to the Board of Education of Baltimore County

As a paraeducator in a local high school, there is nothing more that I would rather do than walk into my school building in September, meet the new crop of students and help them learn. Unfortunately, I am also gravely concerned for my safety, the safety of my fellow staff and teachers, and the safety of the students in my school building if we go back in-person in September.  My questions for the board are as follows:

1. How will the board ensure that schools adhere to the guidelines stipulated in the Maryland Recovery Plan for Education?

The guidelines stipulated in the Maryland Roadmap to Recovery are vague in language. It uses the phrase “if feasible” 6 times. Once in reference to the 24 hour disinfection guidelines (if that isn’t feasible, “Wait as long as possible.”) Another is in reference to the spacing of desks (“6 feet apart, when feasible”) and a third is in response to wearing cloth face coverings. Given the pressure to reopen as quickly as possible, and given that the funding required to adhere to these guidelines is not guaranteed, how will the Board assure that these guidelines will be followed as written?  Because as I see it, there is a real possibility that staff and students will be in situations where surfaces have not been disinfected thoroughly, or where students are still crowded into classrooms. Many of the general education classes I assisted with last year had 30 students and 2 adults present. The guidelines stipulate we must have all desks 3-6 feet apart “if feasible.” I can tell you right now, that is not feasible. What happens if adherence to the guidelines is “not feasible?”  With limited resources and limited bandwidth for enforcement of rules and regulations, I am not confident that guidelines will be followed as written, because they are written to not be followed.

2. How can the school board assure us of our safety and our students’ safety given the uncertainty regarding children’s role in the spread of COVID?

My second concern regards the evidence that in-person school is safe for students and staff. Much of the evidence cited for the safe reopening of schools cites studies that look at children in daycare settings, the oldest of which are 12-14 years old. However, the evidence for lower transmission rates in children is far from definitive. In fact, in Texas, where stringent guidelines for child care centers have been relaxed, COVID cases among children and staff are on the rise.  The facilities from which these data are taken were able to abide by social distancing guidelines and class-size limitations in a way that a 2000+ student high school will find difficult to emulate. 

3. How will the board address the unique needs and concerns of older students and the staff members who work with them?

My third concern relates specifically to high schools, where the student body is older and much more adult-like. None of the aforementioned studies even look at students over the age of 14. The maximum age of typically developing “children” educated in the United States is 18, and that age increases to 21 years in certain extenuating circumstances. Clearly students in this age-range are more like adults than they are like kindergarten students. Many of our students 16 and above are in the workforce. Many are considered essential workers and may have taken on more hours over the summer or during the last 5 months of the school year, as their parents and caregivers were furloughed or laid off. It is not unusual for a 19-year old immigrant student to work construction or demolition. Others are pressured to take longer hours at fast-food drive throughs and retail stores. All of these circumstances increase the risk of spread throughout the school building and community, and increase the difficulty of contact tracing. 

4. How will the board protect the health and safety of all of the school-system’s employees, not just teachers and administrators?

I am a paraeducator who works with students with a wide-range of disabilities in order for them to be successful in the classroom. This support includes providing proximity control (being near students so that they remain on task) as well as scribing and reading aloud to students so that they can have full access to the curriculum. All of this requires me to work in close proximity to older students for more that 15 minutes at a time (the threshold for “exposure” in a contact-tracing scenario). Furthermore, unlike teachers, I work in a broad range of contexts. Last year, I worked in 4 different content areas with students in 9th-12th grades inclusively, and I do not follow an individual student. If I am exposed, or if someone in one of my classrooms is exposed to COVID, do we all need to self-isolate for two weeks? 

Additionally, much of the support provided to our most vulnerable and needy students is provided by kindergarten assistants and additional adult assistants. These assistants work in extremely close proximity to students. They feed students, dress students, change diapers and help students use the bathroom. They do all of this as contractual employees who are not eligible for health insurance and who make far less money than they would in other essential industries. How can we assure the safety of these underappreciated and essential workers?

Thank you for your consideration during these unprecedented times,

Jean A. Milstein

[starsandspears]

Response to AAP

“The AAP strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school”

As someone who works in a school building, while I think that such a goal is admirable, I don’t think that the AAP has considered the nuances of opening school buildings in the middle of a pandemic, nor have they considered the diversity of the student body served or the staff employed by school systems around the country.

For example, “School policies must be flexible and nimble in responding to new information, and administrators must be willing to refine approaches when specific policies are not working” This statement sounds reasonable on first glance. However, many of the guidelines listed in the AAP document for high school setting suggest cohorting of students, where groups of students either stay in the same classroom while the teachers move around the building, or where the same students stay with their compatriots throughout the day. This requires creative and flexible scheduling that seems a tall order, especially as schedules and staffing for the upcoming year have already been established, or are in the process of being established now. It also fails to take into account elective courses at the high school level.

Additionally, when the AAP states “It is critically important to develop strategies that can be revised and adapted depending on the level of viral transmission in the school and throughout the community and done with close communication with state and/or local public health authorities and recognizing the differences between school districts, including urban, suburban, and rural districts,” this does not take into account the full scope of school districts and logistics throughout the country. While uncommon, some states such as Maryland have larger, county-based school districts that may encompass suburban, rural, *and* urban-like schools within the same system. Decision making regarding outbreaks would have to occur on a level more local than the district as a whole.

Additionally, the AAP states “Preponderance of evidence indicates that children and adolescents are less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, children may be less likely to become infected and to spread infection.” This statement is troublesome on at least two levels.  First of all, the evidence that children do not spread the disease is far from definitive. There is some evidence that children in daycare settings, under the age of 14 did not contract the virus. However, most of those settings imposed strict social distancing measures and cohorted children into groups of no more than 15 children per group. Furthermore, the oldest students were 14 years of age. High schools clearly go to age 18 for typically developing teens, and IDEA stipulates that students with individual education plans (IEPS) can be educated in the public school setting until the age of 21. Additionally, while the aforementioned article was encouraging regarding lack of spread within daycare facilities, North Carolina has reported limited spread. If such spread is possible with stringent restrictions on movement between classrooms, how do we expect to contain the inevitable in a high school setting with 2,000+ students in a building?

Secondly, schools do not consist of only children and adolescents. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2019 the median age for a secondary school teacher was 42 years old. This median age is similar in elementary school (42.7) and special education (44) settings, as well as teacher’s assistants (median age of 42.9 years.  Furthermore, over 40 percent of teachers are over the age of 45, and that is not even considering support staff such as maintenance, food service workers, or media support specialists, where the median age may be even higher. The risks of developing severe disease increase with age. Given that staff are generally older, and given that we do not know for certain that spread within the school will be limited due to the age of the students attending, how can we assure staff safety?

Staff safety concerns are also highlighted in the following excerpt: “Given what is known about transmission dynamics, adults and adult staff within schools should attempt to maintain a distance of 6 feet from other persons as much as possible, particularly around other adult staff.” Ignoring the fact that crowding in schools makes maintaining 6 foot distance an almost impossibility, support staff for students with disabilities are routinely required to be within 6 feet of students, some of whom are 21 years of age and therefore considered adults. From simple tasks such as providing proximity control to make sure that students are on-task and engaged in learning, to scribing for students, to providing basic care such as feeding and toileting, it is impossible to maintain physical distance and perform our jobs. Additionally, the staff performing these functions are often those who are compensated the least. They may be contractual employees who lack benefits, for example. Without assurances for their safety, how many of them will report to work under these conditions?

These are unprecedented times, and unprecedented times do require creative solutions. However, I do not feel as though it is feasible or advisable to consider wide-scale in-person instruction for students at this point in time.

[starsandspears]

Ingress Softbank Ultralink Field Test

 Dear readers of this blog, the following post concerns the augmented reality game Ingress which my husband and I have been playing for the past 4 months or so. It is somewhere between geocaching and capture the flag. It’s really fun. If you are interested in playing, let me know and I can send you an invite. Choose Enlightened( green faction). It’s more fun.

New items are always shiny and fun. I have been yearning for an MFUG capsule ever since they were announced. So of course, with my luck, I’ve hacked a grand total of 4 Softbank ultralinks and 0 MFUG capsules instead. Chndrk, on the other hand, has hacked a grand total of 3 MFUGs and 4 ultralinks. Such bounty! Of link amps on steroids.

Now what to do with our haul?

Initial field testing results reported at fevgames indicated that the ultralinks were more powerful than anticipated, in that their linking benefits stacked linearly, without diminishing returns. That means that it would be possible for a single portal to support 40 outgoing links instead of the usual 8.

 Hmm. Would it be possible to find a place in Baltimore City where we could throw 40 outbound links. . . and make pretty fields in the process? Imagine Chndrk’s excitement when he realized that Greenmount cemetery’s plethora of portals were almost wholly unclaimed, with no linkage or fielding obstacles within the grounds themselves. Its short and inconvenient hours (not open Sunday, limited weekday hours) made it a perfect canvas for a weekday morning build.

The Plan

 Forty links from a central anchor point meant that we would need to claim  (and link, portal-to-portal) forty portals along the periphery of the cemetery, and then claim, mod, and link from the central anchor to each of the peripheral portals.

 Chndrk pulled up intel, and found the appropriate portals, choosing as the interior anchor Pensive Figure with Anchor, in the northwest quadrant of the cemetery. We also tried to avoid claiming portals on the periphery bordering on North Avenue, which could be seen and attacked easily from the busy road.

The before picture, complete with errant link.

The plan was to arrive at the cemetery at opening, going in dark (always the hardest part). We would then park the car in an inobtrusive spot, and walk the periphery of the cemetery, hacking the unclaimed peripheral portals for keys, hoping that we would at least get one copy of the key between the two of us. Once we had copies of the keys, we would then walk the perimeter a second time, this time, in addition to hacking the portals to get additional keys, also claiming and connecting the peripheral portals. Once all had been claimed and linked, we would then drive to the central anchor point and throw the 40 links from the center.

We did not get a screenshot of the plan as drawn on intel before execution; this gives the gist of what was drawn. Also intel truncates after 40 links.

Again, to keep the op as low-profile as possible, the idea was to claim each peripheral portal at L1, in the hopes that it would look like we were trying to level a lower level player. In order to make sure that the portals had the range needed for linking, we modded each with two regular link amps. As Chndrk says: “I didn't want to deploy to level one and then find out that both portals have to see each other (I've seen reports if both ways, will field test that). But if the exterior portals are deployed as shown, they have a range of 640 m, which is safe within Greenmount.We were trying really hard not to be noticed until we were done.”

The Execution (and obstacles)

 Fortunately, Chndrk checked intel one last time before leaving the house. If he hadn’t, we would’ve been surprised by the big green link that someone had thrown through the middle of the cemetery.  With a slight revision in order of portal claiming and linkage, we were able to make it to the outside corner and ADA the offending portal, offering its owner a beer as an apology for portal wreckage.

 We arrived at the Greemount gate at around 9:30, a half an hour after they opened. As we pulled in, I noticed the sign that proclaimed that “proper attire” and “proper behavior” were required for entry to be granted.  I looked at Chndrk in his bright green running attire and he looked at me in my very casual shirt and shorts. Uh-oh. This might be a short visit.

 The first people we met upon entry were a pair of groundskeepers on golf-carts. They were really friendly, and helpful and pointed us towards the front office, where we were required to sign in. When asked about proper attire, they laughed and said that they’d had trouble with people (of both genders) running through the grounds shirtless. As long as we were. . . attired . . . we would be fine

 We chatted briefly with the woman in the office as we signed in (first people of the day! Woot!). Even though Greenmount has a plethora of portals, she had never encountered Ingressers before (at least those who talked about it). Armed with a map and further rules about decorum in the cemetery (Don’t lean on gravestones, they’re old and might break or fall over; kids are welcome, as long as they aren’t running all over the place) we set off to park the car and start our first loop: hacking grey portals for keys and L1 resonators.

Greenmount is an incredibly historic cemetery, with lots of ornate crypts, vaults, and headstones to admire. Add to that the name recognition as you wander through, and it can take a while, even when not distracted by potential Ingress glory.  At one point, after hacking “Girl Strewing Flowers” and “Greenmount Cemetary”, Chndrk looked up and said “Look, there’s one of the Ouija board headstones.” I nodded in agreement as we wandered around in circles looking for the grave of Elijah Jefferson Bond. . . which happened to be the gravestone of note.  As an aside, the groundskeepers in general were really helpful (and very knowledgeable) about the cemetery and its history. John Wilkes Booth’s family plot is here, along with lots of Baltimore families of note.

This is an example of how most of the peripheral portals were modded. Gives just over 600 m range with L1 portals. Also, the portal we walked in circles to find after standing on top if it to claim the adjacent portal.

Things were humming along nicely (if a bit more slowly than anticipated).  By around 11:30 or so, we had completed our first loop around the periphery and grabbed  as many keys for the peripheral portals that the random number gods would allow. And other than me biting my nails as a smurf sailed by us on North Ave, there had been nary a sign of interference. Things were looking good.

After ADA’ing the offending link through the middle of the cemetery, it was looking as though we were going to be relatively obstacle-free. And then I happened to take a look at the far end of the cemetery as we were linking portals back. “Hey Chndrk, there weren’t any green portals inside the gates when we started, were there? Because there are now.”

Crap! Looking at Comms we realized that Mytzar, a green player was happily claiming and linking away in the opposite corner of the cemetery from us. Chndrk commsed him, and then took off like a streak, blatantly ignoring the no running in the cemetery rule. I jogged briskly after him.  It turns out that a bunch of grey portals are very enticing, and Mytzar was just claiming uniques at lunch hour. He affirmed that his heart would not be broken if we broke his field, and we affirmed that claiming portals would not interfere at all with our plans. Two ADAs and one broken field later, and we were back on track.

 Until ¾ of our way through the second loop, Chndrk’s phone went low-battery, and he realized he left his cord for his Anker in the car. 5 portals from completing the exterior rim of our plan. Fortunately, at that point we were really close to the car, so it was merely a minor inconvenience.

 After claiming and linking Greenmount Cemetery Mausoleum to Horatio Wyman Preston, the circle was complete! We hopped in the car and drove to Pensive Figure with Anchor for the moment of truth. Two ultralinks from me, and two from chndrk. Portal deployed to L6 for simplicity’s sake.

Central anchor point with 4 Softbank Ultralinks.

And then we each started throwing links. The original plan had been for us to alternate, but that proved to be a bit too complicated, so Chndrk started throwing counterclockwise, and I threw clockwise till we met in the middle. We were missing one key, and I accidentally threw to a portal that the other player had claimed (which gave us the “no linkable portals” message proving the 40 link  limit). One more ADA (which gave me the amusing alert of me having attacked and destroyed my own link) and the vision was complete!

My oops.

Final starburst. 40 outgoing links.

The numbers

 Chndrk threw 36 links for 19 fields and 244 mu.

Anonyrat79 threw 45 links for 21 fields and 214 mu.

That makes 40 fields in total, 81 links (including my oops link) for a total of 458 mu.

There was slightly more mu in the graveyard than expected. Zombie mu!

 Agent stats said each of us got around 90,000 ap, but may have counted the fields incorrectly.

 We used 4 ADA’s in total. One for the link going through the cemetery on the diagonal. 2 to clear the lunch hour field, and one to fix my oops link.

One last link with satellite showing cemetery geography.

Chndrk’s Takehome and summary:

 It took longer than planned

But we planned for that ☺

Lessons learned: hack only what is on the list

Plug in to anker from the beginning

Plan the work, work the plan

But there was NO Smurf interference.

Also, @anonyrat79 got her engineer of a link app. #heextends

Four hours and fifteen minutes

Connector and field stats lagged. We each threw about the same number of links as each other and field, trying really hard to alternate when we did the perimeter

Too difficult to alternate when throwing from the center

Last lesson: we did bring water, but should have packed lunch

Green mount is excellent. Hours are short and inconvenient. Get there early.

Thanks to imseethru, Raidboss and Lutong for the screenshots of the op in action. And to Mytzar for being so cooperative. Also apologies to Alcavo. We owe you a beer for messing with your portal.

[starsandspears]

It’s been a while

I seem to have fallen off the blogging bandwagon. Winter training has been rough. Really rough. I don’t remember it being this bad last year, but last year I was “only” training for a 5k, not a half marathon. And I don’t remember it being consistently between 17 and 12 degrees at 7:30 am Saturday mornings last winter, either.

In any case, I am still in training. I am supposed to be running the Back on My Feet Half-marathon on 3/28. The race is mostly on the NCR trail, which until two weeks ago was completely iced over. Right now, I think it’s probably more muddy than anything else, as we’ve finally begun to thaw out officially. I’m still kind of wondering what the trail condition is going to be like come race day, as there are murmurings of one last snow this coming week. Really. At least it’s sunny and things don’t tend to stick around much in mid-March.

In other news, I ran both the Resolution Run and the Shamrock 5ks again this year. The Resolution Run still kicked my butt. I did manage to finish in under half an hour this year (just barely), but it wasn’t just my inexperience last year, that course is difficult. The slow-grade uphills that last forever got me on the Baltimore half in October, and they got to me on this course as well. This is also the only race I’ve done that actually does finish on an up-hill.

The Shamrock 5k I ran last weekend. It was a reprise of the first race I really ran all the way last year. Last year,  I was trying for under 30 minutes then (which would have been a really tall order considering it was a 6 minute drop from my fastest 5k at that point in my training). I wound up finishing last year in 33 and a half minutes having finally accomplished my goal of running the entire 5k with out a single walk break, but clearly falling short of the 30 minute goal.

Now the Shamrock 5k is a really challenging start, as there are 5,000 or so runners jammed into narrow Charles Street. Added to that are all the parade spectators jamming the sidewalks, so it isn’t even possible to pass using the sidewalks. You also have people who stop and take pictures in the middle of the road, the left side, and the right side. In short, it actually is a difficult race to actually race unless you’re right up front with the 5 minute milers. (And there are a bunch of those!)

It would have been nearly impossible for there to be a wave start with the logistics of the race and the parade and just the general lack of space on Charles Street. I do get that. When I ran the 5 mile Turkey-Trot in Houston, though, (which I think was another 5000 person race, give or take), while they didn‘t have a wave start, they did have signs with approximate pace on them, so you at least had a general idea of where to stand if you a) didn’t want to get run over by super fast runners, or b) didn’t want to get stuck behind people who were running a slower pace than you intended. Jury’s out as to whether there’s enough room to do that for the Shamrock, but I think it might be worth a try.

This year I clearly started out too far back in the pack and was blocked in by a glut of runners in the beginning. I had wanted to be back a little ways to avoid going out too fast, but I was distressed to find myself running over a 9 minute mile during the first down hill segment on Charles Street. Last year, I remember the crowd thinning out as we made our way onto Key Highway. This year, I don’t know if it was my faster pace, or just a different crowd, but there was never really a point in this race where I wasn’t dodging people.

In any case, even though I had a bit of a rough start, I was able to maintain a sub 9:00 minute pace for the majority of the race. (Heck, maybe my thorough dislike of crowds spurred me to run faster). That meant that I finished in 27:31, 3 seconds faster than the Restoration Run, which makes the Shamrock 2015 my PR for the time being. More impressive to me is to look back to a year ago when I finished in 33 and a half minutes. I can now finish a 5k 6 minutes faster than last year.

After I finished my run I waited for my husband to finish. Once he starts running the entire length of a 5k he will beat the pants off of me. Right now, he’s running about half and walking half. He walks faster than some people run. It’s pretty impressive.

[starsandspears]

Restoration Run

I’m trying to keep my running going this winter. In around a month, the training groups will start up again, but for now, I’m on my own. 

Well, not entirely on my own now that my husband has decided to join the ranks of the running. There might have been a discussion over a beer at the happy hour celebrating the end of the half-marathon season. That conversation may have involved him egging me on as usual, after I said I was considering running the marathon next year, teasing me about running a 100 miler. I might have, with my tongue firmly implanted in my cheek, suggested that if he were to run a 5k, I would run a 100-miler.

 I think the joke’s on me, though. He has downloaded Zombies Run! 5k and has been running around three times a week with me. He’s also committed to joining the Shamrock 5k training group that starts early next year. Crap. I told him if I successfully finished the marathon next year, we would reassess the situation. In any case, my husband is one of my biggest supporters. At my early races (also during the winter) he brought his Jet-Boil and had warm chai ready for me when I finished.

 We arrived in Meadowood Park at around 7:30. I know it hasn’t gotten particularly cold yet, but 40 degrees certainly feels nippy if you’re not acclimated to it. As we were perusing the literature on Trout Unlimited’s educational programs, I saw something that looked an awful lot like a snowflake out of the corner of my eye. Hubby confirmed it first, then I did when one hit my nose. I was seeing my first (albeit sparse) snowflakes of the season.

 The fire-pit set up in the parking lot along side the tent was greatly appreciated, and Dogs Among the Bushes played great music as we were waiting for the start. A recitation of Yeats’s The Song of the Wandering Aengus, the sounding of the air horn, and we were off.

 This was a small race (under 100 people). I didn’t know the crowd at all, nor had I been to the park where the start was, either, so I knew absolutely nothing about the course prior to race day. That ,coupled with the fact that the road-permit only lasted till 8:45, meaning that anyone averaging above a 12 minute mile was technically unable to complete the course,  meant I was a little  twitchy about keeping up with the pack.

 I ran the first mile in 8:45, but huffed and puffed a bit on the hill in the second mile. I pushed pretty much as hard as I could, but sadly was overtaken by a group of four or five women as the course headed back up-hill between the second and third mile. Although I could see them ahead of me, I couldn’t quite catch them as I came back into the parking lot off of Falls Road.

 I put my head down and kept going, feeling the cool air drying out my lungs, and crossed the finish line. My lungs were on fire, and my mouth tasted metallic, something I haven’t felt since running high-school track over 20 years ago. But I managed to finish in 27:34, 44th place overall out of a total of 73 runners. If I count right, that means I came in around 8th in my age group.  

 I also averaged under a 9 minute mile pace for the entire race for the first time ever. To put that into perspective, the first time I did a mile time trial last year, I finished in 10:20. My personal best 9:40 at the end of that training.  The very first 5k I ran, I finished in just under 40 minutes, so I’m pretty proud of how far I’ve come.

 Incidentally, one of the things I’m looking into buying is a good GPS watch that, among other things, charts elevations. The course again had some hills, and I wonder how the elevation gains and losses compared with the 5k I ran previously. I think I’m getting to the point where weather conditions and course difficulty will make a difference in how well I run, and I’m curious how the two 5k courses compare, objectively.