two weeks of limbo

AZ schools are closed through March 27 to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

I've spent the last 3 days reading obsessively any little scrap of news, and texting with co-workers and family.  On Friday, we were still going to open next week.  This morning, we got the word we were closing for the week, but by this afternoon, that changed to two weeks.

We have a meeting set for Tuesday morning (Monday is a vacation day for us), where admin will go over what they want us to do in terms of delivering curriculum to the students for the next 2 weeks.  We (the teachers) have many questions which will just have to wait until Tuesday to be answered.  The chief question is, are they going to make us come to campus every day for our online "office hours" with our students?  I have a horrible feeling they will, and that just makes me want to throw up  my hands and utter inappropriate phrases.  But maybe they won't.   We'll see.

I haven't felt this unsettled by something since the election in 2008.  I was able to get over that rather quickly since it basically didn't impact my personal life too much, but this is obviously a different situation.   My head is spinning with lesson plans and how best to present them to the students, and weighing whether or not I should push through to finish Chemistry with my 8th graders or just back off a bit for now?  I don't know.

Plus, about half the 7th graders cheated on a recent assignment by using Google to look stuff up when they were explicitly instructed not to do that, and I'm supposed to be lowering the hammer on them.  I kind of feel like that is counter-productive, or at the very least not a good use of my time right now, but I'll have to discuss that with my colleagues and admin to figure out what to do. 

This is certainly the weirdest break I've ever had, neither relaxing nor productive.  Tomorrow I have a blood test in the morning and then I'm going on a news fast to see if I can't get through my grading (and entering the grades in the gradebook!).  Shopping was surreal this weekend but we have a fridge full of food and no worries on that score.  I wish I could pretend that the world hasn't lost its collective mind, but that's how it seems right now, Lord help us.