‘Our Workload Is Doubled’ — Maine Teachers Are Exhausted Balancing Remote And In-Person Classes

When public schools in Maine opened this fall, many gave students options for remote learning or hybrid classes, which mix both virtual and in-person instruction. But that’s been a challenge for many teachers, who say meeting the demands of this new system has left them exhausted after only a month of classes.

At Deer Isle-Stonington High School, students have had a number of options this fall: they can go to class five days per week, opt for one of two kinds of remote learning or choose a “hybrid” model that’s a mix of the two.

“It’s really brought about a different style of teaching. And added in a lot of layers that, when you just have kids in-person, you don’t have to think about, or have to worry about,” says Betsy Woodward, a health and physical education teacher at the school and president of the local teachers union.

Woodward says she now has to create new, digital presentations for every class period in order to help virtual students follow along and get the same information as those who are in-person. And she says because remote students sometimes can’t hear teachers speaking through their masks, some are prerecording voice-overs for each lecture.

Read the rest of the story at Maine Public’s website.