As I have noted previously, the high school students attending Suffolk City Public Schools will be returning for in-person learning effective March 22, 2021. This will be done in a hybrid fashion (see The Students Are Coming) meaning some of our students will be in the classroom with us while others will continue to receive their lessons at home through the virtual learning system that has been used the entire school year.

Teachers will return to working in their classrooms five days a week effective Monday, March 8, 2021. We will teach virtually Mondays through Thursdays while having a whole host of professional development activities during the afternoons and on Fridays. As has been the case all year, the professional development activities will also be held virtually, which brings me to today's professional development sessions.

The first Friday professional development sessions began this morning, Friday, March 5, 2021, at 8:30 a.m. They were divided by elementary, middle, and high school staff so that best practices in hybrid teaching could be shared with us. Since I have never taught in a hybrid setting, I was anxious to learn some trick(s) to engage students both in class and at home at the same time without my losing my mind -- or their attention. Instead, I became railroaded by some things that took place during the presentation that kept me from remaining focused on the task at hand. To note just a few of the distractions:

1. When the presentation began, it was instantly clear the three speakers had not coordinated
who was going to speak when. The pregnant pauses and/or the interruptions of each other became a bit annoying.

2. When the first presenter finally decided this was really her show to host, some other participants, including one of the other speakers, neglected to mute their mics. Disney music (which I love), dogs barking, kids playing, adults talking, all became louder than the speaker.

3. Even though all the participants were "working" from home or some site other than their school (our schools have a mandatory closure on Fridays until next week, this was still a professional development session. I dare say that two of the three presenters, while not dressed sloppily, would not have gone to a conference and represented our school system dressed in that fashion.

Our second professional development session was held from 10:15 a.m. -- 11:30 a.m. This time we were divided by our content areas so 100 middle and high school math teachers met to discuss apps that we have found to be very beneficial to our students during the pandemic. This session could not have been more different than the first in that:

1. The host reminded everyone to mute their mics unless asked to speak.

2. All of the presenters were dressed as if they were going to a conference to present their material.

3. The flow from one speaker to the next was seamless.

4. Opportunities for interaction with some of the apps discussed made it such that participants could see how easy it would be to incorporate it into their lessons.

We were given the opportunity to provide feedback along with our sign-in sheet. Without being brutal, I shared my concerns regarding the first and my pleasure with the second. I hope others were honest, too, as that is how we improve this work that we do.