Pandemic plan update for AY 2021-2022

Rejecting normal

Society is burnt out and eager to regain a sense of normalcy after two years of the pandemic. At least that is the message we are fed each day by the media, government agencies, politicians, and opportunists. And their proposed solution is to move on from the pandemic and “return to normal,” operating as if it were 2019 again. 

There are many problems with the proposed solution that we are being offered. First and foremost is that the pandemic is not over, and we cannot simply make it go away by acting as if it is no longer an existential threat to many millions of people who are at risk, unvaccinated, or members of vulnerable populations. Secondly, the crushing exhaustion many people feel is not solely a response to Covid-19 safety protocols, but to much more concerning factors such as: mass disability and death, and being told that disability and death should be deemed acceptable while protocols to prevent such harm should be seen as a burden; a heightened state of white nationalism coupled with state violence directed at historically marginalized and oppressed groups (e.g., BIPOC, trans youth, houseless); economic uncertainty; political instability; and a loss of a sense of connection and community in a fractured culture. Third, and particularly relevant to Abrome, normal was never good enough. 

Abrome is a liberation project. We aim to support young people by honoring the exercise of their autonomy within a context of co-creating a compassionate community with an understanding of our shared responsibilities toward one another. In order to do that, we must reject the notion that it is sensible to focus on what is best for us while turning a blind eye to the ills of society, as well as the ways in which we may be contributing to the harm of others.        

Thanks in large part to recently updated CDC guidelines, schools and other institutions are fast tracking their “return to normal.” We are likely the only remaining education community in Central Texas that still goes remote during periods of uncontrolled community spread, and we may also be the only one that has not gone mask optional. We have been put in the position of having to choose between what makes good business sense and what allows us to continue to center the needs of those most impacted by our decisions. We still choose the latter. 

Moving forward

This updated version of our pandemic plan was released on March 15, 2022. Since the original version of the AY21-22 pandemic plan was released, those ages 5 and above have gained access to vaccines, and we came back indoors for the first time since March 2020. We have also observed how much of society has been lulled into believing that we should not protect ourselves and one another through readily accessible mitigation and safety practices such as masking, staying home when sick or after having been exposed, and vaccination. Finally, we have watched in disappointment as schools and public health organizations have folded to public pressure to abdicate their responsibility to help protect the most vulnerable members of our communities. 

We are still masking whenever we are indoors, as well as when near one another outdoors. We may still go remote during the worst periods of spread, but we may be outdoors depending on local hospital capacity. We still have vaccine qualifiers to go indoors. The most meaningful changes to this updated pandemic plan include new triggers for when we enter into different risk levels; altered protocols for where, when, and how we meet; and adjusted isolation and quarantine protocols. We based the changes on a deeper understanding of the risks of spread in a variety of contexts (e.g., indoor/outdoor, KN95/surgical/cloth masks); renewed humility driven by the diversity of outcomes of recent variants; observing the measures of air quality at the Abrome facility since returning indoors; and improved studies of incubation and infectious periods. All changes were made with a deep concern for how we could best serve the Abromies without leaving others behind. This update also serves as a bridge between the original AY21-22 pandemic plan and the forthcoming AY22-23 pandemic plan. Thank you for continuing on this journey with us.

Day 99 of AY20-21: “That’d make schools like prisons … more.”

Thursday would be day 99 of our pandacademic year. I got some great news early when Facilitator Lauren told us that she was able to schedule her first Covid-19 vaccine shot for Sunday. This means that by next week all three Facilitators will have received their first shot, and that by April 18th all of us will be fully vaccinated. While another wave of infections is likely in progress, it feels so great to know that there is an end in sight for this pandemic. [Side note: please get vaccinated when you get the chance.]

I spent a good amount of the morning writing prompts about the The Teenage Brain by Frances Jensen for a book group conversation I was facilitating that evening for the Education Conversations book group at my local public library. I found the book to be pretty awful and I tried to write prompts that allowed for us to dive into some of the awful advice that was given. It took me longer than expected, but I eventually finished and then worked on a daily blog post of an Abrome day which I ran out of time on. I then headed to Abrome for the day.

While the in-person cell I am not in has had every Learner showing up each day this week, the in-person cell I am in has had one Learner missing each day. Thursday, however, was the first day that every Learner showed up, which increased everyone’s mood for the morning meeting, especially the Facilitators. One of the Learners volunteered to be the game master and he had us stand in a circle, jump in when ready to talk, but asked everyone to wait three seconds after someone finishes before speaking. During announcements I said I would like to chat with some Learners one-to-one and asked if anyone was interested, and two Learners said they would like to talk. Everyone then shared their intentions for the day and “one way we can add positively to your experience this next week.” The responses to the latter were morning hikes, bring sun screen and finding stuff to do, finally going into the water tomorrow, telling jokes to get me to laugh, staying in the shade, more people bringing bikes, bringing mountain bike tomorrow, and water. I took two things from the responses: 1. not everyone picked up that the question was about next week, not tomorrow, and 2. people interpreted the “we” in different ways—most focused on what they could do individually, and a couple focused on what the group could do.

After the morning meeting, half of the group headed down toward the lake, one on a bike with a GoPro strapped to her helmet, while I headed up the hill with two adolescent Learners for my morning hike. We quickly scaled the hill and at the top I prepared for my morning meeting with the remote Learners while they sat down and chatted with each other.

Morning remote meeting

I was pleased to see that all Learners in the remote cell showed up for the meeting. We shared what we were doing and one of the Learners told me that he wrote an email to Greg Abbott the day before saying, “it’s a dumb idea to open up 100% and it’s especially a dumb idea to end the mask mandate.” He got no arguments from the crew. We then shared what we planned to do with the day and then we jumped off the call. It’s clear that the morning meeting is more about holding space than anything else, and I just keep hoping that they’ll all be in-person after spring break.

After the meeting with the remote Learners was over a Learner who has been with us for a couple of years asked me when we were going to India. Last year, in the earlier stages of the pandemic, I had conversations with Mridul who helped start Abrome as an idea way back in 2014. He is living in Delhi and running a school there, and they wanted to connect and get to know each other through shared online offerings when schools most everywhere were fully remote. The idea was to get them to build connections, and then they’d visit us in Austin, and then we would visit them in Delhi. But we are a Self-Directed Education community, so we were not going to mandate their attendance, but we highly encouraged it. Unfortunately, the Abrome Learners did not show up for the online meet ups, and the hopeful plans fell by the wayside. When I told him this there was a moment of realization of the need to show up for the things that you want. I was surprised to see the lesson learned nine months later.

Morning vibe by the water

The Learners decided they did not want to stay up on the hill too long on this beautiful morning, and we walked back to the lake area and joined up with the others. As we walked down toward the others one of the Learners jumped out at us with a light saber and with that came a lot of energy that was just much more than the other group was feeling at the moment. Apparently two of the Learners were in a deep conversation, while another two were editing videos.

Meanwhile, in the other cell about ten miles away the Learners decided to slow down to honor their tired bodies. They focused on hanging around the creek bed after a stalemate in where they wanted to go for the day. The day consisted of some mini-excursions but other than that it seemed they were focused on having a restful day.

Two of the Learners spent much of the day painting with water colors. One of them put her effort into creating a really great adaptation of the Abrome logo that should be put on a shirt. As the day moved on their interest in painting moved from paper to natural objects such as rocks and branches, and then they pulled out some duct tape to create more complex pieces of art.

Their interests evolved throughout the day, and eventually took them to a screen where they watched a YouTube video on simulating conflict and game theory that an adolescent Learner posted on our Discord channel. They then used a search engine to look up what some of the largest trees on earth are, and then they dove into learning more about banyan trees. One of the Learners then pulled out a book and began reading it with the others. It was a slower day that really met the needs of all the Learners.

Back at the cell that I am in the Learners were quite active, moving around, walking, biking, or tossing the football around to each other. Facilitator Ariel meanwhile set up a linktree that we could post on the Instagram account.

On this day, just like the prior day, the local school district had scheduled a half day and around 2:00 p.m. a bunch of high school students began to stream into the park for a day party. Having discussed the difficulties of being around so many unmasked people the day before, we packed up and decided to move to a more secluded part of the park. We walked toward the waterfalls, although one Learner felt that she needed some time alone and went off in another direction to think before joining back up with us.

At the waterfall that we settled on we settled in and did what we were doing elsewhere—talking, thinking, reading, playing. I pulled out a new book on homeschooling during the pandemic that I’ve found to be far better than anticipated.

Some of the Learners (who were probably “bored” if we look at it from a schooled mindset) started to play with rocks in the water that was flowing over the waterfall. Eventually they started stacking the rocks to dam up the waterfall. Working together they realized that their dam was at a poor spot because it was on a downslope that would easily be overtaken, and they identified some better spots where the dam would redirect the water. They largely cut off the flow of water down the channel that was cut in the rock, and then they broke the dam to the enjoyment of all.

The Learner who needed space later joined back up with us, and the conversations and play continued. One Learner who needed to cool down dunked his head in the stream. I continued to read. Facilitator Ariel took some GoPro footage from within the stream. And then we held our afternoon roundup and called it a day, and walked back to the pick up point where most Learners’ rides were waiting for them.

After all the Learners left, Facilitator Lauren called us and we reflected on our day with an after action review. During this call I reflected on three pretty great quotes that happened during the day:

• Learner speaking to another Learner: I almost didn’t come to Abrome so that I could stay with my friends at public school. Then I came here and found better friends.

• Me: On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you like being at Abrome?
  Learner: a six.
  Me: What would make it better?
  Learner: on second though, a seven.

• Facilitator Ariel: I used to use my watch to reflect light on the wall behind the teacher.
  Me (in jest): that’s why schools shouldn’t have windows.
  Learner: That’d make schools like prisons … more.

Day 98 of AY20-21: Community over convenience

When I woke up on Wednesday morning I wrote up Reopening Texas is homicidal in response to Governor Greg Abbott lifting the statewide mask mandate and declaring that all businesses would be able to operate at 100% capacity beginning next Wednesday. I created an Instagram post that said, “We wear masks. We are staying outdoors. Community > Convenience. People > Profits.” And later that morning when I was in-person with the Learners I used my daily Instagram video to address the situation. As I said in my blog post, it is foolish, premature, dangerous, and homicidal to loosen up the already laughably low safety practices with another wave of infections on the horizon.

I get that people are tired. I get that this has been a very long year. And I get that many people want things to go back to the way that they were before the pandemic. But acting as though the pandemic is over is not the way. Lives are still on the line, and the best way to “go back to normal” would have been to wear masks, not congregate indoors, and stay home when possible. But I also get that political interests, business interests, and a disregard for the lives of invisible people are powerful drivers for pretending that Covid-19 is in the rearview mirror.

For the record, I don’t want thing to go back to the way that they were before the pandemic. I want a more liberatory world for all people, including children and adolescents. I want a world where those with the most power do not profit off of the exploitation of those with the least power. I want a world where those in power are held to a higher standard than those with the least. And I want a world where one’s “freedom” to irresponsibly put the lives of others at risk is suppressed in favor of modifying our behavior to protect others in a form of solidarity with those who are most at risk. And while I cannot individually do anything to fix the mindset of a damaged and sick society in the moment, we can all continue to take the pandemic seriously over the next several months until we hit herd immunity. At Abrome we have no intention to “go back to normal.”

One of the adolescent Learners volunteered to be the game master for the morning meeting and he had us stand or sit, in a circle, and participate via pop corn (meaning that one says “kernel” when they’re ready to speak, they say their piece, then they say “pop,” and then they remain quiet until everyone has spoken). Pop corn has been helpful when people are so eager to talk that people get spoken over and conversations go on tangents. Then each of us shared one way that we help make people feel welcome, and one thing we can do to prepare for the Flying Squad day scheduled for next week.

After the meeting I began my short daily hike up a hill for a bit of exercise and to jump on the morning check-in zoom call with the Learners in the remote cell. I treat this daily hike kind of like how I treated the 7-minute workout when we were remote—a morning routine that prevents me from having a fully sedentary day. Two of the in-person Learners decided to join me on this day, and they led the way up the hill. One Learner who was running late also decided to join us at the top when she arrived, but not before being fitted with Facilitator Ariel’s GoPro to document the hike.

At the top I recorded my aforementioned daily update video explaining why we will continue to remain outdoors and mask up, and then I jumped on the call with the remote Learners. One of the Learners said that he wanted to speak to me about college admissions during the call, but I told him that I had not planned for that and wanted to get off my phone after the meeting. We agreed to speak at 2:00 p.m., instead. The in-person Learners with me on the hill did their own thing, being in conversation and exploring together. With the day as warm and sunny as it was one of the Learners spotted a snake. They attempted to keep an eye on it as it moved but the thing was nearly invisible at times. It was not venomous, although the Learners never got close enough for it to matter anyway.

Around lunch time the Learners decided they were ready to head back down the hill and toward the lake. I asked if we could stop to refill our water bottles along the way, and we did. Then, we proceeded down a path toward the lake that on Monday had at least a million ants on it by my estimation. One of the Learners suggested 500,000. Either way, it was an impressively large number of ants. They were carrying leaves from harvest points and taking them back to what was probably their nests. We saw them again on Tuesday. On this day we saw them again, but this time, sadly, most looked dead with a fair number of them looking like they were dying. We debated what possibly could have caused this mass casualty event, and we concluded that it was most likely due to the very cold weather the night before.

At the other cell Facilitator Lauren started the day with breaths for a centering exercise. While the Learners did not take to the exercise, they honored Facilitator Lauren’s practice. She then told them that her intention for the day was to be available to support them and would follow their lead.

One of the Learners and his mom brought marshmallows to share. For the third day in a row the Learners collected small pieces of wood to help fuel the solo stove, fashioned sticks, and then roasted the marshmallows on them. It was a big hit and a great way to start the day.

They decided that they would go to several of their favorite spots on this day, to include to the “hideout” where they played fun bears, and to the “bowl” where they enjoyed the smell of a freshly split juniper tree. There they played a game of would you rather, and they also looked at pictures that they took on the day with Facilitator Lauren’s iPad. It was a fun, peaceful day in the younger Learners’ cell.

By the time I got to the dock after spending the morning at the top of the hill I saw Facilitator Ariel barefoot in the field doing a conditioning workout, with the other Learners on or around the dock. After all the Learners said hi to each other and caught up with each other, one of the Learner’s asked them who would be willing to join her in a 45-minute workout, and three decided to join in.

At 2:00 p.m. I jumped on a half hour call with the 14-year-old remote Learner who wanted to talk about college admissions. The first question he had for me was how to get into MIT, so I talked to him about the college admissions process for highly selective universities, but then I asked him what exactly he was hoping to get out of college. This led us down the path of talking about state colleges and community colleges, as well, to include considerations on price and the opportunities that different colleges confer. The call turned into less providing him with a roadmap to get into MIT than it did the questions he would need to ask himself to determine the degree to which he might need to play the college admissions game to achieve his goals. Currently it looks like he won’t need to play the game based on his stated goals.

While I was on the call I noticed a lot of young people gathering in the park, all of them unmasked. Naturally this led our group to move away from the young people who we found out were students at the local high school. I learned this from the dad of two small children I got into a conversation with after my call, who told me that the entire school district had a half day of school (that day and the next), and that all the students flocking to the park were hoping to take advantage of a moment of freedom from school. The dad asked me about Abrome, my volunteer work at the local public library, and the outcome of my many run-ins with corrupt cops in Austin. It was a nice conversation and I hope that he gets a chance to look up Abrome at home.

We relocated to the middle of a large field where we enjoyed the sun (some of us enjoyed it a bit too much and got burnt). Facilitator Ariel and two Learners tested themselves with round offs and other acrobatic attempts off the grass and off of a bent volleyball post. I checked in with some of the Learners who were just sitting there, some annoyed by being pushed out of the spot they were sitting in before the party rolled in. Then at 3:30 p.m. we circled up for our afternoon roundup. We each shared our feelings about being overrun by school kids, and the feelings ranged from indifference, a desire to be welcoming and kind, frustration in how the kids were acting, to insecure feelings about what the kids may have thought about them. Acknowledging that we cannot be co-located with folks who do not take the pandemic seriously and who could put some of the members of our community at risk, I asked what we could do when they showed up again tomorrow, and the agreement was that we would move away again. But next time we would take a hike to one of the waterfalls.

Reopening Texas is homicidal

Yesterday I was talking to some Abrome Learners when one of them mentioned that Texas Governor Greg Abbott was about to make an announcement of some sort. I immediately thought to myself, “bad news.” Not because I knew the content of what he was going to say, but because he has consistently used high profile, public announcements to score political points in ways that usually harm those with the least political and economic power. I then jumped on a call with some remote Learners, and by the time I got off I had gotten the notification that Abbott was lifting the statewide mask mandate, and later learned that all businesses would be able to operate at 100% capacity beginning next Wednesday. This was not bad news, this was terrible news.

Ever since the beginning of this pandacademic we have watched in abject disappointment at the absence of leadership and the abuse and misuse of power by so-called leaders in this nation from the local to the federal; public, private, and non-profit. Time and again the people who have had the most influence and power have opted for the easier wrong instead of the harder right. This is not a slam on Republicans only, because Democrats are guilty as well. In the United States, the opportunity to rally the base to come out to vote is more important than making decisions that make everyone better off. In the United States, the financial health of corporations is more important than human lives. In the United States, being ‘reasonable ‘means kowtowing to irate and irrational demands that put everyone at risk, while standing firm in defense of those who are most vulnerable is deemed ‘radical.’

At Abrome, we chose to put the welfare of the community first. Not just the Abrome community (although, sadly, that alone would make us an outlier among educational institutions) but also the broader Central Texas community because we understand that all of our lives are interconnected. In a pandemic, each additional infection has the potential to lead to a superspreader event or a mutation that can impact thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of lives down the line—particularly in highly overdispersed diseases such as Covid-19. Last March we extended spring break so that we could further evaluate the situation, and then chose to stay remote post-spring break. On April 1st, with no hope that the pandemic would come under control by the end of the academic year, we closed indefinitely.

Over the coming months we pored over as much research and guidance as we could to figure out if it was possible to bring Learners and Facilitators together in September 2020 while preventing the spread of the disease and being in solidarity with those who are most vulnerable to the pandemic. By June it was largely understood that this was a disease that spread through droplets (and most likely aerosols), and that the best way to minimize the risk of spread (other than staying at home) was to go outdoors, wear a mask when near others, and never congregate in large numbers. That informed our pandemic reopening plan that had us meeting wholly outdoors, only in physically distant small groups, and always masked up when near each other. The only exception to this was at the highest levels of community spread, when we would stay remote.

Our approach should have been copied by every school in the country, yet it was copied by virtually none. Instead, schools (that were being bullied by politicians, parents, and businesses) mostly chose to focus on coming back together again inside classrooms. They could not decouple the notion of schooling from the schoolhouse, so they engaged in pandemic theater: doing temperature checks at the front door, putting electrical tape on the floor to guide traffic, repeatedly disinfecting surfaces, and setting up plexiglass barriers. Schools with stronger teachers unions were able to stay remote despite the bullying that was coming at them. But as the pandemic wore on, the will to hold firm began to gave way. After New Year’s, during the worst stage of the pandemic, almost every school in Central Texas was operating in-person or in a hybrid fashion, against the explicit recommendations of public health officials. In fact, other than Abrome, the only school that I know of that continues to refuse to reopen their facility is the other Self-Directed Education community in Austin, Clearview Sudbury School. Maybe there is something about Self-Directed Education that centers … community.

Despite the insufficient efforts of schools to support students, teachers, and staff, and prevent the unnecessary spread of the disease, and in spite of the many attempts to waive off the risk of the pandemic by politicians, at least Texas did the bare minimum with a mask mandate and capacity constraints. Yes, I know that some states did even less, so technically not the bare minimum. Let’s say it is the bare minimum if one acknowledges that Covid-19 is more dangerous than the seasonal flu. And even though the mask mandate was effectively optional in much of the state, and that the capacity constraints had ridiculously high triggers, at least it gave those ‘leaders’ who were too afraid to insist on the most basic safety practices on their own an excuse to do so with the backing of the state. Sadly, the governor also prohibited local jurisdictions from demanding higher levels of safety practices, so even the bare minimum was not necessarily a net positive as it prevented many higher density local governments from doing more than the bare minimum. But at least there was a floor. Until yesterday afternoon.

By any rational standard, “opening the state 100%” is foolish, premature, dangerous, and homicidal. Just because infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are all decreasing does not mean that the pandemic is over. In fact, cases have plateaued. Just because vaccination rates continue to rise does not mean that the pandemic is over. We are nowhere near herd immunity. And new variants of the virus such as B.1.1.7. are much more infectious and seemingly more deadly. Schools across the state were already needlessly bringing millions of students and hundreds of thousands of teachers and staff together indoors for hours a day. Now we get to add restaurants and bars to the mix. Unmasked.

But what would we expect from a state that left their residents to freeze to death during the worst winter storm in a generation? What would we expect from a governor that threatens to defund any city that dares to “defund the police” (i.e., reallocate resources from policing to services that actually help people)? To be disappointed with Governor Greg Abbott’s announcement to lift the statewide mask mandate and to permit businesses to operate at 100% capacity would have required us to have at least a sliver of faith that he would not eagerly endanger the lives of Texans for political gain.

Our nation refuses to own up to the most harmful aspects of its history, and it eagerly pushes forward without any unifying ethical belief system. We cannot depend on the institutions of society to take care of the people of society, or to shape a healthier society. We must continue to choose the harder right instead the easier wrong. If we do not, who will? We need to prioritize community over convenience, and people over profits. At Abrome, we will continue to wear masks. We will continue to stay outdoors. We encourage every school and business to do the same.

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cover image: World Travel & Tourism Council, Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas (26279225765), CC BY 2.0