This morning, I tried to finish off an article that has nothing to do with the virus. It’s probably going to sit on my editor’s desk for a month, but I still want it done, so I can move on. I am waiting for a source to get back to me with a fact check, but am increasingly worried that I won’t hear back. He works in a public school, which is probably in back to back meetings about an upcoming closure.

Since my kid attends a public high school in another school district, I’ve been getting emails all day from TWO districts about what they’re going to do when the schools close. The public schools are very freaked out about meeting that 180 day school day minimum. They’ll run into big problems with the teachers’ unions and extra pay issues, if they can’t create an online plan in a day or two. It will destroy the budget.

For a massive school district, creating online education overnight is very tough. Add onto the issues that most teachers do not have the tech capability at home to run online classes.

Jonah’s college is shutting down tomorrow, but his history teacher already canceled today’s class. He still has three more days of school that will happen in one form or another online. Then there’s spring break, followed by two weeks of online instruction.

Colleges can handle these problems better than public schools, because so many classes are already online. The older profs will probably struggle, but they don’t teach too many classes anymore anyway.

University faculty, who are mostly contingent, adjunct instructors, aren’t protected by a union, so the universities don’t have to worry about extra pay or support for them.

I am frantically getting my ducks in line here. I have to close up all the work loose ends. I actually just ran to the post office to mail out some vintage books. (I sell old books as a weekend hobby. I made $300 on some encyclopedias from the 1940’s today.) Jonah’s bedroom has been used to sort out old books and clothes for the Good Will, so I have to tidy all that up in the next hour. If we’re all working from home, I need office supplies, including more printer ink.

Still no word on when Wall Street is going to start working remotely. Steve doesn’t have a date for that yet.

Still up in the air… Will Ian be able to take his scheduled SATs this weekend?

More later. Let me get my ducks in a row.