California school districts struggled to prepare teachers for distance learning this fall

Credit: Lorraine AngelLorraine Angel teaches a Calaveras High School chemistry class online. Many California school districts offered a wide variety of training over the summer to prepare teachers for distance learning in the fall, but some struggled to offer enough to meet the needs of all teachers, leaving many to find training on their own. Many districts offered in-house trainers or hired teaching consultants. But in many places, training focused only on teleconferencing tools like Zoom and educational platforms like Google Classroom. In other districts teachers were largely on their own to convert lessons from in-person to virtual, according to a recent EdSource survey . Eighty-five percent of the 67 California school superintendents who answered a survey question on the topic said their districts were offering distance learning instruction. About 40% of the districts offered 9 to 16 hours of training, roughly a third offered 5 to 8 hours of training and 16% offered 1 to 4 hours. Less than 10% of the school districts offered more than 16 hours of training for teachers. Lorraine Angel, a chemistry teacher at Calaveras High School , turned to webinars provided by the California Teachers Association , California Department of Education and […]

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