What Would You Do?

I have a decision to make.  A couple of weeks ago we met with the School leadership and decided whether our classes would be Remote, Hybrid, Hybrid in Shifts, or In Person.  Remote means everyone attends via Zoom.  Hybrid means the class meets in a classroom and there is a Zoom simulcast.  Hybrid in Shifts is the same as Hybrid except the class is broken into subsections and only a part of the class attends on any given day.  In Person is in person only.

I have three classes this Fall:  PTM Professional Practice, Technical Direction 1, and Technical Direction 3.  Right off the bat I decided that PTM Professional Practice should be Remote.  At least half the sessions of that class are guests and under the current circumstances it felt irresponsible to bring guests to campus.  Knowing that the guests would be appearing on a screen it wasn't too far a trip to deciding that the students should also be on a screen.

TD1 and TD3 were not as clear cut.  At the time I was making the decision the undercurrent seemed to be "If it can be in person it ought to be in person."  Truth be told I don't think anyone ever said it that cleanly, but there were discussions about how if you didn't want to teach in person you would have to formally request an accommodation from HR for a health problem or request an accommodation from your school head for a personal reason.  That procedure, at least to me, communicated that the expectation was that classes that could meet in person should meet in person.

Also at that time the daily county cases were typically under 100.  We had just gone from "yellow" to "green."  That "green" doesn't mean "normal" is some truly unfortunate communicating BTW.  Campus was talking about testing and PPE and social distancing.  Things were fairly optimistic.  Since then things have taken a bit of a turn.  PPS has walked away from in person classes and gone remote.  MLB, with all the money and incentive in the world, has had to cancel baseball games.  The daily county case rate has jumped to well over 100, and even though we are technically still on "green" the governor reinstated many of the restrictions that were part of "yellow" without changing the status.

Yesterday in a meeting the Provost said "if you can work remote, you should work remote."

There is still an undercurrent of wanting classes to meet in person.  In the same meeting there was discussion about how it would be significant for every student that does elect to come to Pittsburgh could have at least one in person class.  I can see how coming to campus and living in campus housing and taking all of your classes from your room might be less than.  There was also a mention about how there is a concern that international students be able to find at least one in person class to validate their immigration status.

The latter notwithstanding, in the light of the change in circumstances since our discussion I am wavering on teaching in the room.  TD1 and TD3 have been sited in the Chosky Theatre, so there's plenty of room for distancing.  Everyone is required to wear a mask at all times on campus, and they are placing hand sanitizing stations all over the place.  So the "3W" wear a mask, wash your hands, watch your distance should be fairly strongly implemented.  Additionally, everyone on campus has to do daily symptom assessments - which helps, but obviously will not capture asymptomatic carriers.  TD1 could have 12 students and TD3 could have 8.  I say "could" because I don't know how many of the registered students are coming to Pittsburgh, and how many of those are planning to come to class.  Students are free to make those decisions at will and day to day, so even if I asked it would only be a rough answer.

The school does appear to be doing what they can to keep things safer.  But there is an even safer decision - we could go remote.

I've looked at the content, and really there's nothing that suffers unduly from not being in the room.  Both classes take a little bit of a hit as discussion over Zoom isn't what it is in person - although I think it can be; it just wasn't in my spring classes.  TD1 takes a hit in that it probably loses the hands on dimension of the "Rearrange The Shop" project.  But that project is doable from drawings.  I could probably have Sean and Ben provide a survey.  TD3 has historically had projects with realized shop components, but not last year as I have been taking it toward more sketching and conversations.  On top of that, the semester is basically only 12 weeks this fall.  So both classes were going to take a content hit anyway.

There's also a part of me that wonders if Zoom without a mask is better than in person, distanced, with a mask - especially for anyone still attending via Zoom.  Really I don't wonder, I'm pretty sure it is.

I'd like to have some quantitative metrics in place to make this decision for me.  Something like: no in the room teaching until the R0 is less than 1.  Or maybe: no in person classes until there have been three weeks of demonstrably lowering new cases in the county and an absolute daily case count of less than 50.  Or maybe: no in person classes without twice a week testing of all participants with less than a 48 hours turnaround.  But nobody is providing quantitative measures.  Just 3Ws and symptom screening, with isolation after appearance of symptoms.  I'm just not sure I am willing to gamble my life and the life of my family on those metrics (or the lives of my students).

There's a tool online that tells you for your county based on a crowd of a given size how likely it is that at least one person is a COVID carrier.  I just checked and for Allegheny County today, for a group of 10 (the choices are 10 and 25 and based on the size of my classes 25 doesn't feel fair) - so this number is conservative for my circumstances - for a group of 10 in Allegheny County the likelihood is 14%.  So every time I go to class there is a 14% chance that the entire class is potentially exposed.  That doesn't account for symptom screening, and it doesn't say anything about how likely one person is to be infected by another person.  That infection possibility is mitigated by masks and distancing.  I tried and failed to find numbers on how likely infection is when exposed, and how much that is mitigated by PPE and distancing.

But it is non-zero.

The likelihood of becoming infected while teaching class without being in person is zero.

If I can do that, shouldn't I do that?

I feel like I am leaning toward moving everything online - if that option is still open to me.

What would you do?