theverge--2020-08-20--The epic campaign to win Elon Musk’s Tesla factory with memes

Before an icon of the former oil capital of the world was turned into a literal idol of Elon Musk in May , Kurt Stenstrom needed someone to ride a cherry picker lift 70 feet in the air to measure the statue ’ s face .
Built in 1966 , Tulsa , Oklahoma ’ s apartment building-sized Golden Driller statue has been decorated frequently over the years to promote everything from new parks to rock n roll radio stations .
But no one had ever decorated the face .
So someone needed to measure it first .
Measurements secured , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mini .
He tweaked a composite image of Musk ’ s face he ’ d created during an all-nighter the previous night .
The lithography company he works for had just one more day to dress the Driller up like Musk before an event where Tulsa officials would announce their push to convince Tesla to build its new Cybertruck factory there , so Stenstrom needed to work fast .
He tweaked a composite image of Musk ’ s face he ’ d created during an all-nighter the previous night The effort to woo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will instead build the factory just outside of Austin , Texas .
The decision simply came down to some of his key employees wanting to move there over Tulsa , Musk told Automotive News .
It ’ s hard to imagine Tulsa ever really had a chance .
But according to the Tulsans who spent the last few months wooing Tesla , they made the company think twice and put an offer in front of Elon Musk that dwarfed what was proposed in Texas .
And they wouldn ’ t have even been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t for a series of viral , made-to-be-memed ideas like slapping Musk ’ s face and Tesla ’ s logo on the Golden Driller or spinning up a website advertising the “ Big Fucking Field ” that the city was pitching for development .
Governments embarrassing themselves to win big business is part of the price of , well , doing business .
Remember all the cringey ways cities tried to convince Amazon they were the best option for its new headquarters ?
But Musk loves memes .
When it comes to internet-speak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virgins , and he is the Chad .
Tulsa spent the last few months going full galaxy brain in an attempt to land the Cybertruck factory .
And it nearly worked .
The story of the competition for Tesla ’ s new factory began the way many stories about Tesla do : with a tweet from Elon Musk .
“ Scouting locations for Cybertruck Gigafactory , ” he tweeted on March 10th .
“ Will be central USA.
” In addition to building the Cybertruck , Musk added that the factory would make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Coast of the United States .
Tesla opened its first Gigafactory in Nevada in 2016 .
The company refers to the Solar City factory it acquired in Buffalo , New York , in 2016 as Gigafactory 2 .
The company built a third Gigafactory in China in 2019 and recently broke ground on a fourth outside Berlin , Germany .
But Tesla ’ s only vehicle factory in the US , located in Fremont , California , is bursting at the seams — so much so that the company famously started making Model @ @ @ @ @ @ @ With the Model Y being introduced earlier this year and new models on the way like the Cybertruck , the Tesla Semi , and the new Roadster , it needed another factory in North America .
When Tesla announced it was looking to build the original Gigafactory in early 2014 , it went on a roadshow of sorts , soliciting bids from around the country in hopes of scoring massive tax incentives .
Tesla ultimately landed a $ 1.3 billion package from Nevada , the largest in the state ’ s history and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the United States at the time .
This bake-off method worked so well , in fact , that it inspired jealousy in Jeff Bezos and became the genesis of the American Idol-style search he led for Amazon HQ2 .
Musk appeared ready to run a similar playbook with the Cybertruck factory .
Immediately after his March 10th tweet , TechCrunch reported that Tesla was considering Nashville , Tennessee .
By the end of that week , Colorado , Arkansas , and other states had reached out to Tesla .
The city of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an incentive package .
And a mysterious website promising a “ Big Fucking Field ” in Tulsa , Oklahoma , appeared alongside a Twitter account of the same name .
“ Hey Elon , We hear you need a big f*cking field , ” the site proclaimed on March 17th in white Neue Haas Grotesk Display text in front of a GIF of the Cybertruck jumping a ramp in what looks like BeamNG.drive — a notorious vehicle simulator equally known for its realistic crash physics and the godlike level of control it affords @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the heart of a popular Polygon series Car Boys . )
“ We ’ ve got just the place for your Cybertruck Gigafactory .
It ’ s in Tulsa.
” But there was no formal contact name or number , no government email address .
Just some information about the 1,500-acre plot of land surrounded by a bunch of shitposting .
“ Hey Elon , We hear you need a big f*cking field.
” “ Don ’ t trust us .
Trust your friends .
Tulsa ’ s BFF is gaining national recognition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , four fake quotes from people connected , in varying degrees , to Musk .
Joe Rogan : “ Elon , this is good grass , I mean it , dude.
” Steve Jobs : “ I have tasted the dirt in Oklahoma , and it is delicious.
” Peter Thiel : “ The spirit of Harambe is heavy on this land.
” Thomas Edison : “ To build Cybertrucks , you need a good imagination and a giant field.
” The site was full of Tesla in-jokes , such as photos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Musk ’ s “ rave cave ” tweet .
The site even noted the distance to the headquarters of Musk ’ s favorite regulatory agency , the Securities and Exchange Commission ( 1,053 miles , if you were curious ) .
The group behind the site was a marketing firm called Gitwit Creative .
Jacob Johnson , one of Gitwit ’ s co-founders , told The Verge on a phone call that his team created it on a whim after they saw Musk ’ s tweet .
The only guideline his team had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make if they hadn ’ t been hired by some city official .
“ They came up with some rad ideas , and we just said , ‘ Fuck it , let ’ s do it.
’ ” Johnson said .
“ Like , ‘ Let ’ s just pull something together and do what we think cities should be doing.
’ ” Johnson said Gitwit doesn ’ t hadn ’ t done a lot of economic development work until recently , and he found most of it to be “ really boring.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ stuff over and over , ” Johnson said .
So his goal was to “ just try to get on [ Tesla ’ s ] radar , which is a challenge for mid-market cities like Tulsa.
” Around the same time that Big Fucking Field went live , Sean Kouplen , Oklahoma ’ s secretary of commerce and workforce development , says people kept sending him Musk ’ s initial tweet .
Oklahoma , he told The Verge over a Zoom call , has “ got a new brand ” and has “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ businesses the last couple of years.
” So naturally , friends and colleagues thought he ’ d be leading a push for Tesla ’ s new factory .
Oklahoma hadn ’ t started on anything official , but Kouplen believed it was worth a shot .
He tweeted at Musk and put out a call on Facebook and LinkedIn for people to do the same .
He even called Gov .
Kevin Stitt and asked him to tweet at the Tesla CEO .
“ I said , ‘ Hey , would you send @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maybe he ’ ll read yours , ’ ” Kouplen recalled .
Stitt obliged : “ Oklahoma is innovative .
Oklahoma is the Hub of America .
Oklahoma is truck country .
Let ’ s talk , @ elonmusk.
” Kouplen says an employee at Tesla ultimately told him Musk received somewhere on the order of 40,000 tweets from this early push .
“ I said , ‘ Hey , would you send Elon a tweet ?
You know , maybe he ’ ll read yours.
’ ” While all of this was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus was spreading rapidly through the United States , and the first signs that shutdowns would be necessary started to pop up .
One of the first areas in the country to draw up shelter-in-place orders were the counties that make up the San Francisco Bay Area , including Alameda , where Tesla ’ s Fremont factory is located .
Tesla , like other businesses deemed nonessential , had to suspend operations for weeks .
Musk was furious .
In his eyes , there would be “ close to zero ” cases in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ April .
He fought to keep the Fremont factory open while downplaying the risk that the virus presented .
As some places around the country began considering relaxing restrictions in late April and early May , Musk exploded .
“ FREE AMERICA NOW , ” he tweeted on April 29th , while saying shelter-in-place orders were “ forcibly imprisoning people in their homes ... against all their constitutional rights.
” Musk threatened to move Tesla ’ s operations out of California altogether in April and had Tesla sue Alameda County .
He then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in violation of the public health order .
On May 15th , Electrek reported that Tesla had chosen Austin , Texas , for the Cybertruck factory .
Whatever bake-off Musk had been planning appeared to be over .
Or was it ?
Hours after that article published , three others — from TechCrunch , AP , and CNBC — followed with the news that Tulsa was still in the running .
Meanwhile , Kouplen and others had pushed throughout March and April to join the disparate efforts to solicit Tesla to Tulsa .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing , even if he didn ’ t speak the language .
“ Either it was going to sink us , you know , because it would be viewed as very distasteful or , you know ... ” he said , trailing off .
“ We had really researched Tesla ’ s culture … and it ’ s a pretty free-flowing company .
They ’ re very authentic.
” “ We had really researched Tesla ’ s culture … and it ’ s a pretty free-flowing company ” Kouplen described the site as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ move.
” But , he said , “ at that time , our chances got pretty slim anyway , so [ we hoped ] it would get their attention and kind of get us on the map and maybe get us a little bit of traction.
” Meanwhile , the people at Gitwit kept adapting the site to real-world developments .
“ Big Fucking Field here , ” it read in late May .
“ Yes , I ’ ve heard the news — it ’ s between me and Austin .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s not… allow me to assist.
” Below that was a link to a new website ( “ austinsaysno.com ” ) full of supposed reasons why “ Austin doesn ’ t want Tesla.
” All of the hype actually worked .
Tesla and Oklahoma began talking about what a factory in the state would look like , according to Kouplen , who started rounding up site options from cities .
After a brief conference call , the state submitted its initial proposal .
It was officially in the running .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comment for this story . )
But by this point , Tesla had locked down a location in Texas and was already moving on to the boring stuff that comes with these types of projects , like hammering out details with local officials in closed-door meetings .
Tulsa needed more memes .
Turning the Golden Driller into a 70-foot-tall idol of one of the world ’ s leading billionaires was a “ ridiculous stunt we could do that represents the support of Tulsa , ” said Johnson , who saw the irony of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oil industry ( “ super comical ” ) .
Johnson ’ s team sent mock-ups to Stenstrom and his employer , Meeks Lithography .
While many people thought Musk ’ s face was painted on the Driller , it ’ s actually the same kind of vinyl that ’ s used to wrap vehicles , according to Andrew Aldridge , one of the two “ installers ” who applied Musk ’ s face to the statue .
The Driller looked ridiculous — which was perfect .
“ We just knew it would get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That really became the only goal : how do we just stay in The Twitter feeds and inboxes of Tesla executives ?
” On a sunny Wednesday morning in late May , Danny O ’ Connor stood in front of the Musk-masked Golden Driller .
O ’ Connor is best known as Danny Boy , the other rapper who , along with Everlast , made up the ‘ 90s group House of Pain ( of “ Jump Around ” fame ) , O ’ Connor was stuck trying to fill time until mayor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tulsa transplant , O ’ Connor is known in the city for buying and restoring the house from the 1983 movie The Outsiders .
He was warming up the socially distanced crowd for Bynum , who was running late .
( The mayor was being chauffeured to the stage in a Tesla as part of a parade organized by the local Tesla Owners Club , which was slowly snaking its way around the Driller . )
Vexed and burning up in the late spring sun — O ’ Connor is , in his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — he turned to the 70-foot statue behind him .
“ Will you look at this big effing guy ?
I mean come on !
” he said .
“ And Elon , we ’ ve got a big effing field for you .
Trust me when I tell you that , my friend.
” A few beats went by .
He repeated himself .
“ Is this not the biggest , effing coolest statue that you ’ ve ever seen ?
” “ Will you look at this big effing guy ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Tesla parade complete , Bynum finally arrived at the event , sparing O ’ Connor ’ s fair skin .
He spoke about Tulsa ’ s love for entrepreneurs , and how the city originally boomed , thanks to the rise of the oil industry .
And he spoke about how Tesla could help the city start that cycle all over again but with a focus on clean energy .
“ We ’ re so excited as a community about the potential opportunity in front of us to work together , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something that I think is pretty cool as a way of showing how we want to roll out that red carpet and partner with this company , ” he said .
Just as the translucent sheet blocking the Driller started to tear , he gave the command .
“ Let ’ s see the Golden Elon.
” The giant Musk facsimile , complete with a Tesla logo “ shirt ” and Tesla-branded belt buckle , was revealed .
Upon seeing “ Golden Elon , ” Kouplen thought : “ Oh , my gosh @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every oil and gas producer in Oklahoma — which is a lot .
And they ’ re very powerful and important and do a lot of civic engagement.
” But when he called “ several oil and gas execs , ” some of whom he says are “ real good friends , ” they didn ’ t mind .
Ultimately , Kouplen said , they realized that everyone was just “ trying to come up with the best ways to keep us in the game ” to win the factory .
Johnson remembered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Oh shit , what did we just do ?
” But the reaction was ultimately positive , he said , and he ’ s happy with how the stunt turned out — even though it came together so fast that Gitwit Creative got stuck with the bill , which wound up being around $ 10,000 .
“ I still don ’ t know if we figured out who we ’ re going to get to pay us back for that , ” he said with a laugh .
The Golden Elon went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mock-up of a Cybertruck made to look like a Tulsa police vehicle .
A Tulsa weatherman tweeted his own mock-up of the Cybertruck done up with his station ’ s logo .
( “ Hey @ elonmusk can ’ t wait to storm chase with you in the @ NewsOn6 @ Tesla storm chasing truck , ” he wrote . )
A local production company made a parody of the Lincoln ads that feature Matthew McConaughey , shot in a Tesla Model 3 .
“ There was an incredibly concerted effort by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ official and unofficial , to prove that we could do something different and to ultimately show kind of the innovative spirit that truly does exist here , ” Johnson said .
In late May , they caught another break .
Kouplen and Stitt were invited to Kennedy Space Center to attend SpaceX ’ s astronaut launch in late May by NASA administrator ( and former Oklahoma congressman ) Jim Bridenstine .
That included a dinner with the alternate astronauts and , of course , Musk .
Kouplen said the discussion was focused on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( The group ate pizza ; Kouplen ’ s pretty sure Musk dined on pepperoni . )
The commerce secretary allowed himself to take one self-effacing shot at talking shop , telling Musk he was “ the guy that gets fired if Tesla doesn ’ t come to Oklahoma.
” By the end of the night , though , Musk was asking Kouplen and Stitt about Oklahoma ’ s workforce .
Musk gave Kouplen his email address .
He also asked about the Golden Driller .
Just over one month later , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Big Fucking Field in person .
A common theory over the last two months was Tesla was just using Tulsa for leverage ; that it was only “ in the running ” so Tesla could extract as much value from the state and local governments in Texas , like a scaled-down version of the bake-off it held six years ago .
It did speed up some of the discussions in Texas .
After weeks of closed-door discussions and marathon public comment sessions , officials in Travis County — where Austin is located — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incentive package .
One official wanted another week to digest the deal .
But others worried that any further delay would benefit Tulsa .
The officials turned to Tesla ’ s senior global director of public policy , Rohan Patel , who was videoconferencing into the meeting , and asked him if the company could wait another week .
He told the Travis County officials that Tesla had just had a call with a governor and a mayor from a different state and city the day before .
Patel declined to say more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spook the officials .
They decided to vote and approved the deal .
Tesla only netted around $ 60 million in total tax breaks from Travis County and the local Del Valle school district , though .
And in a major break from the path it took to choosing Nevada six years ago , the company got zero incentives from the state , the Texas governor ’ s office tells The Verge .
Oklahoma , meanwhile , had drawn up a proposal that was “ comparable ” to the Nevada incentive package , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got to the point of trying to hash out a deal with Oklahoma in public meetings like it did in Texas , Kouplen said the state and the company spent about two months talking “ pretty much all day long ” about details in the state ’ s proposal .
He declined to discuss specifics because of an NDA with Tesla .
“ We literally threw everything on the table.
” “ It was very compelling .
We literally threw everything on the table .
We had tribes participating .
We had the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foundations participating , ” he said .
“ We knew what the Reno package was .
And we were trying to create a package comparable to that .
And we did.
” Musk said way back in March that incentives would play a role in Tesla ’ s decision on where to build , but so would the local workforce and the quality of life .
In early August , after Tesla announced it had chosen the land outside Austin , he told Automotive News that “ key members of the team that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ California in order to get the factory going ” had “ Austin [ was ] their top pick , to be totally frank.
” Tesla coming to Austin may have simply been a fait accompli .
After all , one month before Musk kicked off Tesla ’ s search with a tweet , he sent another that simply said “ Giga Texas ?
” with a poll attached .
( The two options ?
“ Hell yeah ” and “ Nope.
” 80.2 percent of the 300,000 people who voted chose the former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ push to bring Tesla to Tulsa worked well enough to get Musk to come see the Big Fucking Field in person — during a pandemic , no less .
Tesla may have passed on Oklahoma , but Musk said he will “ strongly consider ” the state for future projects .
After all , Kouplen pointed out , Oklahoma has an automotive manufacturing base and is already home to suppliers in the aerospace industry .
Just in case SpaceX ever needs more , you know , space .
As for the Driller , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replaced with a surgical mask in an effort to inspire Tulsans to beat back the coronavirus .
And the website ?
It ’ s been redesigned to resemble a Myspace page after a breakup .
“ This page is now about me living my truth and playing the field , ” it says .
Below that , a button that ’ s linked to an email address reads : “ wan na hook up ?
”

Before an icon of the former oil capital of the world was turned into a literal idol of Elon Musk in May, Kurt Stenstrom needed someone to ride a cherry picker lift 70 feet in the air to measure the statue’s face. Built in 1966, Tulsa, Oklahoma’s apartment building-sized Golden Driller statue has been decorated frequently over the years to promote everything from new parks to rock n roll radio stations. But no one had ever decorated the face. So someone needed to measure it first.
Measurements secured, Stenstrom fired up Photoshop on his Mac mini. He tweaked a composite image of Musk’s face he’d created during an all-nighter the previous night. The lithography company he works for had just one more day to dress the Driller up like Musk before an event where Tulsa officials would announce their push to convince Tesla to build its new Cybertruck factory there, so Stenstrom needed to work fast.
He tweaked a composite image of Musk’s face he’d created during an all-nighter the previous night
The effort to woo Tesla would ultimately fail; the company will instead build the factory just outside of Austin, Texas. The decision simply came down to some of his key employees wanting to move there over Tulsa, Musk told Automotive News. It’s hard to imagine Tulsa ever really had a chance.
But according to the Tulsans who spent the last few months wooing Tesla, they made the company think twice and put an offer in front of Elon Musk that dwarfed what was proposed in Texas. And they wouldn’t have even been on the radar if it wasn’t for a series of viral, made-to-be-memed ideas like slapping Musk’s face and Tesla’s logo on the Golden Driller or spinning up a website advertising the “Big Fucking Field” that the city was pitching for development.
Governments embarrassing themselves to win big business is part of the price of, well, doing business. Remember all the cringey ways cities tried to convince Amazon they were the best option for its new headquarters?
But Musk loves memes. When it comes to internet-speak, other Fortune 500 CEOs are the virgins, and he is the Chad. Tulsa spent the last few months going full galaxy brain in an attempt to land the Cybertruck factory. And it nearly worked.
The story of the competition for Tesla’s new factory began the way many stories about Tesla do: with a tweet from Elon Musk.
“Scouting locations for Cybertruck Gigafactory,” he tweeted on March 10th. “Will be central USA.” In addition to building the Cybertruck, Musk added that the factory would make Model Y SUVs destined for the East Coast of the United States.
Tesla opened its first Gigafactory in Nevada in 2016. The company refers to the Solar City factory it acquired in Buffalo, New York, in 2016 as Gigafactory 2. The company built a third Gigafactory in China in 2019 and recently broke ground on a fourth outside Berlin, Germany.
But Tesla’s only vehicle factory in the US, located in Fremont, California, is bursting at the seams — so much so that the company famously started making Model 3s in a tent in 2018. With the Model Y being introduced earlier this year and new models on the way like the Cybertruck, the Tesla Semi, and the new Roadster, it needed another factory in North America.
“Scouting locations for Cybertruck Gigafactory”
When Tesla announced it was looking to build the original Gigafactory in early 2014, it went on a roadshow of sorts, soliciting bids from around the country in hopes of scoring massive tax incentives. Tesla ultimately landed a $1.3 billion package from Nevada, the largest in the state’s history and one of the 15 biggest given out in the United States at the time.
This bake-off method worked so well, in fact, that it inspired jealousy in Jeff Bezos and became the genesis of the American Idol-style search he led for Amazon HQ2.
“Hey Elon, We hear you need a big f*cking field,” the site proclaimed on March 17th in white Neue Haas Grotesk Display text in front of a GIF of the Cybertruck jumping a ramp in what looks like BeamNG.drive — a notorious vehicle simulator equally known for its realistic crash physics and the godlike level of control it affords. (It was the software at the heart of a popular Polygon series Car Boys.) “We’ve got just the place for your Cybertruck Gigafactory. It’s in Tulsa.”
But there was no formal contact name or number, no government email address. Just some information about the 1,500-acre plot of land surrounded by a bunch of shitposting.
“Hey Elon, We hear you need a big f*cking field.”
“Don’t trust us. Trust your friends. Tulsa’s BFF is gaining national recognition,” the site read. Below that, four fake quotes from people connected, in varying degrees, to Musk. Joe Rogan: “Elon, this is good grass, I mean it, dude.” Steve Jobs: “I have tasted the dirt in Oklahoma, and it is delicious.” Peter Thiel: “The spirit of Harambe is heavy on this land.” Thomas Edison: “To build Cybertrucks, you need a good imagination and a giant field.” The site was full of Tesla in-jokes, such as photos of Ludacris, and a reference to Musk’s “rave cave” tweet. The site even noted the distance to the headquarters of Musk’s favorite regulatory agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission (1,053 miles, if you were curious).
The group behind the site was a marketing firm called Gitwit Creative. Jacob Johnson, one of Gitwit’s co-founders, told The Verge on a phone call that his team created it on a whim after they saw Musk’s tweet. The only guideline his team had was to make whatever they’d make if they hadn’t been hired by some city official. “They came up with some rad ideas, and we just said, ‘Fuck it, let’s do it.’” Johnson said. “Like, ‘Let’s just pull something together and do what we think cities should be doing.’”
Johnson said Gitwit doesn’t hadn’t done a lot of economic development work until recently, and he found most of it to be “really boring.”
“It’s the same stuff over and over,” Johnson said. So his goal was to “just try to get on [Tesla’s] radar, which is a challenge for mid-market cities like Tulsa.”
Around the same time that Big Fucking Field went live, Sean Kouplen, Oklahoma’s secretary of commerce and workforce development, says people kept sending him Musk’s initial tweet. Oklahoma, he told The Verge over a Zoom call, has “got a new brand” and has “had some really good luck bringing in businesses the last couple of years.” So naturally, friends and colleagues thought he’d be leading a push for Tesla’s new factory.
Oklahoma hadn’t started on anything official, but Kouplen believed it was worth a shot. He tweeted at Musk and put out a call on Facebook and LinkedIn for people to do the same. He even called Gov. Kevin Stitt and asked him to tweet at the Tesla CEO.
“I said, ‘Hey, would you send Elon a tweet? You know, maybe he’ll read yours,’” Kouplen recalled.
Stitt obliged: “Oklahoma is innovative. Oklahoma is the Hub of America. Oklahoma is truck country. Let’s talk, @elonmusk.” Kouplen says an employee at Tesla ultimately told him Musk received somewhere on the order of 40,000 tweets from this early push.
“I said, ‘Hey, would you send Elon a tweet? You know, maybe he’ll read yours.’”
While all of this was happening in mid-March, though, the coronavirus was spreading rapidly through the United States, and the first signs that shutdowns would be necessary started to pop up. One of the first areas in the country to draw up shelter-in-place orders were the counties that make up the San Francisco Bay Area, including Alameda, where Tesla’s Fremont factory is located. Tesla, like other businesses deemed nonessential, had to suspend operations for weeks.
Or was it? Hours after that article published, three others — from TechCrunch, AP, and CNBC — followed with the news that Tulsa was still in the running.
Meanwhile, Kouplen and others had pushed throughout March and April to join the disparate efforts to solicit Tesla to Tulsa. That started with embracing what Gitwit was doing, even if he didn’t speak the language.
“Either it was going to sink us, you know, because it would be viewed as very distasteful or, you know...” he said, trailing off. “We had really researched Tesla’s culture … and it’s a pretty free-flowing company. They’re very authentic.”
“We had really researched Tesla’s culture … and it’s a pretty free-flowing company”
Kouplen described the site as “kind of like a Hail Mary move.” But, he said, “at that time, our chances got pretty slim anyway, so [we hoped] it would get their attention and kind of get us on the map and maybe get us a little bit of traction.”
Meanwhile, the people at Gitwit kept adapting the site to real-world developments. “Big Fucking Field here,” it read in late May. “Yes, I’ve heard the news — it’s between me and Austin. The choice seems pretty clear. And if it’s not… allow me to assist.” Below that was a link to a new website (“austinsaysno.com”) full of supposed reasons why “Austin doesn’t want Tesla.”
All of the hype actually worked. Tesla and Oklahoma began talking about what a factory in the state would look like, according to Kouplen, who started rounding up site options from cities. After a brief conference call, the state submitted its initial proposal. It was officially in the running. (Tesla did not make anyone available for comment for this story.)
But by this point, Tesla had locked down a location in Texas and was already moving on to the boring stuff that comes with these types of projects, like hammering out details with local officials in closed-door meetings. Tulsa needed more memes.
Turning the Golden Driller into a 70-foot-tall idol of one of the world’s leading billionaires was a “ridiculous stunt we could do that represents the support of Tulsa,” said Johnson, who saw the irony of dressing up a literal symbol of the oil industry (“super comical”).
Johnson’s team sent mock-ups to Stenstrom and his employer, Meeks Lithography. While many people thought Musk’s face was painted on the Driller, it’s actually the same kind of vinyl that’s used to wrap vehicles, according to Andrew Aldridge, one of the two “installers” who applied Musk’s face to the statue. The Driller looked ridiculous — which was perfect.
The Golden Driller, pre-Musk makeover.
“We just knew it would get press,” Johnson said. “That really became the only goal: how do we just stay in The Twitter feeds and inboxes of Tesla executives?”
On a sunny Wednesday morning in late May, Danny O’Connor stood in front of the Musk-masked Golden Driller. O’Connor is best known as Danny Boy, the other rapper who, along with Everlast, made up the ‘90s group House of Pain (of “Jump Around” fame), O’Connor was stuck trying to fill time until mayor G.T. Bynum showed up.
A Tulsa transplant, O’Connor is known in the city for buying and restoring the house from the 1983 movie The Outsiders. He was warming up the socially distanced crowd for Bynum, who was running late. (The mayor was being chauffeured to the stage in a Tesla as part of a parade organized by the local Tesla Owners Club, which was slowly snaking its way around the Driller.)
Vexed and burning up in the late spring sun — O’Connor is, in his own words, “tragically Irish” — he turned to the 70-foot statue behind him.
“Will you look at this big effing guy? I mean come on!” he said. “And Elon, we’ve got a big effing field for you. Trust me when I tell you that, my friend.” A few beats went by. He repeated himself. “Is this not the biggest, effing coolest statue that you’ve ever seen?”
“Will you look at this big effing guy? I mean come on!”
With the Tesla parade complete, Bynum finally arrived at the event, sparing O’Connor’s fair skin. He spoke about Tulsa’s love for entrepreneurs, and how the city originally boomed, thanks to the rise of the oil industry. And he spoke about how Tesla could help the city start that cycle all over again but with a focus on clean energy.
“We’re so excited as a community about the potential opportunity in front of us to work together, so we as a community came up with something that I think is pretty cool as a way of showing how we want to roll out that red carpet and partner with this company,” he said.
Just as the translucent sheet blocking the Driller started to tear, he gave the command. “Let’s see the Golden Elon.” The giant Musk facsimile, complete with a Tesla logo “shirt” and Tesla-branded belt buckle, was revealed.
Upon seeing “Golden Elon,” Kouplen thought: “Oh, my gosh, we’re going to infuriate every oil and gas producer in Oklahoma — which is a lot. And they’re very powerful and important and do a lot of civic engagement.” But when he called “several oil and gas execs,” some of whom he says are “real good friends,” they didn’t mind. Ultimately, Kouplen said, they realized that everyone was just “trying to come up with the best ways to keep us in the game” to win the factory.
Johnson remembered looking at the statue and thinking: “Oh shit, what did we just do?” But the reaction was ultimately positive, he said, and he’s happy with how the stunt turned out — even though it came together so fast that Gitwit Creative got stuck with the bill, which wound up being around $10,000.
“I still don’t know if we figured out who we’re going to get to pay us back for that,” he said with a laugh.
The Golden Elon went viral. Shortly after, Bynum tweeted a mock-up of a Cybertruck made to look like a Tulsa police vehicle. A Tulsa weatherman tweeted his own mock-up of the Cybertruck done up with his station’s logo. (“Hey @elonmusk can’t wait to storm chase with you in the @NewsOn6 @Tesla storm chasing truck,” he wrote.) A local production company made a parody of the Lincoln ads that feature Matthew McConaughey, shot in a Tesla Model 3.
“There was an incredibly concerted effort by everyone in the Tulsa community, both official and unofficial, to prove that we could do something different and to ultimately show kind of the innovative spirit that truly does exist here,” Johnson said.
In late May, they caught another break. Kouplen and Stitt were invited to Kennedy Space Center to attend SpaceX’s astronaut launch in late May by NASA administrator (and former Oklahoma congressman) Jim Bridenstine. That included a dinner with the alternate astronauts and, of course, Musk.
Kouplen said the discussion was focused on space and that it was very informal. (The group ate pizza; Kouplen’s pretty sure Musk dined on pepperoni.) The commerce secretary allowed himself to take one self-effacing shot at talking shop, telling Musk he was “the guy that gets fired if Tesla doesn’t come to Oklahoma.”
By the end of the night, though, Musk was asking Kouplen and Stitt about Oklahoma’s workforce. Musk gave Kouplen his email address. He also asked about the Golden Driller. Just over one month later, Musk flew to Tulsa to see the Big Fucking Field in person.
A common theory over the last two months was Tesla was just using Tulsa for leverage; that it was only “in the running” so Tesla could extract as much value from the state and local governments in Texas, like a scaled-down version of the bake-off it held six years ago.
It did speed up some of the discussions in Texas. After weeks of closed-door discussions and marathon public comment sessions, officials in Travis County — where Austin is located — finally debated whether to vote on an incentive package. One official wanted another week to digest the deal. But others worried that any further delay would benefit Tulsa.
The officials turned to Tesla’s senior global director of public policy, Rohan Patel, who was videoconferencing into the meeting, and asked him if the company could wait another week. He told the Travis County officials that Tesla had just had a call with a governor and a mayor from a different state and city the day before. Patel declined to say more, but the insinuation was enough to spook the officials. They decided to vote and approved the deal.
Tesla only netted around $60 million in total tax breaks from Travis County and the local Del Valle school district, though. And in a major break from the path it took to choosing Nevada six years ago, the company got zero incentives from the state, the Texas governor’s office tells The Verge.
Oklahoma, meanwhile, had drawn up a proposal that was “comparable” to the Nevada incentive package, according to Kouplen. While Tesla never got to the point of trying to hash out a deal with Oklahoma in public meetings like it did in Texas, Kouplen said the state and the company spent about two months talking “pretty much all day long” about details in the state’s proposal. He declined to discuss specifics because of an NDA with Tesla.
“We literally threw everything on the table.”
“It was very compelling. We literally threw everything on the table. We had tribes participating. We had the city participating. The state, local foundations participating,” he said. “We knew what the Reno package was. And we were trying to create a package comparable to that. And we did.”
Musk said way back in March that incentives would play a role in Tesla’s decision on where to build, but so would the local workforce and the quality of life. In early August, after Tesla announced it had chosen the land outside Austin, he told Automotive News that “key members of the team that would need to move to Austin from California in order to get the factory going” had “Austin [was] their top pick, to be totally frank.”
Tesla coming to Austin may have simply been a fait accompli. After all, one month before Musk kicked off Tesla’s search with a tweet, he sent another that simply said “Giga Texas?” with a poll attached. (The two options? “Hell yeah” and “Nope.” 80.2 percent of the 300,000 people who voted chose the former.)
And yet, the meme-heavy push to bring Tesla to Tulsa worked well enough to get Musk to come see the Big Fucking Field in person — during a pandemic, no less.
Tesla may have passed on Oklahoma, but Musk said he will “strongly consider” the state for future projects. After all, Kouplen pointed out, Oklahoma has an automotive manufacturing base and is already home to suppliers in the aerospace industry. Just in case SpaceX ever needs more, you know, space.
As for the Driller, Musk’s face wound up being replaced with a surgical mask in an effort to inspire Tulsans to beat back the coronavirus. And the website? It’s been redesigned to resemble a Myspace page after a breakup. “This page is now about me living my truth and playing the field,” it says.


theverge--2020-08-20--Google Maps will show wildfire boundaries in near real time

Type in the name of an ongoing wildfire into Google search , and the site will now bring up a map featuring a near-real-time boundary of the fire .
Google revealed the feature today , which was piloted in California last year and will now be available across the US .
Google Maps will also update users with road closures and provide them with directions that help them avoid danger and roadblocks .
If someone is looking at an area near a blaze on Google Maps , they ’ ll get an alert .
Getting accurate information to people near @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s also a constant challenge for emergency responders because the situation can change rapidly , while hearsay online can quickly drown out reputable sources .
Google developed the new mapping feature with input from the California Governor ’ s Office of Emergency Services ( Cal OES ) as part of an effort to make important updates easier to find .
When people searched for information on wildfires on Google in the past , they ran into one of two problems , Ruha Devanesan , crisis response product partnerships lead at Google , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There was either not enough information or too much to reasonably sort through .
In the latter case , speculation and unvetted sources might lead people into danger instead of safety .
The problem came to the attention of Yossi Matias , vice president of engineering at Google , in 2010 during the Mount Carmel fire near Haifa , Israel .
Matias was working in Google ’ s Haifa office when his team saw billowing smoke outside .
A Google search failed to turn up anything more helpful than what they could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While we did find some details confirming what we already knew—a large fire was taking place outside of our door—we experienced a potentially life-impacting information gap , ” Matias wrote in a blog post announcing the new mapping feature today .
Now , the same Google search would result in more curated content .
The scare Matias and his team experienced led to the development of Google ’ s SOS Alerts in 2017 .
Beneath a red banner labeled “ SOS Alert , ” the search results offer top stories , followed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today , searches for wildfires will also include a more detailed map showing the boundaries of an active blaze .
Red dashes on the map outline an area consumed by flames .
It ’ s generated from data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ’ s GOES satellites , which is then processed by Google ’ s geospatial analysis platform , Earth Engine .
The result is the shifting , red boundary that ’ s refreshed about once every hour .
One potential hiccup is that users will need to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ updated data — not something that is always reliable when fleeing from a wildfire .
Google says it hopes to roll out the feature in other countries in the future .
And while its mapping is focused on helping out civilians , Google says it is also exploring how similar features could help emergency responders in California .
California ’ s fire seasons have grown more devastating as the climate heats up .
“ We ’ re all on edge , we don ’ t know what ’ s happening , we don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to bring , ” Abby Browning , chief of the Office of Private Sector at Cal OES , said during Google ’ s press call .
At the time , her office was tracking about 360 fires raging across the state .
“ The best thing to calm anyone ’ s anxiety , to help anyone , is information , ” Browning said .

Type in the name of an ongoing wildfire into Google search, and the site will now bring up a map featuring a near-real-time boundary of the fire. Google revealed the feature today, which was piloted in California last year and will now be available across the US.
Google Maps will also update users with road closures and provide them with directions that help them avoid danger and roadblocks. If someone is looking at an area near a blaze on Google Maps, they’ll get an alert.
Google search view of what people will see in the new feature. Image: Google
Getting accurate information to people near a wildfire can save lives. It’s also a constant challenge for emergency responders because the situation can change rapidly, while hearsay online can quickly drown out reputable sources. Google developed the new mapping feature with input from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) as part of an effort to make important updates easier to find.
When people searched for information on wildfires on Google in the past, they ran into one of two problems, Ruha Devanesan, crisis response product partnerships lead at Google, said on an August 19th press call. There was either not enough information or too much to reasonably sort through. In the latter case, speculation and unvetted sources might lead people into danger instead of safety.
The problem came to the attention of Yossi Matias, vice president of engineering at Google, in 2010 during the Mount Carmel fire near Haifa, Israel. Matias was working in Google’s Haifa office when his team saw billowing smoke outside. A Google search failed to turn up anything more helpful than what they could already assess from their windows. “While we did find some details confirming what we already knew—a large fire was taking place outside of our door—we experienced a potentially life-impacting information gap,” Matias wrote in a blog post announcing the new mapping feature today.
Now, the same Google search would result in more curated content. The scare Matias and his team experienced led to the development of Google’s SOS Alerts in 2017. Beneath a red banner labeled “SOS Alert,” the search results offer top stories, followed by official updates for emergency situations. Starting today, searches for wildfires will also include a more detailed map showing the boundaries of an active blaze.
Using data from NOAA’s GOES satellites and Google Earth Engine, Google creates a digital polygon to represent the approximate wildfire impact area on search and Google Maps. Image: Google
Red dashes on the map outline an area consumed by flames. It’s generated from data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GOES satellites, which is then processed by Google’s geospatial analysis platform, Earth Engine. The result is the shifting, red boundary that’s refreshed about once every hour. One potential hiccup is that users will need to have an internet connection to get the most updated data — not something that is always reliable when fleeing from a wildfire.
Google says it hopes to roll out the feature in other countries in the future. And while its mapping is focused on helping out civilians, Google says it is also exploring how similar features could help emergency responders in California.


theverge--2020-08-20--University staff are worried their recorded lectures will be used against them

Share All sharing options for : University staff are worried their recorded lectures will be used against them After American University in Washington , DC made the decision to move classes online this semester in response to the pandemic , it sent teaching staff guidance about how their work would change .
When Aram Sinnreich , a media professor at AU specializing in intellectual property , received the documents , he naturally decided to check out the copyright provisions .
What he found was strange .
AU ’ s policy said that if Sinnreich or any other teacher recorded their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or Google Hangouts , the teacher would own the copyright to those recordings .
But if they used the university-provided software — a popular learning management system called Blackboard — the university would retain the rights .
“ It stood out for me in a way it wouldn ’ t necessarily stand out for people who don ’ t study copyright law , ” Sinnreich tells The Verge .
Recorded lectures could replace staff in a standoff with management The provision is unsettling because of the power it potentially gives universities , says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ copyrighted teaching material could be deployed against staff during a standoff with management .
If teachers were laid off as a result of pandemic-related cuts , for example ( a situation that has been described as “ unavoidable ” by one university president ) , lectures could be deployed “ to undermine the labor power of a faculty workforce , ” Sinnreich says .
Universities could essentially tell staff : come back to work , or we ’ ll use your lecture recordings to teach your classes without you .
Or if they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them and do that anyway .
Sinnreich says he doesn ’ t think this was AU ’ s intention at all by including this provision .
The same document notes that staff have already objected to the clause , and discussions are underway to adjust it , something AU also told The Verge .
“ I think it was probably an afterthought that did not get thoroughly vetted , ” says Sinnreich .
But when he shared the policy on Twitter , dozens of academics responded expressing exactly the same fears .
Mar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Illinois Institute of Technology , noted that many universities , including her own , don ’ t even allow staff to delete video lectures they upload to Blackboard .
On Twitter , Hicks said it was “ no stretch ” to think that universities could use such recordings to “ re-teach courses ” in the future without the staff who created them .
“ If there ’ s 1 thing we ’ ve seen in the pandemic it ’ s that higher ed is in a grim austerity stage & many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anyone ’ s expense , ” said Hicks .
Speaking to The Verge over the phone , Hicks said such fears “ predate this particular crisis ” and are a result of austerity measures that have affected the education sector for many years .
“ For decades there ’ s been a very strange idea that higher education and universities should be run like businesses instead of like the public goods they are , ” says Hicks .
“ So we ’ ve seen a lot of strange and harmful budgetary decisions made.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ beleaguered education sector hard This has included disempowering teaching staff by moving them away from tenure-track positions and toward temporary contracts with low wages .
Many academics The Verge spoke to for this article cited the rise in temporary contracts as a compounding factor in their fears about copyrighted lecture material being used against them .
One 2018 analysis by the American Association of University Professors ( AAUP ) found that 73 percent of faculty positions in the US are non-tenure-track positions .
“ Those are the folks we ’ re most worried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re going to get cut first , ” says Hicks .
“ They ’ re also the folks who , if they record their lectures this semester , there ’ s the highest chance they ’ re not going to be asked to teach those courses again , and maybe their recorded lectures will be run without their knowledge.
” Right now , the problems are mostly hypothetical .
Normally in the US , anything created by employees belongs to employers because of the work for hire doctrine .
But teaching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to custom and legal precedence .
It ’ s a carve-out known as the “ teacher exception.
” This means that teaching staff generally own the copyright to content they produce .
Where things get complicated is that universities can and do create bespoke policies to claim copyright over recorded material if they so choose .
Christopher Sprigman , a law professor at NYU specializing in intellectual property , tells The Verge that such policies are not common right now , but this is likely to change in the near future .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and I ’ ve seen some evidence that universities are starting to push in this direction , ” says Sprigman .
“ It hasn ’ t broken out into the open just yet , but it ’ s in the air.
” Last year , for example , Purdue University adopted a new policy that claimed all online modules as copyrightable work belonging to the institution ( though individuals could negotiate specific rights agreements with the university ) .
As reported by Inside Higher Ed , when the pandemic hit , staff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to all traditional classes that were now being remotely delivered .
After they voiced their worries , the university stated it would not reuse their online modules without permission .
As David Sanders , an associate professor of biology at Purdue , told Inside Higher Ed , the negotiations showed that “ on these things you have to take collective action .
People make a difference in what happens .
Without that , faculty could have potentially lost all IP rights in posting everything online in the transition to remote instruction.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to expect during these sorts of negotiations .
There , teaching staff have been under similar pressures as those in the US due to budget constraints and a push toward marketized education .
But lecture recordings are far more common in the UK , used by roughly 70 percent of institutions as of 2016 .
That meant that when the UK ’ s University and College Union ( UCU ) organized a series of strikes starting in 2018 in opposition to cuts , some universities floated the idea of using recorded lectures to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s no clear evidence that any universities actually followed through on these threats .
And indeed , teaching staff reacted with such fury to the suggestions that it actually led to better policies , says Emily Nordmann , a lecturer in psychology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland whose research focuses on lecture capture .
“ The backlash was so strong that the University of Edinburgh [ one of the institutions where recorded lectures were suggested as a stand-in for teachers ] became the first university in the UK to ban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tells The Verge .
The university ’ s official policy on recorded lectures now states that “ recordings will not be used to cover university staff exercising their legal right to take industrial action without the lecturers ’ consent , ” and other institutions have updated their own policies since .
As Nordmann says : “ They made a mistake but they completely rectified it in the right way.
” “ Clear policy and communication can solve a lot of these problems.
” Nordmann notes that although the fear that recorded lectures will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quite specific one , it reflects anxieties about the future of higher education more generally .
Recorded lectures have many benefits , making it easier for students to revisit challenging material and helping those who manage disabilities like dyslexia .
And of course , during a pandemic , they ’ re absolutely essential to make remote learning work .
But teaching staff worry they are a relatively passive form of instruction , one that allows students to switch off , especially if they ’ re watching last year ’ s lectures , reheated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lecture recordings is part of a larger conversation about what we ’ re providing and how we expect students to engage with it , ” says Nordmann .
She says if universities could communicate better with staff about how recorded lectures are used , it would benefit everyone .
“ Clear policy and communication can solve a lot of these problems.
” Others are warier , however .
Hicks says that as a historian of technology , she ’ s all too aware of the problem of feature creep — the tendency for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beyond its initial scope .
A 2018 paper on workplace surveillance and lecture capture compares the danger to that of CCTV .
Although security cameras might be installed in a workplace with the intention of protecting against theft , the information they capture can be subject to all sorts of analysis , from making sure employees aren ’ t wasting time to gauging their emotional moods .
Recording lectures has obvious benefits , but norms about how this information is used are still being established , including the question of copyright .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unintended consequences , if things are built a certain way , even if the intention isn ’ t there they can lead to bad outcomes just by virtue of how they work , ” says Hicks .
“ As a technology historian that ’ s an issue I think about a lot .
”

Part of / The Verge’s Back to School Special
After American University in Washington, DC made the decision to move classes online this semester in response to the pandemic, it sent teaching staff guidance about how their work would change. When Aram Sinnreich, a media professor at AU specializing in intellectual property, received the documents, he naturally decided to check out the copyright provisions. What he found was strange.
AU’s policy said that if Sinnreich or any other teacher recorded their lessons or lectures through software like Skype or Google Hangouts, the teacher would own the copyright to those recordings. But if they used the university-provided software — a popular learning management system called Blackboard — the university would retain the rights. “It stood out for me in a way it wouldn’t necessarily stand out for people who don’t study copyright law,” Sinnreich tells The Verge.
Recorded lectures could replace staff in a standoff with management
The provision is unsettling because of the power it potentially gives universities, says Sinnreich. In a worst-case scenario, copyrighted teaching material could be deployed against staff during a standoff with management. If teachers were laid off as a result of pandemic-related cuts, for example (a situation that has been described as “unavoidable” by one university president), lectures could be deployed “to undermine the labor power of a faculty workforce,” Sinnreich says.
Universities could essentially tell staff: come back to work, or we’ll use your lecture recordings to teach your classes without you. Or if they were really desperate, universities could fire them and do that anyway.
Sinnreich says he doesn’t think this was AU’s intention at all by including this provision. The same document notes that staff have already objected to the clause, and discussions are underway to adjust it, something AU also told The Verge. “I think it was probably an afterthought that did not get thoroughly vetted,” says Sinnreich. But when he shared the policy on Twitter, dozens of academics responded expressing exactly the same fears.
Mar Hicks, a history of technology professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, noted that many universities, including their own, don’t even allow staff to delete video lectures they upload to Blackboard. On Twitter, Hicks said it was “no stretch” to think that universities could use such recordings to “re-teach courses” in the future without the staff who created them. “If there’s 1 thing we’ve seen in the pandemic it’s that higher ed is in a grim austerity stage & many universities are desperate to make money at anyone’s expense,” said Hicks.
Speaking to The Verge over the phone, Hicks said such fears “predate this particular crisis” and are a result of austerity measures that have affected the education sector for many years. “For decades there’s been a very strange idea that higher education and universities should be run like businesses instead of like the public goods they are,” says Hicks. “So we’ve seen a lot of strange and harmful budgetary decisions made.”
The pandemic is hitting an already beleaguered education sector hard
This has included disempowering teaching staff by moving them away from tenure-track positions and toward temporary contracts with low wages. Many academics The Verge spoke to for this article cited the rise in temporary contracts as a compounding factor in their fears about copyrighted lecture material being used against them. One 2018 analysis by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) found that 73 percent of faculty positions in the US are non-tenure-track positions.
“Those are the folks we’re most worried about in this current crisis, because they’re going to get cut first,” says Hicks. “They’re also the folks who, if they record their lectures this semester, there’s the highest chance they’re not going to be asked to teach those courses again, and maybe their recorded lectures will be run without their knowledge.”
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Right now, the problems are mostly hypothetical. Normally in the US, anything created by employees belongs to employers because of the work for hire doctrine. But teaching material has long been excluded, thanks to custom and legal precedence. It’s a carve-out known as the “teacher exception.” This means that teaching staff generally own the copyright to content they produce.
Where things get complicated is that universities can and do create bespoke policies to claim copyright over recorded material if they so choose. Christopher Sprigman, a law professor at NYU specializing in intellectual property, tells The Verge that such policies are not common right now, but this is likely to change in the near future.
“The pandemic has really accelerated that conversation, and I’ve seen some evidence that universities are starting to push in this direction,” says Sprigman. “It hasn’t broken out into the open just yet, but it’s in the air.”
Last year, for example, Purdue University adopted a new policy that claimed all online modules as copyrightable work belonging to the institution (though individuals could negotiate specific rights agreements with the university). As reported by Inside Higher Ed, when the pandemic hit, staff worried the same policy would be applied to all traditional classes that were now being remotely delivered. After they voiced their worries, the university stated it would not reuse their online modules without permission.
As David Sanders, an associate professor of biology at Purdue, told Inside Higher Ed, the negotiations showed that “on these things you have to take collective action. People make a difference in what happens. Without that, faculty could have potentially lost all IP rights in posting everything online in the transition to remote instruction.”
The pandemic has forced many higher education institutes, like this one in Lower Saxony, Hildesheim, to move lectures and classes online. Photo by Julian Stratenschulte / picture alliance via Getty Images
The UK also offers some guidance on what to expect during these sorts of negotiations. There, teaching staff have been under similar pressures as those in the US due to budget constraints and a push toward marketized education. But lecture recordings are far more common in the UK, used by roughly 70 percent of institutions as of 2016. That meant that when the UK’s University and College Union (UCU) organized a series of strikes starting in 2018 in opposition to cuts, some universities floated the idea of using recorded lectures to break these strikes.
However, there’s no clear evidence that any universities actually followed through on these threats. And indeed, teaching staff reacted with such fury to the suggestions that it actually led to better policies, says Emily Nordmann, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland whose research focuses on lecture capture.
“The backlash was so strong that the University of Edinburgh [one of the institutions where recorded lectures were suggested as a stand-in for teachers] became the first university in the UK to ban recordings to break strikes,” Nordmann tells The Verge. The university’s official policy on recorded lectures now states that “recordings will not be used to cover university staff exercising their legal right to take industrial action without the lecturers’ consent,” and other institutions have updated their own policies since. As Nordmann says: “They made a mistake but they completely rectified it in the right way.”
“Clear policy and communication can solve a lot of these problems.”
Nordmann notes that although the fear that recorded lectures will be used to break strikes is a quite specific one, it reflects anxieties about the future of higher education more generally. Recorded lectures have many benefits, making it easier for students to revisit challenging material and helping those who manage disabilities like dyslexia. And of course, during a pandemic, they’re absolutely essential to make remote learning work. But teaching staff worry they are a relatively passive form of instruction, one that allows students to switch off, especially if they’re watching last year’s lectures, reheated for consumption.
“The conversation about lecture recordings is part of a larger conversation about what we’re providing and how we expect students to engage with it,” says Nordmann. She says if universities could communicate better with staff about how recorded lectures are used, it would benefit everyone. “Clear policy and communication can solve a lot of these problems.”
Others are warier, however. Hicks says that as a historian of technology, they’re all too aware of the problem of feature creep — the tendency for a technology’s applications to expand beyond its initial scope. A 2018 paper on workplace surveillance and lecture capture compares the danger to that of CCTV. Although security cameras might be installed in a workplace with the intention of protecting against theft, the information they capture can be subject to all sorts of analysis, from making sure employees aren’t wasting time to gauging their emotional moods. Recording lectures has obvious benefits, but norms about how this information is used are still being established, including the question of copyright.


theverge--2020-08-20--Western Digital’s new portable SSDs are faster than ever

Western Digital has along since a mainstay for portable hard drives with its popular My Passport line , but its recently started to shift its focus to solid-state drives — and now the company is launching its second-generation My Passport SSD lineup , which brings even faster speeds than the original .
The new My Passport SSDs borrow from the overall design language from the current hard drive models , but replace the angular corners and waves with a more rounded design to tell the two lines apart .
The idea is that the hard drive lineup — with its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a single device — will serve customers looking for sheer storage , while the new SSDs will offer better speed and durability .
Speed is the name of the game here : the new drive supports the USB-C 3.2 Gen-2 standard , and promises up to 1050MB/s read speeds and up to 1000MB/s write ( roughly twice as fast as the original 2018 My Passport SSD ) .
The new drives also offer a five year warranty , and will come in gray , red , blue , and gold colors .
To @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a 500GB option for $ 119.99 and a 1TB model for $ 189.99 ( both in gray ) starting today , although more colors and a larger 2TB capacity drive are planned for release later this year .

Western Digital has along since a mainstay for portable hard drives with its popular My Passport line, but its recently started to shift its focus to solid-state drives — and now the company is launching its second-generation My Passport SSD lineup, which brings even faster speeds than the original.
The new My Passport SSDs borrow from the overall design language from the current hard drive models, but replace the angular corners and waves with a more rounded design to tell the two lines apart. The idea is that the hard drive lineup — with its larger capacities of up to 5TBs on a single device — will serve customers looking for sheer storage, while the new SSDs will offer better speed and durability.
Speed is the name of the game here: the new drive supports the USB-C 3.2 Gen-2 standard, and promises up to 1050MB/s read speeds and up to 1000MB/s write (roughly twice as fast as the original 2018 My Passport SSD). The new drives also offer a five year warranty, and will come in gray, red, blue, and gold colors.


theverge--2020-08-20--Teachers share their biggest fears about reopening schools during the pandemic

A couple of weeks before the first day of school , Amanda received a welcome kit from the Texas high school she ’ s set to teach theater at this year .
The kit included a cloth mask and a face shield — the personal protective equipment ( PPE ) she ’ s expected to wear when she spends time on campus this semester .
However , neither piece seemed particularly reliable .
“ It ’ s a three-layer cloth mask— it ’ s not a medical mask — and the face shield looks like it was made by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Verge .
“ But I mean , I ’ ll take it because I know some of my other teacher friends aren ’ t receiving PPE at all ; they ’ re having to pay out of pocket to get masks for themselves.
” Amanda officially started teaching classes this week , along with thousands of other teachers across the country .
Amanda is not her real name .
She didn ’ t want her name revealed for fear of retribution from her school .
“ Amanda , ” like the names of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is a pseudonym .
In her district , the first three weeks will be something of an experiment .
All of the students will stay home , while the teachers come onto campus and provide live instruction over Zoom or other videoconferencing tools .
That way , the students will still see their teachers inside their classrooms .
“ I ’ m maybe 0.5 percent worried about my ability to effectively teach online , and I ’ m 99.5 percent worried about potentially dying.
” But once the first three weeks are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her school will move forward .
It ’ s possible the district could extend online learning for a few more weeks or the students may be required to come in full-time .
Regardless of what happens , Amanda feels conflicted about what ’ s to come .
“ I ’ m one of those teachers that gets sick anytime a kid gets sick , ” she says .
“ I ’ m not immunocompromised , but I do catch what the kids bring .
I get the flu like every other year .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on my mind of trying to be like , ‘ Oh yeah , I ’ m excited for this school year , ’ which I am .
But also , I don ’ t want to get sick ; I don ’ t want any of my students to get sick .
I don ’ t want any of my colleagues to get sick and die.
” Across the country , teachers like Amanda are grappling with uncertainty about how they ’ re going to instruct their students for the bulk of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is still in full swing in the US , and recently , cases have surged in states like Texas , Florida , Arizona , and elsewhere .
Many teachers are having to prepare for some form of online learning , while the threat of having to do in-person teaching hangs over their heads .
They ’ re concerned about their own safety , the safety of their families , and the safety of their students .
“ The thing I am least worried about , for me personally , is being able to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a high school chemistry teacher in Texas , tells The Verge .
“ I ’ m maybe 0.5 percent worried about my ability to effectively teach online , and I ’ m 99.5 percent worried about potentially dying.
” For a long time , the science surrounding kids and COVID-19 was pretty murky .
At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis , very few children seemed to contract the disease , leading some experts to wonder if kids were less susceptible to the novel coronavirus .
Scientists also had a difficult time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as most schools shifted to online learning in March , when many US states initiated lockdown measures .
But as the pandemic has worn on , a new narrative has emerged .
Research has shown that while children are less likely to get severely sick from the virus , they are definitely not immune — and they ’ re capable of spreading it , too .
A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that children between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at the same rate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID-19 transmission in South Korea .
Research published in The Journal of the American Medical Association also revealed that children under the age of five who have contracted mild cases of COVID-19 still have high amounts of the virus ’ s RNA in their throats .
The American Academy of Pediatrics released a report stating that a little more than 97,000 school-aged children tested positive for COVID-19 in the last two weeks of July .
Case studies are emerging , showing what happens when large groups of children gather amid the pandemic Case @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when large groups of children gather amid the pandemic .
After Israel reopened its schools in May , one Jerusalem high school saw a substantial outbreak of COVID-19 , which spread among students , teachers , and others in the community .
At one sleepaway summer camp in Georgia , 290 people wound up testing positive for COVID-19 out of nearly 600 campers and staff .
At the same time , debate has raged over reopening schools in the fall .
President Donald Trump has been very vocal about his desire for schools @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threatening to withhold federal funding from states where schools remain closed .
Ultimately , each state is responsible for deciding how its schools will move forward .
Some states are leaving it up to the individual districts to figure out what is best for teachers and students .
Some states like Texas are mandating that schools eventually do in-person learning , though the state is allowing districts to conduct online learning for a maximum of eight weeks at first .
Other states like Arizona are insisting that at least some students come into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a place to go during the day ” — or else districts will not qualify for enhanced funding .
That mandate is affecting the Arizona elementary school where Jessica , a teaching coach , works .
This week , around 100 students who require special education , speak English as a second language , have reduced lunches , or are children of essential workers will come to campus .
But they won ’ t be going back to their classrooms like usual .
“ It ’ s not like they magically go back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Verge .
“ They ’ re all still doing online learning , they ’ re just doing it at school.
” The kids will be split up into various rooms and spaced apart from each other .
They ’ ll then be taught by teachers through a computer screen ; the teachers will either be giving instruction from home or in another room on campus .
Meanwhile , chaperones will watch over the students to make sure no one is getting into trouble and help any kids who have questions .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stressed-out teachers , according to Jessica .
Not only do instructors have anxiety about somehow contracting the virus at school , but they ’ ve also had to completely shift to online learning , using new platforms like Canvas and Teams .
That means many teachers are spending a lot more energy figuring out how to work new technologies and adapt their curriculum , rather than focusing on the content they ’ re teaching .
“ I ’ m really worried about bringing stuff home to my kids , but I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep us up at night.
” Fortunately , Jessica ’ s school is letting teachers choose to teach from home for now if they ’ re uncomfortable , so she ’ s been avoiding going onto campus as much as possible .
With two young babies at home , she ’ s worried about bringing the virus home to her children .
“ Not everybody has the same level of fear or necessity in terms of wearing a mask , ” she says .
“ You might walk into a room and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ talk to you or get closer to you or try to hand you stuff , and I just feel anxious.
” Still , she says she has mixed feelings about the school year .
While she doesn ’ t think it ’ s a good idea to bring any children on campus during the pandemic , she still worries about those high-risk children who do rely on the school as a stable place away from home .
Jessica notes that the free and reduced lunches the school provides are critical for some kids @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home with certain students over the weekend .
“ Yes I ’ m really worried about bringing stuff home to my kids , but I ’ m also really worried about the kids that keep us up at night , ” she says .
For other teachers , the future of teaching is still uncertain .
Less than two weeks before the first day of school was set to begin , Dan and other teachers in his district in Columbus , Ohio , still didn ’ t know what teaching was going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His district was waffling between different scenarios , ranging from total online learning to having teachers and students come on campus full-time while wearing masks .
District officials also discussed doing a hybrid approach , with teachers and students coming in for only a few days each week and then doing online learning the rest of the week .
It ’ s made planning for the year incredibly difficult , as the teachers have had to prep for all three possibilities .
“ Two weeks ago , we were hybrid , then last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s up in the air again , ” Dan , a chemistry and physical education teacher , says .
“ The school board keeps meeting about it , and I think a lot of us are frustrated .
Just make a decision , so we know what to do.
” “ A lot of the parents in our district are very vocal about : ‘ Teachers aren ’ t going to work ; they ’ re just going to day drink !
’ ” In Dan ’ s district , officials tried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the number of cases and hospitalization metrics within the surrounding community .
As the cases have fluctuated , so has the decision about how to proceed .
Just a few days before classes began , the district finally decided to do full online learning , as the number of cases in his community are still in the “ red ” level .
Dan thinks it ’ s the best decision for everyone .
“ The more I started thinking about it , yeah I don ’ t really want to roll the dice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in seven adults that will die from it , ” he says .
“ I ’ m kind of on board with the whole e-learning mode.
” However , the district is eager to move to the hybrid approach when cases come back down .
And Dan will still have to teach from on campus during online learning , even with all of the students staying at home .
He attributes that decision to a loud contingent of parents who have voiced concerns at board meetings and through social media posts about teachers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A lot of the parents in our district are very vocal about : ‘ Teachers aren ’ t going to work ; they ’ re just going to day drink !
I want my taxes back ’ type of stuff , ” he says .
“ And so , as of right now , the superintendent said that even though the kids are at home , the staff has to report to the building and teach online from your normal classroom ... To be honest I was planning on going in a couple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ making that mandatory because parents are complaining seems a little more political than I would like.
” For Kristen in Texas , she ’ s also been experiencing a push from people in her district to make it mandatory for teachers to go onto campus .
During one board meeting , a district official tried to argue that teachers would slack off if they stayed home .
“ This guy says something along the lines of : ‘ I just don ’ t think we can let any teacher teach from home because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — because they might just be taking advantage of it and working at home , ’ ” she says , recounting the argument .
“ ‘ We don ’ t know if they have real disabilities or not .
And I see their pictures on Facebook of them at the beach and they just don ’ t want to work is what it really is.
’ ” “ My family is not going to have a choice about me working or not .
We need my income.
” Despite this pressure , Kristen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right away .
Her school will also start with three weeks of online learning before kids and teachers come on campus full-time .
When the three weeks are up , all of the teachers will have to come in , though parents can choose to keep their kids home if they want .
She says the push to reopen from the district is causing a ton of anxiety because she can ’ t afford to stop teaching .
“ I understand that there are families that don ’ t have much of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but my family is not going to have a choice about me working or not .
We need my income.
” With a young daughter at home , Kristen says she ’ s come up with an elaborate plan for how she ’ ll teach at school with students and then come home to her family .
“ I ’ m considering buying myself a face shield , and I ’ m probably going to buy those hair wraps that surgeons wear , because my current plan is to not bring the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she says .
Her principal also gave teachers the okay to wear scrubs and gloves to school , considering it to be professional attire .
“ So I ’ m probably going to wear a tank top and some bike shorts under scrubs every day and then in the parking lot , take the gloves off and put them in a bag in my car and then drive home .
And then as soon as I get home disinfect my car and strip down and put my clothes in the washer.
” Ultimately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forced to come onto campus — students and teachers — there will be tragic results .
Cases of COVID-19 have increased substantially in her area , and she thinks it ’ ll only be a matter of time before someone she knows gets sick .
“ Looking at the current infection rates in my area and knowing the size of my school and knowing the kinds of medically vulnerable coworkers that I have , it ’ s not a question to me that I am going to know some people who will die @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to face , ” she says .
“ It ’ s not a question to me that I am going to know some people who will die from this if school goes back face to face.
” The United States will find out very soon if in-person education leads to more COVID-19 outbreaks .
So far , schools that reopened early haven ’ t had great results .
Schools in Georgia ’ s Cherokee County School District have already been forced to shut down after classes began in early August .
Students started @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nearly 1,200 people in the county are quarantining .
Another nearby Georgia school , North Paulding High School , has also temporarily closed after nine people tested positive following the first week of classes .
The school had received national attention after pictures surfaced from inside the campus showing halls of crowded students , many of whom were not wearing masks .
More than 2,000 students and teachers in Mississippi are now in quarantine after schools reopened and more than 400 teachers and students tested positive for COVID-19 .
Statistically , the students @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fewer than 100 kids under the age of 18 have died from the virus in the United States , according to the CDC .
But kids can catch it , and they can spread it .
And if children are at school for most of the day , the closest adults nearby will likely be their teachers , older individuals who don ’ t have as good of odds .
Teachers hope that their districts and lawmakers think about that as the debate over in-person teaching rages on .
“ Not enough emphasis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” says Amanda from Texas .
“ If it ’ s incredibly important for students to be home , teachers should be able to stay home as well .
”

Part of / The Verge’s Back to School Special
A couple of weeks before the first day of school, Amanda received a welcome kit from the Texas high school she’s set to teach theater at this year. The kit included a cloth mask and a face shield — the personal protective equipment (PPE) she’s expected to wear when she spends time on campus this semester. However, neither piece seemed particularly reliable.
“It’s a three-layer cloth mask— it’s not a medical mask — and the face shield looks like it was made by a Booster Club,” Amanda tells The Verge. “But I mean, I’ll take it because I know some of my other teacher friends aren’t receiving PPE at all; they’re having to pay out of pocket to get masks for themselves.”
Amanda officially started teaching classes this week, along with thousands of other teachers across the country. Amanda is not her real name. She didn’t want her name revealed for fear of retribution from her school. “Amanda,” like the names of the other teachers interviewed for this story, is a pseudonym. In her district, the first three weeks will be something of an experiment. All of the students will stay home, while the teachers come onto campus and provide live instruction over Zoom or other videoconferencing tools. That way, the students will still see their teachers inside their classrooms.
“I’m maybe 0.5 percent worried about my ability to effectively teach online, and I’m 99.5 percent worried about potentially dying.”
But once the first three weeks are up, it’s unclear how her school will move forward. It’s possible the district could extend online learning for a few more weeks or the students may be required to come in full-time. Regardless of what happens, Amanda feels conflicted about what’s to come. “I’m one of those teachers that gets sick anytime a kid gets sick,” she says. “I’m not immunocompromised, but I do catch what the kids bring. I get the flu like every other year. So it’s just a lot on my mind of trying to be like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m excited for this school year,’ which I am. But also, I don’t want to get sick; I don’t want any of my students to get sick. I don’t want any of my colleagues to get sick and die.”
Across the country, teachers like Amanda are grappling with uncertainty about how they’re going to instruct their students for the bulk of the 2020-2021 school year. The COVID-19 pandemic is still in full swing in the US, and recently, cases have surged in states like Texas, Florida, Arizona, and elsewhere. Many teachers are having to prepare for some form of online learning, while the threat of having to do in-person teaching hangs over their heads. They’re concerned about their own safety, the safety of their families, and the safety of their students.
“The thing I am least worried about, for me personally, is being able to deliver digital instruction effectively,” Kristen, a high school chemistry teacher in Texas, tells The Verge. “I’m maybe 0.5 percent worried about my ability to effectively teach online, and I’m 99.5 percent worried about potentially dying.”
For a long time, the science surrounding kids and COVID-19 was pretty murky. At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, very few children seemed to contract the disease, leading some experts to wonder if kids were less susceptible to the novel coronavirus. Scientists also had a difficult time studying transmission in children at first, as most schools shifted to online learning in March, when many US states initiated lockdown measures.
But as the pandemic has worn on, a new narrative has emerged. Research has shown that while children are less likely to get severely sick from the virus, they are definitely not immune — and they’re capable of spreading it, too. A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that children between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at the same rate that adults do, after looking at COVID-19 transmission in South Korea. Research published in The Journal of the American Medical Association also revealed that children under the age of five who have contracted mild cases of COVID-19 still have high amounts of the virus’s RNA in their throats. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a report stating that a little more than 97,000 school-aged children tested positive for COVID-19 in the last two weeks of July.
Case studies are emerging, showing what happens when large groups of children gather amid the pandemic
Case studies are emerging, showing what happens when large groups of children gather amid the pandemic. After Israel reopened its schools in May, one Jerusalem high school saw a substantial outbreak of COVID-19, which spread among students, teachers, and others in the community. At one sleepaway summer camp in Georgia, 290 people wound up testing positive for COVID-19 out of nearly 600 campers and staff.
At the same time, debate has raged over reopening schools in the fall. President Donald Trump has been very vocal about his desire for schools to reopen for in-person education, even threatening to withhold federal funding from states where schools remain closed. Ultimately, each state is responsible for deciding how its schools will move forward. Some states are leaving it up to the individual districts to figure out what is best for teachers and students. Some states like Texas are mandating that schools eventually do in-person learning, though the state is allowing districts to conduct online learning for a maximum of eight weeks at first. Other states like Arizona are insisting that at least some students come into school full-time — kids “who need a place to go during the day” — or else districts will not qualify for enhanced funding.
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That mandate is affecting the Arizona elementary school where Jessica, a teaching coach, works. This week, around 100 students who require special education, speak English as a second language, have reduced lunches, or are children of essential workers will come to campus. But they won’t be going back to their classrooms like usual. “It’s not like they magically go back to their grade,” Jessica tells The Verge. “They’re all still doing online learning, they’re just doing it at school.” The kids will be split up into various rooms and spaced apart from each other. They’ll then be taught by teachers through a computer screen; the teachers will either be giving instruction from home or in another room on campus. Meanwhile, chaperones will watch over the students to make sure no one is getting into trouble and help any kids who have questions.
The setup has led to a lot of stressed-out teachers, according to Jessica. Not only do instructors have anxiety about somehow contracting the virus at school, but they’ve also had to completely shift to online learning, using new platforms like Canvas and Teams. That means many teachers are spending a lot more energy figuring out how to work new technologies and adapt their curriculum, rather than focusing on the content they’re teaching.
“I’m really worried about bringing stuff home to my kids, but I’m also really worried about the kids that keep us up at night.”
Fortunately, Jessica’s school is letting teachers choose to teach from home for now if they’re uncomfortable, so she’s been avoiding going onto campus as much as possible. With two young babies at home, she’s worried about bringing the virus home to her children. “Not everybody has the same level of fear or necessity in terms of wearing a mask,” she says. “You might walk into a room and then they just stay unmasked and continue to talk to you or get closer to you or try to hand you stuff, and I just feel anxious.”
Still, she says she has mixed feelings about the school year. While she doesn’t think it’s a good idea to bring any children on campus during the pandemic, she still worries about those high-risk children who do rely on the school as a stable place away from home. Jessica notes that the free and reduced lunches the school provides are critical for some kids, and teachers will even send meals home with certain students over the weekend. “Yes I’m really worried about bringing stuff home to my kids, but I’m also really worried about the kids that keep us up at night,” she says.
For other teachers, the future of teaching is still uncertain. Less than two weeks before the first day of school was set to begin, Dan and other teachers in his district in Columbus, Ohio, still didn’t know what teaching was going to look like for the school year. His district was waffling between different scenarios, ranging from total online learning to having teachers and students come on campus full-time while wearing masks. District officials also discussed doing a hybrid approach, with teachers and students coming in for only a few days each week and then doing online learning the rest of the week.
It’s made planning for the year incredibly difficult, as the teachers have had to prep for all three possibilities. “Two weeks ago, we were hybrid, then last week were all online and now it’s up in the air again,” Dan, a chemistry and physical education teacher, says. “The school board keeps meeting about it, and I think a lot of us are frustrated. Just make a decision, so we know what to do.”
“A lot of the parents in our district are very vocal about: ‘Teachers aren’t going to work; they’re just going to day drink!’”
In Dan’s district, officials tried to make the final decision based on the number of cases and hospitalization metrics within the surrounding community. As the cases have fluctuated, so has the decision about how to proceed. Just a few days before classes began, the district finally decided to do full online learning, as the number of cases in his community are still in the “red” level. Dan thinks it’s the best decision for everyone. “The more I started thinking about it, yeah I don’t really want to roll the dice on going back and being the one in seven adults that will die from it,” he says. “I’m kind of on board with the whole e-learning mode.”
However, the district is eager to move to the hybrid approach when cases come back down. And Dan will still have to teach from on campus during online learning, even with all of the students staying at home. He attributes that decision to a loud contingent of parents who have voiced concerns at board meetings and through social media posts about teachers staying at home to teach. “A lot of the parents in our district are very vocal about: ‘Teachers aren’t going to work; they’re just going to day drink! I want my taxes back’ type of stuff,” he says. “And so, as of right now, the superintendent said that even though the kids are at home, the staff has to report to the building and teach online from your normal classroom... To be honest I was planning on going in a couple times anyways for the labs, but making that mandatory because parents are complaining seems a little more political than I would like.”
For Kristen in Texas, she’s also been experiencing a push from people in her district to make it mandatory for teachers to go onto campus. During one board meeting, a district official tried to argue that teachers would slack off if they stayed home. “This guy says something along the lines of: ‘I just don’t think we can let any teacher teach from home because we need them all in the building — because they might just be taking advantage of it and working at home,’” she says, recounting the argument. “‘We don’t know if they have real disabilities or not. And I see their pictures on Facebook of them at the beach and they just don’t want to work is what it really is.’”
“My family is not going to have a choice about me working or not. We need my income.”
Despite this pressure, Kristen won’t go back to campus right away. Her school will also start with three weeks of online learning before kids and teachers come on campus full-time. When the three weeks are up, all of the teachers will have to come in, though parents can choose to keep their kids home if they want. She says the push to reopen from the district is causing a ton of anxiety because she can’t afford to stop teaching. “I understand that there are families that don’t have much of a choice about sending their children to school, but my family is not going to have a choice about me working or not. We need my income.”
With a young daughter at home, Kristen says she’s come up with an elaborate plan for how she’ll teach at school with students and then come home to her family. “I’m considering buying myself a face shield, and I’m probably going to buy those hair wraps that surgeons wear, because my current plan is to not bring the virus home to my family,” she says. Her principal also gave teachers the okay to wear scrubs and gloves to school, considering it to be professional attire. “So I’m probably going to wear a tank top and some bike shorts under scrubs every day and then in the parking lot, take the gloves off and put them in a bag in my car and then drive home. And then as soon as I get home disinfect my car and strip down and put my clothes in the washer.”
Ultimately, she thinks that if everyone is forced to come onto campus — students and teachers — there will be tragic results. Cases of COVID-19 have increased substantially in her area, and she thinks it’ll only be a matter of time before someone she knows gets sick. “Looking at the current infection rates in my area and knowing the size of my school and knowing the kinds of medically vulnerable coworkers that I have, it’s not a question to me that I am going to know some people who will die from this if school goes back face to face,” she says.
“It’s not a question to me that I am going to know some people who will die from this if school goes back face to face.”
The United States will find out very soon if in-person education leads to more COVID-19 outbreaks. So far, schools that reopened early haven’t had great results. Schools in Georgia’s Cherokee County School District have already been forced to shut down after classes began in early August. Students started testing positive for COVID-19, and now nearly 1,200 people in the county are quarantining. Another nearby Georgia school, North Paulding High School, has also temporarily closed after nine people tested positive following the first week of classes. The school had received national attention after pictures surfaced from inside the campus showing halls of crowded students, many of whom were not wearing masks. More than 2,000 students and teachers in Mississippi are now in quarantine after schools reopened and more than 400 teachers and students tested positive for COVID-19.
Statistically, the students in those schools will probably survive. Fewer than 100 kids under the age of 18 have died from the virus in the United States, according to the CDC. But kids can catch it, and they can spread it. And if children are at school for most of the day, the closest adults nearby will likely be their teachers, older individuals who don’t have as good of odds.