I find it mind-blowing that I am actually having to process this. Five weeks from today, I am supposed to be standing in my classroom, along with my coworkers and approximately 500 students. Cases of COVID continue to rise, we continue to hear more and more about how children can get the virus and serve as carriers. And yet in five weeks, I am supposed to surround myself with countless students, age 5-9, and teach them.
I will fully own up to the fact that when this process started in March, I didn't think it would be anywhere near this serious. I figured we would be back in school after spring break and things would go on as they had for the rest of the year. Spring break came and went, and we dove head first into "distance learning". This absolutely had its own set of learning difficulties and I wont pretend for a second that I thought it went as it could have. But all things considered, teachers adapted instruction within the span of about 2 days after being trained in the platforms we would be using. Teachers took what they knew how to do, and transferred it into an "I think this will be okay" format. We did the best we could with the limited amount of time that we had.
There are posts floating around that for the first time in my professional life, made me think that possibly people were starting to understand a little bit of what we do on a daily basis. And that appreciation lingered for the most part through the end of the school year. However, in the last few weeks, we seem to have shifted from "we don't do nearly enough to support teachers for all they do for our community and society" to "they need to go back to work" or "we can't go on with our lives until someone takes care of my kids, so schools have to open their buildings back up 100%).
Inherently, in those statements, it hints at the fact that teachers and the education system are vital to our society as a whole. But I want to know when it became acceptable to call teachers selfish, lazy, and a number of other words I've heard tossed around, for trying to protect our health, the health of our students, and our families health.
Next, lets touch on those CDC guidelines for reopening school buildings. First and foremost, the lowest risk option to all involved is 100% online learning, allowing students and staff (teachers, paras, custodians, principals, bus drivers, etc) to stay home and avoid possible contamination. This is the lowest risk option for all involved. That should be the end of the story - this should be what we are doing, in order to protect the greatest number of people possible.
Next, we look at things the CDC suggests you can do to keep the spread as low as possible if we do open up. "Develop policies that encourage sick employees and students to stay at home without fear of reprisal, and ensure employees, students, and students’ families are aware of these policies. Consider not having perfect attendance awards, not assessing schools based on absenteeism, and offering virtual learning and telework options, if feasible." So what happens if an employee only has 2 sick days? Do they come in and work so that they can support their families and pay their bills, or do they stay home? Do sick days get used when an employee is out for COVID related reasons? How do we truly make this realistic and doable? Are employees no longer marked down in their evaluations because they have missed a certain number of days? We need answers to these very important questions.
Lets talk about masks next. I fully support that all people within a school building should be wearing a mask. That starts with our Pre-K students, through all grade levels, and all adults that are in the building for any reason. But what happens when students have to eat in their classrooms, and all take their masks off? They are not only possibly exposing themselves and their peers, but the staff member required to be in that room with them as well.
Now comes the big one. Adequate supplies. My building will go days without any paper towel, soap, or sanitizer. Custodians don't always have time to get to everything because they are overworked. So do we close school when this inevitably happens? I have purchased 95% or higher of the materials in my classroom. So where are Clorox wipes and other classroom cleaning materials coming from? And when we run out, will there be a building supply to immediately replenish this with? This ties directly in with making sure all surfaces are adequately cleaned. Who is going to do this? My district has been short staffed in this department for as long as I can remember. Getting my floors quickly vacuumed maybe happens once a week. I normally don't have trash taken out at least once a week. There are days I come in and I can tell no one has even walked into my room. How is this going to be fixed?
Ventilation - I am only going to make one comment about this. NONE of the windows in my building open!
Modified Layout. Hahahahahahahahaha. If I am going to have people at least 6 feet apart in my resource room I will be able to fit two students in there with me. Two. Classroom teachers could get 9-12 maybe? So that is like 1/3 of a normal classroom size. We have 1 empty classroom in my building. Where are those other children going to go? And who is going to teach them?
That's just a basic run through of some of the CDC guidelines. All that does is open up more questions that we have yet to get answers to.
So assuming that the CDC guidelines wont be able to be followed as closely as they should, which is a fairly reasonable assumption, then what? We are back at a scenario where we are asking teachers to be okay with putting themselves in danger. Accepting that this danger is "what we signed up for" is not going to happen. You have teachers that are terrified for what the next months will bring. How are they going to keep their parents, children, and significant others safe when they are being forced to go into unsafe situations.
You will see some teachers retire early. You will see others resign. Others will take a leave of absence. In my opinion, those are the lucky ones. I am looking at the very real possibility that I will have to go back to work, because I simply have no other choice. I am a single woman with a mortgage and other loans to pay. I cannot simply walk away from my salary without knowing it will be made up in other forms. So as of now, I will go back to work, with students as of 8/25/20. I will put myself into a situation where I do not feel safe because I have no other reliable choice.
Please don't ask me to work in conditions where I feel unsafe. Please don't ask me to sacrifice my mental and physical health just so kids can go back to school. Please don't ask me to keep myself away from all of my family and friends so that I don't possibly pass this on to them. Please don't ask me to do this.
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