Way back in 2011, I wrote a blog here on Kos about how excited I was to become a teacher. Here I am again, in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, writing again about being a teacher. But this time, I’m not full of hope in the face of difficulty. I’m scared.
I’m in Las Vegas, Nevada, where our Covid-19 numbers continue to grow. Public schools in Clark County are currently 100% distance learning, but our school board is meeting on November 12th to discuss, and possibly vote, on both plans and dates to reopen our schools. Back in August, the Trustees voted to keep us at 100% distance learning until we were showing test positivity rates at or below 5% for 14 consecutive days. Only then were they supposed to approve a date to reopen.
But alas, how things change when big business gets involved. This is Vegas, after all, and without businesses open, conventions in town, and money flowing from the outside, we are a ghost town. Damn the health and safety of its residents. Show me the money!
The head of the Southern Nevada Health District presented information at our last School Board of Trustees meeting that, in a nutshell, said that it’s going to be a really long time before we hit the 5% positive threshold, so SNHD would support a hybrid school reopening plan now.
Now. When are over a 10% positivity rate WITH our schools closed. Meanwhile, Boston schools are shutting down again because their numbers went UP to 5.7%. (*Update, looking for a source now — apparently Clark Co is above 12% positivity today.)
There are many parent groups all over Facebook that are talking about how they need to get their kids out of the house. They need to go back to normal. Schools need to reopen NOW! I’m sure you’ve also heard about the Mom Code up in Utah, where a bunch of mommies decided that it is selfish to get yourself or your kids tested for Covid because if they come back positive, schools and sports will shut down. Nope, not kidding. This is happening here in Las Vegas, too. I’m sure it’s happening all over the place.
Last week I sent an open letter to a popular education blog here in Las Vegas,
Clark County School Watch. I originally asked the editor to publish it without my name attached for several reasons that would only matter to those in Clark County, but someone who recognized my voice reached out to me and said I should own it. That what I said was important. So here I am owning it on a grand scale.
Here is where it was originally published.
I am an educator. I earned a degree in Elementary Education so I could teach kids how to read, write, and do math. I also teach kids how to think critically and how to be good humans, which is disheartening considering how many adults I have met who are neither critical thinkers nor good humans. But because of the backwards nature of our culture and society, I also wear the hats of a counselor, psychologist, nurse, nutritionist, time manager, and family therapist, among countless other things.
For decades, our schools have been tasked with being responsible for the supports that should be in place at home and within the community at large. A phrase I’ve heard countless times in the last eight months is that schools are the center of the community. And this is true. Sad, but true.
In fact, one of the arguments against closing our schools in March, during the uptick in cases of a deadly virus was, “If kids aren’t in schools, they’re going to go hungry.” If this is the case, then our society has failed in the most basic of ways. If families cannot feed their children, for whatever the reason, we do not live in a thriving economy no matter what Wall Street shills want you to believe. If avoiding school kids being responsible for the transmission of an illness that is possibly 10 times more deadly than the flu is untenable because school is the only way a kid will have a meal, we’re in trouble, my friends.
(Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine)
The argument for students needing to go back to school for mental health reasons is a big issue. I have kids at home who miss their friends, one suffers from anxiety and depression under the best of circumstances, and I understand that there are families in rough situations.
But if a child’s homelife is so terrible that the only option to save that child from mental health woes is to send them back to school in the midst of a deadly pandemic, then again, we have bigger issues at play in our society than we can fix by sending kids back to school.
But for the sake of argument, let’s think this through. Let’s talk about kids heading back to school for face to face instruction. Here’s the ugly truth.
Students will NOT be playing on the playground with other kids. They will NOT be working in small groups with each other, scattered around the classroom. They will NOT be sitting with their teacher and friends, playing games to improve their reading or math skills. They will NOT have a teacher sitting at their desk for one-on-one help. They will NOT be hanging out with their friends, laughing in the cafeteria while they eat lunch. They will NOT be running around when the bell rings, being silly, playing tag, and gossiping with their friends.
They will be sitting at their desk, six feet from any other human, wearing a mask, likely surrounded by a plastic shield of some sort, for 7 hours a day. They will be eating lunch at their desk, silently, since their masks will be off and talking, yelling, laughing, etc. expels droplets that can possibly infect others, even if a child is asymptomatic. Their teacher will be attempting to help them from a minimum of six feet away – there will be no individual help. There will be no task card games. There will be no Fun Friday. There will be no shared supplies. There will be no singing in music specials. There will be none of the activities that make school fun for kids. Kids will be told repeatedly to keep their mask on their faces. They will get in trouble if they take their masks off. They will walk in lines, six feet away from each other. They will be sent to the bathroom alone.
How is any of this good for a child’s mental health?
Students who cough or seem ill will immediately be sent to the nurse. Of course, this is assuming the nurse isn’t at home under quarantine because a parent sent a kid loaded on fever reducers and cough meds to school and that child later turned out to have Covid-19. In that case, it will fall to the FASA or office staff. Then, if the student turns out to have the virus, those adults who were in contact with the child will need to stay home. Ever try to run a school with no office staff? It cannot be done.
Teachers who usually power through the day when they are under the weather will now be staying at home because that low-grade fever could be an ear infection or a possibly deadly virus. Hell, I worked through what I thought was allergies for a week before I spiked a 103.5 fever. Ask around… how many classes were split last year because there weren’t enough substitute teachers? Classes will NOT be split when we go back, or we risk exposing kids to even more people outside of their bubbles. Then what? What is the solution? I sure don’t have one. Neither does the district.
Add to that the stress that students and families will be put under when a student’s entire classroom (or school) is inevitably sent home for 10-14 days because a student or adult has exposed them to Covid-19. Then what? Back to distance learning. More disruption. More uncertainty. More unnecessary drama. And God forbid a student or teacher get severely ill or die.
I certainly don’t want to explain to my children that their friend, classmate, or teacher is dead. And, please, spare me the, “Enough with the scare tactics! This is hyperbole!! 99.9384383473% survival rate!!!” There are 220,000+ dead bodies and their friends and family who will say otherwise. Many of them students and teachers. This isn’t even taking into account the ‘long haulers’ who are suffering from life-changing after-effects of this virus up to eight months after first becoming symptomatic.
Look, I’m a teacher. I know how hard it is to teach from home. I know how hard this is on kids trying to learn from home because I’m a parent, too. I’ve put in the 12+ hour days working then turned around and worked for another 4 hours to help my own kid with schoolwork.
But we are 9 weeks in. We have a rhythm and routine. Families know what to expect and are adapting to this new normal that hopefully won’t be the norm for much longer. People need to keep wearing masks and staying away from other people to help stop easily preventable community spread. If we had done that in the first place, just sucked it up for a couple of months, we would be through this already. But that’s another rant for another day.
The attitude that getting this virus is inevitable is selfish and disgusting. It is not inevitable. In fact, it is easily avoidable if everyone in the community is diligent and follows CDC guidelines and recommendations. I have not sacrificed so much of my life over the last 8 months to just give up now. The pandemic isn’t over just because we’re tired of dealing with it, and those who behave as if nothing is happening, or that we’re all destined to get the virus, are the problem.
It’s time to be real. We need to plan on finishing out the 2020/2021 school year virtually. If in the spring there is a vaccine, and we are able to deploy it to enough people to effectively cripple the high transmission rate, then let’s think about heading back into buildings.
Distance learning is far from perfect, I agree. There will be learning loss and students will be behind next year, but it’s OK. Teachers will pick up the slack when we are back in buildings next year. We will fill in the gaps because that’s what we are trained to do. Academic Gap Filler is just another of our many hats.
Sarah Sunnasy
An Elementary Educator in the Clark County School District