Do We Care about Schools and Teachers in 2020?

photo by You Belong in Longmont / flikr

What a strange thing when we politize it looks like everything. Science. Truth telling. Crowd size. Masks. CDC. On and on we could go. But I keep scratching my head about the opening and closing of schools. We've been here before during the temptuous Civil rights days. Finally we got through that--sorta. But now as the Coronavirus rages across the country we have been told that we must open the schools or the children will be scarred irreparably. Really? What about all those brown-skin children ripped from their parents and caged like animals. Any scars there? Maybe they don't count. Who knows?

We are told that most children will be immune to this cursed virus. I hope so. But what about the teachers? They have always been on the back of the bus but NOW? We put all of our teachers at great risk when we open the classroom doors this fall.  Not to speak of the children.

Having a daughter who has been a lifetime teacher--and a good one--I am concerned about her safety and everybody's teachers. Are we going to ignore all these heroes who get up early day after day and come to school, open the doors and smile as the kids come rushing in? What about them? There are a whole lot of subjects that do not need politicizing. Tim Willis, my partner in theological crimes--and more--raises some uncomfortable questions about schools, teachers and students.  Read this article brimming with questions that need desperately to be addressed. --RL

Tim S. Willis

23 hrs  · 

Critical and important questions that need to be asked:

Betsy DeVos, we have a few questions for you:

• If a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 are they required to quarantine for 2-3 weeks? Is their sick leave covered, paid?

• If that teacher has 5 classes a day with 30 students each, do all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days?

• Do all 150 of those students now have to get tested? Who pays for those tests? Are they happening at school? How are the parents being notified? Does everyone in each of those kids' families need to get tested? Who pays for that?

• What if someone who lives in the same house as a teacher tests positive? Does that teacher now need to take 14 days off of work to quarantine? Is that time off covered? Paid?

• Where is the district going to find a substitute teacher who will work in a classroom full of exposed, possibly infected students for substitute pay?

• Substitutes teach in multiple schools. What if they are diagnosed with COVID-19? Do all the kids in each school now have to quarantine and get tested? Who is going to pay for that?

• What if a student in your kid's class tests positive? What if your kid tests positive? Does every other student and teacher they have been around quarantine? Do we all get notified who is infected and when? Or because of HIPAA regulations are parents and teachers just going to get mysterious “may have been in contact” emails all year long?

• What is this stress going to do to our teachers? How does it affect their health and well-being? How does it affect their ability to teach? How does it affect the quality of education they are able to provide? What is it going to do to our kids? What are the long-term effects of consistently being stressed out?

• How will it affect students and faculty when the first teacher in their school dies from this? The first parent of a student who brought it home? The first kid?

• How many more people are going to die, that otherwise would not have if we had stayed home longer?

30% of the teachers in the US are over 50. About 16% of the total deaths in the US are people between the ages of 45-65.

We are choosing to put our teachers in danger.

We're not paying them more.

We aren't spending anywhere near the right amount to protect them. And in turn, we are putting ourselves and our kids in danger.

Please copy, paste and share.

photo by Brecht Bug / flikr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com