Jacob Fertig, a public high school teacher interviewed by Time Magazine, compared the reopening of public schools to “playing a game of Russian roulette to our most experienced educators.” Teachers like Fertig have been pleading with local governments to withhold the reopening of public schools until teachers have been given the opportunity to receive a vaccine. By hastily ushering students back into schools in mid-February, the health of thousands of educators has become vulnerable due to widespread exposure to COVID-19. The simple solution to this mounting issue would be to vaccinate our teachers before opening up school doors to students. So why risk our teachers' lives in the interest of a few lost weeks?
In the latest WCPSS Board of Education meeting, an 8 to 1 vote determined that students who wished to return to the building could do so for grades K-12, K-5 on Plan A and 6-12 on Plan B. This decision seemed entirely student-focused, and disregarded the lack of space, staff, and feasibility necessary in order to carry out this option. In addition to this, the choice offers a startling inconsistency in education due to the constant changes in teacher-student assignments. This presentation, created by the WCPSS School Board, outlines the pros and cons of reintroducing elementary school students to the building. The presentation clearly shows the staffing and space issues in elementary schools, so what happens to our exceedingly populated middle and high schools, and where do our teachers fall into that chaos? This staggering information highlights the fact that the decision that kick-started this mess had been flawed from the beginning. It relied on the hope of salvaging this catastrophe of a school year by blatantly ignoring the numbers that advised against a reopening.
The biggest problem with this defective solution: teacher health. Nobody wants to be back at school more than our teachers, especially after staring at blank virtual classroom screens and relearning how to do their jobs on the fly. As a matter of fact, many teachers have been pushing to reopen schools before the end of the year. But they wish to transition back into the classroom safely, at a lesser risk to their health. This poses a valuable point, one backed by considerable research. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 1 in 4 teachers in the US have an increased risk of contracting COVID-19, which equates to approximately 2,500 teachers in Wake County alone. The school board has laid out a seemingly adequate set of guidelines in order to protect employees and students, but it remains important to calculate human error and flaw into this impossible equation. After a week, these routines will become monotonous and teenagers will inevitably cut corners. That’s been apparent in countless businesses and institutions around the country already, so why would schools be any different?
I am not proposing that we leave schools closed forever. As the mental health and motivation of both students and teachers deteriorate, so do grades and attendance. These issues must be addressed. But even though it feels like forever since this virus first entered the US, its reign still remains in its infancy. We still don’t know much about it, and too many lives could be at risk to make a rushed transition back to in-person learning. The key to reopening school doors would be to vaccinate teachers first. If we do that, our teachers will be the ones pushing those doors open, ready to welcome their beloved students back to school. Despite all odds, our teachers have found new and creative ways to make sure that their students could be successful this year. Let’s repay them by providing the armor they need to do what they have always done for us: teach and foster the next generation.
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