Post 400: Is It Safe To Send Students and Teachers Back To School During the COVID19 Pandemic--What The Teachers Are Saying

Is it safe for teachers to go back to school during COVID19 Pandemic?

My teacher friends are afraid to go back to school. Even with the social distancing and mask protocols in place, they feel not enough research has been done to see how safe it really is or if the social distancing and masks are enough to keep everybody safe from COVID19 transmission.

If you have ever taught elementary school or middle school, you know as a teacher how easy it is to catch colds from kids.  Among my teacher friends, when we catch colds all the time, it is a unwritten rule that we got it from the kids, but we don't mind the colds, because we love our students and love our jobs and getting colds all the time from students is just a hazard of the job.

But with common colds, people recover. People move on. Not with COVID19. With COVID19, people are either afraid of dying themselves from the virus, or they are afraid of passing the virus onto older people like elderly parents. Some studies show that students can pass COVID19 to adults just like they do common cold.

My teacher friends who teach online are VERY grateful for their jobs. They are grateful they can work from home and not be exposed to COVID19. Some teacher friends refuse to go back to teaching face to face in the classrooms because of COVID19, and will only go back to the classroom only after they have a COVID19 vaccine. And the state will need to require that all students and faculty get the COVID19 vaccine once it becomes available if they want to work in or go to or learn at a school.

My older teacher friends have decided to retire from teaching face to face en masse because of the danger of COVID19 because they feel it is not safe for them to teach face to face in the classroom. Since COVID19 strikes older people more, this is why my older teacher friends decided to retire this year even if they have not yet reached 60.

However, once a vaccine is found, I have one older teacher who is willing to act as a substitute teacher, but she will not step into a classroom until everyone is vaccinated against COVID19.Younger teachers who have to teach face to face want PPE to protect them from COVID19 just like hospital workers have PPE (Personal Protection Equipment).  However, most districts cannot afford PPE for all teachers all the time.

Many of the larger school districts just have too many students to have them spaced out 6 feet apart in a small classroom. It will be a difficult rotating/hybrid class for COVID era teaching and LAUSD is already on a year-round schedule just to accommodate so many students, which is why LAUSD was so reluctant to go back to face to face teaching during the COVID era.

When I worked for LAUSD, I remember teaching in classrooms that squeezed 50 students into a classroom and that is with each desk for close to each other.

When some school districts or colleges reopen for face to face teaching, most faculty feel like they were left out of the loop; they were not consulted in re-opening plans; and they feel like guinea pigs of COVID19 in a political game of hot potatoes.  Teachers would prefer to stay at home and teach from the safety of their computers. However, some teachers have no choice, but return to their classroom. In some districts, teachers are not even given a choice to teach online. 

I am so grateful I can work from home, so I can avoid being exposed to COVID19.  I think anyone who does work in public these days like upcoming teachers in the classroom, essential workers in pharmacies, grocery stores, etc...are heroes to me.

My teacher friends prefer to work from home and to teach their students online to keep themselves, their elderly parents, and their kids safe from COVID19.  For the most part, my teacher friends do not believe it is safe to teach face to face until a COVID19 vaccine is found, and everyone has been vaccinated against COVID19.