Last week, I learned that North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper had issued a statement encouraging schools to reopen. He was joined in that sentiment by the Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Catherine Truitt, who co-signed a letter with Cooper that was sent to school boards across the state “strongly urging” them to consider reopening school buildings for those students who wanted to return. Truitt rightly commented at a follow-up press conference that returning to in-person learning was “incredibly important for kids.”
Neither Cooper nor Truitt mentioned any efforts by the state to vaccinate teachers like me, even though we are supposedly “essential.” Cooper’s letter also cited research supporting the notion that schools could return to in-person learning safely, “even during periods of high community transmission” as long as they followed certain safety protocols. According to the N.C. Strong Schools Public Health Tool Kit, these protocols include maintaining six feet of distance between individuals at all times in classrooms and hallways, wearing masks, and limiting too much “mixing” between students, guidelines that are nearly impossible to comply with fully at schools where hallways aren’t wide enough and classrooms aren’t big enough to maintain proper distancing, or where students switch classes.
But the discrepancy between the expectations versus reality when it comes to preventing the spread of the virus in schools has been and will continue to be expounded, and I’m not really here to talk about that.
What I am here to talk about is a warning that we have been repeatedly told for years now, but that we have mostly ignored – the effects of which are starting to show in a big way with reports of teachers resigning from school systems across the country: the longer teachers in America are forced to work for inadequate compensation, for little appreciation and in potentially unsafe conditions, the more highly-qualified teachers will abandon the profession, leading our children to suffer significant setbacks in their learning, their physical and mental health, their social skills and in their overall ability to navigate the challenges of life.
My colleagues and I have gone to great lengths to teach our students as effectively as possible, even during remote learning. It would be easy — and one could argue, justifiable, considering what we’re given in return — to stop trying so much and to let us just be what many incorrectly believe us to be: babysitters.
But we choose the higher road. We choose to work overtime, to stretch our resources as much as they can possibly be stretched to give our students the education they deserve. And it’s this kind of selfless, martyr-like mindset that has simultaneously made our public schools, as former superintendent of Chatham County Schools Dr. Derrick Jordan once said, “the best hope many of our students have” and that has led to the warped idea of teachers as inexhaustible robots–people who can be tasked with one of the most important jobs in the world, but in whom we don’t need to bother seriously investing or recognizing as having the same level of professionalism and importance as those in other lines of work.
I speak for a number of Chatham County Schools educators who I know are incredibly frustrated. We’re frustrated by the fact that we’ve been asked to reinvent how we teach twice in less than a year. We’re frustrated and anxious that we’re expected to supervise students in our classrooms while they eat lunch maskless. We’re downright enraged by ignorant comments from people who have no idea how schools or remote learning works like, “Teachers have been getting paid for not working for nine months.” And we’re extremely frustrated that we’re deemed essential workers, and yet the state still hasn’t gotten us vaccinated.
If the above grievances were expressed by someone of the same level of education and who worked the same, if not fewer, number of hours, people wouldn’t be surprised that they were demanding more resources from their employers before returning to work in person. But for some reason, because we’re teachers, people are shocked that we’re not willing to just “take one for the team” like we always do and continue to meekly comply, as if nothing is wrong.
Had our state and our nation invested more in teachers and staff before and during the pandemic, we probably would have had the resources to be able to return to in-person learning safely by now. The controversy we’re seeing instead is partly karma for how we’ve treated and continue to treat our educators. It’s the historic, systemic under-appreciation, distrust and lack of investment in teachers and schools combined with the chaos of the pandemic that is stretching many of us to our wit’s end. Everyone is desperate to get kids back in the classroom.
Fine. Provide the funding for school buildings to be truly safe, vaccinate teachers and make a serious pledge to pay us what we’re worth.
Then we can talk.
Eliza Brinkley is a Pittsboro resident and high school English teacher at Chatham County Schools.