Lucia Moss
Coming back from winter break, there was a noticeable amount of both teachers and students absent due to the recent Omicron variant.
During the public comment portion of the January 10th school board meeting, co-president of CFT, Mike Sitch explicitly and emotionally recounted the hardships teachers are currently facing. “We are in survival mode… there is a limit to how much more people can take. The situation has changed and the circumstances are dire.”
His account of the situation seems to hold true for many teachers at Central High School. A group of Chronicle editors interviewed select teachers to ask about their response to the latest COVID surge.
How has the latest surge changed how you do your job?
Kate Flugge, a history teacher, answered, “Every other day we'd get an email or several emails from Mr. Yacko asking us to identify close-contacts. If a student in our class has tested positive, we need to go back to how many ever days ago that they were in class, find out who was sitting near them so that he could contact those students.”
“So, what used to be time that we could spend grading papers or contacting parents, now we're spending going back looking at seating charts, remembering what the activity was we did that day. I have 7 students out with Covid and another 2 or 3 that are quarantined for several days, which means any assignments we do in class, I want to make sure that they're able to keep up with it. Which is hard, especially for a group assignment. How do I adapt that for the kids at home, yet also make it meaningful for the kids that are here?”
Julianne Lee, a math teacher, reported, “Well, I have way more emails to answer, because students are home with COVID, and I’m trying to allow my Calc students who have expressed interest to Zoom in to class to do so.”
Michael Slagor, a functional life skills teacher who works with students who have special needs, stated, “Not only have teachers generally assisted students with learning and conversation, but we have also been used to making sure students are clothed and fed. Lately, with staff shortages, we have mostly offered up our lunches and plan periods to cover a coworker’s classroom and sub it out. We've also stayed late, came in early, or popped in on the weekends to help with taking out the garbage, sweeping, sanitizing, etc. Every facet of our building has been short staffed due to 2021's labor shortages, and then you add in the COVID surge of 2022 and it became more dire.”
Spanish teacher Caitlyn Vanderbeek said, “I have to do a lot more that’s easy to do online because I have so many students that are out right now. I don’t want them to fall too far behind, but I also don’t want my students who are in-person to be bored”.
Principal Joe Williams said, “We’ve had several secretaries out, administrators, and then, of course, teachers. The surge, Omicron, has affected just all across the nation. From a staff perspective, I think you have a lot of people in the building, teachers, administrators, who are just doing the best they can and putting as much effort as they can.”
In his public comment, Sitch reported that teachers “are emailing sick and quarantined students to check-in and help them keep up with classwork. They are emailing the students whose parents are keeping them home because they are concerned about the spread of COVID in schools. They are adapting materials to fit both students at home and in the classroom, for even though we are not teaching virtually or in a hybrid model, many teachers are supplying work for a third or more of their students who have been absent since any given day once school resumed. They are responding to close contact identification emails, they are staying late to help students who are returning after quarantine make up missing work from last semester.”
What extra responsibilities have been added to your usual workload?
Flugge stated, “On Monday, I subbed for an MLL section of Driver's Ed. And there was nothing for me to teach. It was really me being a body in the room with kids who couldn't really understand me. So, it was different”.
Lee said she has been “changing things so they work better with technology. Communicating with students via email about what they’re missing. It takes more time to post everything in two places, I’m trying to make sure I post on Google Classroom every day about what we’re doing in all of my classes, so if a student is home, they can at least access it.”
Lee, who was also out with COVID at the start of the semester said, “When I was out for COVID, I tried really hard to put language in the Desmos’s, as if I was there, so it would feel like you were getting instruction from me, but it’s never as good to read stuff as it is to hear it in person.”
“I'm fairly proud of myself that we caught and released two mice in our classroom last week. I've also sealed some holes from construction that the mice could be entering and exiting”, recounted Slagor. “Our custodians have been short-staffed, and they are very quick to respond to our needs, but there's only so many places they can be in at once.”
Vanderbeek replied, “I sub a lot. We have to make sure we make copies for other teachers because a lot of people are getting sick. Reaching out to parents a lot more, racing out to students a lot more via email. Making sure when they’re out for 5-10 days they’re actually still getting things done.”
Sitch stated “Each day teachers are giving up their lunches, giving up their plan times, giving up their collaboration times to sub for each other. They are supervising lunches when the lunchroom aides are out, they are cleaning classrooms for custodians.”
What is the biggest challenge of the second semester so far?
“There's this added layer of anxiety with kids having masks down, and you want to be kind but you need to say 'Hey, can you keep your mask up,'” reported Flugge.
Lee said, “Clearly, starting off the semester at home is challenging. Monday was the day I didn’t really feel that great and I’m trying to get stuff ready for the sub and make a plan for the week.”
Vanderbeek stated, “The fact that everybody is absent. Definitely the fact that we do not have enough teachers, we don’t have enough students, and then everyone’s nervous about getting sick.”
“The mental burden. Trying to preach mask-wearing and distancing to your students (sometimes when distancing can't be done in certain settings), reminding parents and guardians to watch for symptoms and spreads, sharing information from our school district about vaccination clinics, where to get tested, and how to be safe in school. Don't forget, we need to promote clubs, extracurriculars, and sports too, because socialization and physical activity will help us all heal from the last few years. And make sure we spend time to develop relationships and foster friendships amongst our students, because that's going to make a huge difference as we repair together. Oh, and don't forget to teach; There's state standards, federal core standards, coworkers to plan lessons and assessments with, give feedback to students to improve their understanding. But be aware, you may not see clusters of students in your class for 5-10 days at a time, so make sure everyone has a fair shot at accessing that curriculum,” said Slagor.
Williams responded, “Supervision and coverage… our number 1 priority. We had a few classes that we put into the North Hallway that weren’t able to be covered. Administrators sub as much as we can. If you take all the teachers from supervision, and all the administrators and you put them in classrooms, it can create another problem for us essentially.”
If you were in charge, what changes would you make?
Lee responded, “I don’t really like people being forced to sub, it feels wrong to me. I feel like if you’re asked to sub that's a different responsibility than sitting in the hallway, but they’re treating it as the same thing now. So like, if I get told to sub on hall duty, I don’t get paid, because I was supposed to be in the hallway anyway. But, I can’t get the same amount of work done.”
Vanderbeek laughed and said, “First of all, I’m very glad I am not in charge. Second of all, I don’t know, I think a lot of people would say go online or we should’ve gone online and I think sure, …but like the problem is that when we go online, if you don’t have a whole plan, not all students have a Chromebook that works or a device that works. Not all students have good access to the internet. So even if we do all that, sure people wouldn’t be getting sick so much, but then kids would just be completely falling behind in instruction. So I don’t think that's the easy, better option.”
“I do think we should have more mask availability in school. I wish we were better staffed- that’s not really anybody’s fault. We definitely need better sanitation. Like, this year I don’t even have wipes for the room, they’re not providing hand sanitizer to everybody. There aren’t tests available in school. I actually thought I should do a rapid test in school one day, and [the school nurse] said, ‘Well, you’re fully vaccinated and boosted so you’re not eligible to take a test in school.’ So I was like, I could just be contaminating people all day. Thankfully, I was negative anyway, but we need to get better with the whole testing procedure,” said Vanderbeek.
Slagor replied, “To be clear, if I were in charge of this school building, I would NOT change how things are being done. Our admin, secretaries, and other staff are working nonstop with what they have. They are short-staffed, but they are also coming in at 5AM or staying till 7PM because it needs to get done. Sure, our district is paying them overtime if they are in a wage-earning job, but that doesn't take away the burden of being overloaded and not having the help to get contact tracing done. If I were in charge of the district, that would be much different. I'll save my response for your penultimate question below.”
How are you keeping yourself healthy during this time?
"I walk to and from school so I try to get walks in every day. Mr. Sitch, my husband, and I do talk about it, but only in a way that's productive and in a way that we can problem-solve,” responded Flugge.
Lee said “I didn’t do that good of a job, clearly. But, I try to exercise every day, and that helps me sleep better at night. Which I’ve noticed that this week because I haven’t felt like getting up and doing it, so then I wake up in the morning and I can’t fall back asleep.”
Vanderbeek replied, “I wear my mask all the time and I try not to go out places. When I go out places, I also wear my mask, and I shame other people publicly for not wearing their masks.”
“My mom asks me that a lot and I'm 39 years old. Yesterday, 9 of the 15 students from my special education program were out of school. I took the day off, meditated twice, cleaned up our kitchen, and signed up for therapy again. Other than that, I have three daughters between the ages 4 and 8, so that keeps me occupied at home and less time to dwell on my current career situation,” said Slagor.
“My primary outlet at work is just to talk with colleagues and touch base… With the metal detectors, I interact with a lot of students, which isn’t a normal part of my job. I wish it was more of my job, it’s pretty good,” said Williams.
Sitch said teachers have “been stretched and stretched to keep our district and buildings and classrooms together for 2 years now. Some will break, others will hold, but they’ll never return to what they were before… This pandemic has and continues to cause real, permanent damage to educators and students alike…If teachers continue to be stretched beyond their limits, they won't be able to help their kids heal from this damage, let alone heal themselves.”
What can the building admin and the district do to help you during this time?
Flugge stated, “We need more staff. We've been short for years... I know that working at a public school is not at the top of career opportunities. What they can do right now is get good quality masks for all students and staff... I know they're talking about shield-testing being more readily available... I wish they could talk some other stuff off the plate. On Monday we stayed after school for a meeting to get trained on a new software program that does nothing to help us out right now - it's completely irrelevant. We could have used that time for grading, planning, or contacting our students to help them stay on top of their work.”
“I feel like they say advocate for yourself, but 1st semester there was a day I had a really bad headache, and they told me I was subbing, and I’m like I really just can’t today. Like, I need to just go sit in the hallway and not be a sub, and they gave me a really hard time about it. They tell me to advocate for myself, and then when I do they say ‘Sorry, your needs don’t matter, we need you to sub.’ So, I feel like not having to send three emails to explain that I have a bad headache would be helpful. Just better communication, we find out things at the last second. Just all the changes, it's always at the last minute,” said Lee.
Vanderbeek replied, “I think it's tough because I think that admin is actually doing a lot, like as much as they can with subbing. But, the problem is that we also want admin to be in their offices and available to help students with things they need to help with. I think that the district really needs to provide better things with testing. I think there needs to be a better plan for when we go online, and what the limit is. Like, what is too many cases to be in school, and then what do we do, what's the plan? Will we open independent learning centers? ...There needs to be a plan, and as of right now, there is not a plan, and that’s not great.”
“Building admin: nothing. They're mostly experts at listening, empathizing, and advocating for us. Much better building admin situation here than at other schools. As far as the district, they should stop selling the smokeshow to the public during school board meetings, parent emails, and website advertisements. They shouldn't advertise that we have a "robust testing system" in place on a flyer promoting COVID safety when it's clearly not true. I would love to know how many people are working at the Windsor building at desks, and how many of them have been able to cancel meetings or lunches out and spent time in schools answering phone calls, helping contact trace, running passes to pull students down to let them know they've been a close contact, help supervise lunches/recess/playground/crossing guard duty at elementary schools,” stated Slagor.
The reality teachers are facing is one of hardship, struggle, and fear. However, as always they give all that they can for their students. “My students are awesome, so they still make coming to work worth it every day. And, the welcome I got after coming back from being sick,” Lee recalled as she gestured to her heart, “got me right here.”