Enough What About-ism

The debate over whether schools are safe and ready to open in September has been taking up a lot of space in my mind. There are just so many questions that have no answers. Something that I see that disturbs me is that on social media platforms especially, when teachers, teacher/parents or parents express concern over the safety of school opening, the posts and articles are met with comments to the effect of, “What about <this group> of essential workers? They didn’t have a choice;” “If teachers don’t want to do their jobs, they should quit;” “I can’t do remote learning so my kid has to be in school.”

First of all, teachers don’t really have a choice either. Applying for medical accommodation if you are at high risk for contracting and complications of COVID-19 is not a choice. If we are told we have to be back in person on whatever poorly thought out hybrid schedule the city and/or our administration devises, we will have to go or risk losing our jobs. Taking childcare leave is not always a viable option either. When you take childcare leave (as I did to extend my maternity leave while my daughters were in the NICU — another rant for another time), you come off of payroll and lose your medical benefits. That is just not feasible for everyone. I’m in a relatively privileged position, but my family needs both incomes to sustain it. I’m many are in this situation. It is easy for people who are not teachers to see this as, “well, if you don’t want to go back then take a leave of absence.”

And then there are the comparisons to other fields. A few things:

• Teachers ARE doing their jobs. In person teaching is not the only thing we do. During this spring, I conducted live sessions with my students, lesson planned, called more parents than I ever have during my previous 12 years of teaching, wrote IEPs and maintained relationships with my co-teachers and related service providers.
• Comparing teaching to a medical field job is not a valid comparison. Hospitals are already cleaned vigorously and the staff understands they are going to come into contact with sick people. Schools are not cleaned and maintained in the same way. Many school buildings are old and don’t have the ventilation systems the CDC says are necessary to prevent outbreaks.
• Many schools are overcrowded. The school I work at definitely is. With retail spaces limiting the number of people allowed in, they are taking precautions that are just not available to schools, even when the school is broken down into cohorts of students who attend on a given day.

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, rather than being angry with teachers for very real concerns about returning to in person teaching, that anger should be redirected at the companies and businesses that refuse to allow flexibility in scheduling, even now when many people are working remotely. It should be directed at the federal government for leaving states and state institutions such as schools to fend for themselves when giving huge bailouts to the cruise and airline industries rather than education because they want to privatize education.

Please think twice before saying, “What about <this group>” during conversations about school openings.