First, I want to sincerely thank our superintendent and all our local board members as well. We are blessed to have a group of caring, thoughtful people making these difficult decisions. They have been on the receiving end of so much feedback, positive and negative in regards to our district's return to learn plan and are still working weekly on revisions to keep students and staff safe. Under immense pressure and very little guidance from you governor, they are trying to take into account all opinions, perspectives, and local guidance from health officials to make the best decision possible. I also want to thank the Return To Learn teams that have been working countless hours to design possible plans(in person and virtual) to use in our district as the Covid situation is very fluid at this time. I am so very grateful for your commitment to designing plans that will keep my own family, my students, my colleagues and our community safe as we begin school in the fall. Thank you all so much for your continued leadership and support during this unprecedented time.
Second, I know there has been some difficulty for teachers and school staff to be able to articulate respectfully their thoughts, feelings and fears about returning to learn in the fall. There is a lot of pressure to give your opinion as an educator, but also pressure to remain silent not wanting to come off as unprofessional or unsupportive. I myself have chosen to not engage in back and forth conversations with staff and parents via social media as there are so many varying opinions about what is going to be best during this time and it is easy to be misunderstood. I never want to come off insensitive to each family's unique situation and very much understand and agree with the need for students to be in school in order for parents to return fully to work. Virtual learning is NOT the best way to deliver instruction and build relationships with my students. I am a teacher that LOVES being with her students, but also a mom with kids of her own. My first choice is to be in person with my kindergarteners every day of the school year and to have my third graders learn face-to-face with the amazing teachers at our school district. However, I am also a teacher and I am struggling with the proclamation you made yesterday, governor.
I am planning to meet with a lawyer in the next few weeks just to make sure I have my will all ready, are the words I heard spoken from an overwhelmed and anxious heart as she prepares to enter a classroom in the fall. I won't be coming back, at least to begin with. For my family, it is about life or death. I can't risk that, spoken words from another teacher wrestling with how to support her family but also keep them alive. I'm not really excited about sending my own kids into a classroom full of children without masks, but I don't really have another option. I choose my words carefully here in order to capture our perspective respectfully yet in complete transparency. These teachers are not whiners or complainers or just want to stay home because they are lazy teachers. I know them well. They are some of the best of the best. I am very concerned about the health and safety of my colleagues. I am daily having conversations with colleagues(younger and older) that are anxious about getting sick or getting their own family members sick. It seems that teachers and school staff are left with choosing between their own health/safety and their job. We have heard very few details from you, governor about the concern for staff safety/health and what guidelines you are suggesting to local districts to keep us safe. What will happen if we are exposed or test positive for Covid 19? How many days of sick leave will be available? What about those of us with kids? How many family sick leave days are available if our children are exposed in their classrooms and need to be home? Who is going to sub during my absence when many substitutes are not returning out of extreme caution for their own health/safety? What is the tipping point of schools being "approved" by you to move into offering virtual learning? How many sick teachers and students will it take before you sign a waiver? How long will that take and what condition will the staff and students be in at that point to provide quality virtual instruction without creating more disruptions in learning?
I also feel very strongly about the use of masks/face coverings for staff and students in order to keep our school in person and SAFE. I realize this has been made to be very political and my stance is not. I do not prefer to wear a mask every day, but absolutely will in order to not spread my own germs to students with compromised immune systems or ones that return home each day to grandparents and/or sick family members. As an early childhood educator, I realize the difficulty of little ones wearing masks and know how it will be difficult to require anyone to wear them all day. Some may feel it is not developmentally appropriate and too difficult to teach expectations. However, we are educators and that is what we do. We educate our littlest learners every single day how to contribute to a safe, healthy, caring learning environment and also how their actions can impact their community in a positive way. We daily as educators make accommodations, take breaks, practice, teach skills and reteach skills. I have full confidence in our staff's ability to educate and keep our students and colleagues safe using masks/face coverings. It's absolutely not political for me. It's about listening to health recommendations and loving thy neighbor. To my understanding, school districts are waiting for your lead on this governor so that they can issue stronger stance on masks/face coverings without the threat of legal ramifications. Is your stance data driven or political? What data and/or political recommendations are you using to determine your stance on masks/face coverings? If we could, by chance, save a life while wearing them, wouldn't one life be worth it?
I have concerns about my own children attending in person with the number of cases rising in Iowa and in our own county. I would like my local school district to have the option of making an informed and data driven decision to move to virtual learning quickly to minimize the spread of Covid in our community if the situation should worsen in Iowa. We have amazing teachers in our district who will once again rise to the challenge of supporting families during another transition should it be necessary. Will it be ideal? No. But might it be necessary? Yes. Will I support the teachers and administration if they decide this is the best option to keep our community safe? Absolutely.
In closing, I want to show the respect I have for the position you are in as our governor. These are difficult questions to answer and questions that often lead to more questions. As every educator I have talked to in the past weeks, we ALL want to be at school teaching our students. We want to see the light bulbs light up in person, not on a screen. We want to hug the little one that is missing her mom on the first day of school. We want to make accommodations for those struggling learners needing extra support and be shoulder to shoulder with our students each and every day. The reality: Covid has changed so much and causes us all to grieve the loss of what school used to look like. But we are in the business of doing what is best for students and families regardless of circumstances. So we don't get to sit in that grief long. We have a few short weeks to put into place plans and procedures that will impact the health and safety of our community in the months ahead. Yet, you have chosen to offer very little guidance to administrators/board members and instead push out a proclamation that strips away the local control to make the best decisions for their community.
Our country has enough of THEM vs. US. There is no need to create more of that. However, by issuing that proclamation yesterday, you drew a line in the sand showing the core differences you have in supporting our community. In our school district, the teachers, supporting staff, administration and board members, all strive to work together to always provide a safe, learning community where all voices have a seat at the table. During the Iowa flooding of 2019, the local mission was quite clear when our school district was able to rise up to support our community and support many families that had lost everything. The strongest supports for our community wasn't the government coming in to save the day. It was a local woman seeing a need and rising up to establish a meal site to provide meals at her church. It was a group of local leaders putting their heads together to collect and organize donations and get them to into the hands that needed them. It was local churches that volunteered time, money and prayer services to support our community. It was the school district that saw the need to keep their doors open to support families and continue learning even while lacking a clean water source and using porta potties. Now with Covid being our next challenge to overcome together, we are being told essentially, Your voice doesn't matter. You do not have a voice at the table for making decisions for your district. Those plans you labored over don't matter. But once again, it is my hope and prayer that my local community can come together once again, setting differences and opinions aside and support one another to say that this proclamation from you, governor does not represent our voice. Our school district is working tirelessly to make the best decisions for our students and staff, during this unprecedented time. Yet we are met with the same challenges today and another new road block. We have very little guidance on opening schools safely, very little guidance on the need for face coverings, and now having to seek special approval from you, governor in order to do what we know locally is best for our community.
Thank you for your time. Please consider these questions and concerns from an educator and parent wanting to work alongside you in this, not against. But you are making that increasingly difficult and we are respectfully speaking up for our community and our schools.
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