Reply to NPR Article on Public Schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The comparison to retail stores staying open despite staff shortage isn't a good one.

My local fast food restaurant is short on staff; maybe they usually have 16 workers on a shift but lately they just have 10 showing up.  So... they are working with 5/8th the staff.  What happens?  They work more slowly.  They serve fewer customers per hour.  Long lines build up.  People who aren't willing to wait go elsewhere.

My local elementary school usually has 24 teachers but 2 resigned and haven't been replaced.  2 are out on long term sick leave. 1 is quarantined. 1 is home with a child with COVID.  1 is taking FMLA leave to be with his wife after surgery.  And then 2 call in sick.   So they are working with only 15/24 of the staff or 5/8th full staffing.   So what happens?  They still have to safely care for 100% of the students.  They can't just open their doors to 5/8th of the school and close them when they are at capacity.  To some extent they can double the kids up in classrooms.   In high school apparently they just sent the kids with no teachers to sit in the auditorium for their class where they  play on their phones.  In my school teachers have started refusing to take double classes any longer.  It's not in our contract that we have to accept it.   We used to do it; every once in a while it's fine; but it is happening twice a week now.  Something has to change.[/quote]
Agree with this. People don't fundamentally understand how tenuous the system already was. Now, with staffing issues, things are falling apart. There's a huge push for teachers to "make up" for the past year and a half. My district was open all of last year, but parents are still angry because classes/schools closed intermittently when there were COVID outbreaks (not due to positivity or hospitalization rates in the community, but in the schools and classrooms themselves). There is a belief that teachers should do more-conduct more assessments, provide more instruction (after school and on weekends), and provide social and emotional support. There have been multiple COVID cases among students and staff, even though all adults are required to be vaccinated. Two classes had to be quarantined because they combined them and-surprise(!) there was a COVID case. Kids from both classes wound up sick. There are always people out, and so teachers consistently lose our already minimal prep time. We work with students with serious behavioral issues and we are short the support staff who we need to run the school safely. Essentially, this means we are being asked to do more with less time and under worse conditions than before. 
Morale is very low and most people are considering leaving. We have all stopped taking work home. If they want us to do our jobs, we need to be given the tools and time to do so.[/quote]

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