Letter to Howard County Board of Education: School Reopenings

An open letter to the Howard County Board of Education:

Dear Chair Wu, Vice Chair Mallo, and members of the Board of Education,

Last night, my mom bought an air purifier.

My mom is a high school math teacher who has worked in Howard County for the past 15 years. My siblings and I are proud to be products of Howard County schools, including the high school at which our mom teaches. We are proud of the education we have received, and beyond proud to have a mom who is a teacher.

My mom embodies everything you want in a teacher: gentle with mistakes, enthusiastic about every success (big or small), accessible whenever students need her, and talented at making difficult topics comprehensible. When I was in high school, I used to get frustrated by how late she would stay to help her students after school. I couldn't go home until she was ready to go home, and she always seemed to have one more student to help, one more teacher to talk to. In my junior year, I realized that some of the students coming to ask for her help didn't even have her as a teacher; they just knew that she would explain the content more clearly than other teachers in the school. The bottom line here: my mom is an awesome teacher.

This past spring, when Maryland switched to virtual learning, I watched and listened as my mom adjusted to the new mode of teaching. She often called me after her school day to ask for help testing out how to work Google Meets, Google surveys, jamboards, and different math platforms. She received some training through her school and county, but still needed to practice...so she took time outside of her work day to practice on her willing guinea pigs (i.e., us, her children). And over time, I could hear her improve. By June...by September...by November, she got better and better. Let me say that again: within 8 months, my mom had acclimated to a new style of teaching after 30 years of in-person instruction.

Was acclimating to a new style of teaching easy? Oh, my mom was frustrated - boy, was she! Learning is hard. Talking to a classroom of 30 boxes without their videos on is hard. Developing new lesson plans is hard. Spending every week night and every Sunday to adjust and adapt to new modes of teaching is hard. My mom is working longer hours than I have ever seen or heard her work before. And you'll remember - this is someone who already worked longer hours pre-COVID.

Through the summer and the fall, my mom and I talked frequently about school reopenings. I work for an educational nonprofit and conducted research on school reopenings in summer 2020. I talked with her about my doubts with the safety of school reopenings, describing how school reopenings prioritize the economy of learning rather than academic learning. We talked about the frustrating, confusing, horrifying gaps in state- and county-wide discussions around school reopenings: decisions made without consulting teachers, without understanding the pivotal role that teachers play in school. We know that teachers matter more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling (RAND Corporation, 2019). We know that teachers are important as they relate to students. But are teachers important as individual human beings? Clearly not, according to most conversations about school reopenings. Teachers are treated as commodities, nothing more valuable (or less necessary) than access to the internet.

I was reassured, as was my mom, when her county repeatedly and decisively agreed to continue virtual learning through the fall semester. She was becoming a more effective virtual teacher as time passed. My mom and her community recognized that the drastic measures of virtual instruction were taken out of necessity. The alternative (in-person instruction) could be fatal without the right protective measures in place. The metrics set by the county and the state were also reassuring: they would not go back to in-person instruction until the metrics hit a measurement that indicated safety.

And then - my mom called me one night, anxious. I could hear it in her voice. Those metrics forgotten, Governor Hogan pushing for in-person education immediately, the Board of Education moving quickly. We did the math together: she would not have enough time to get both of her vaccine booster shots before going into in-person learning. What would teaching look like now? How would she interact with her students?

My mom expressed frustration on her students' behalf that she will be a less effective teacher now that she will be teaching students online and in-person simultaneously, shifting from teaching in a 45-minute time block to an 85-minute time block. She expressed desperate fear on her own behalf that she will not have the protections she needs to teach during a deadly pandemic. She expressed quiet, frightened pain that her voice, and the voices of educators across the county and state, can be so easily discarded.

I know that reopening schools is not something this Board of Education takes lightly. I know you're weighing voices and priorities and lives in the balance. I've been doing this work since June 2020 - I get it. We're thinking about the digital divide, about the learning gap, about students who are not safe at home, about the future of education and what this lost year means for our kids. We're thinking about what it means to be "safe," what it truly means to take care of our students', families', and educators' physical and mental health.

Does my mom wish she could safely teach in-person? You bet. Does she miss her students, worry about their well-being, prefer teaching them in-person to virtually? Absolutely. Does she know that it is not safe for her to return in person without the proper precautions in place? Unfortunately, it seems she understands this point far better than this Board does.

Rushing the school reopening process is not the answer. Disregarding and delegitimizing the concerns of teachers and teachers' unions is not the answer. The Board had previously adopted plans to ensure a safe return to school for teachers and students. The context has not changed enough for those plans to change. The Board can ensure the safe return to in-person instruction by assuring that educators will be fully immunized and returning to the previously adopted plans. Any plans to rush in-person instruction puts the lives of students, educators, and their families at risk unnecessarily.

Last night, my mom bought an air purifier. She is preparing to work in person by the end of February, and her school provides few protective measures to its educators and staff. She will be given masks and hand sanitizer...and that's it. My mom has not yet received her first vaccine, although she has filled out every form she can find. (When I say every form, I mean every single form she can find.) She will return to school without a vaccine, responsible for looking out for her own well-being because her state, county, and school are failing her.

Thank you for reading my email.

Best,

Daughter of an HCPSS Teacher

Context: On February 11, I sent an email to the Howard County Board of Education concerning their recent decision to fast-track school reopenings without putting enough protective measures in place first. Decisions around school reopenings are HARD. But this decision - expediting hybrid learning without ensuring all teachers are vaccinated, breaking previous promises, is not right.

I am the daughter of an HCPSS educator. I can't do much to help, but I can write. This letter comes from a place of frustration, empathy, fear, and love. Thank you to any and all for your thoughtful comments.