Holliston Teachers Union President Addresses School Reopening

The following was submitted as a letter to the editor by Jaime Cutone, President of the Holliston Federation of Teachers. If you would like to write a letter to the editor, email samantha.mercado@patch.com.

The global pandemic has undoubtedly impacted every single one of us in many ways. As educators, we all want to be doing what brings us joy: teaching all of our students in our classrooms. The Holliston Federation of Teachers, our local labor union, consists of nearly 400 teachers, secretaries, and paraprofessionals of Holliston Public Schools. We are the educators who teach the children of Holliston every day, we are the union.

Schools are open in Holliston. They have been open the entire school year. We have been in-person since the start of the school year. We teach students every day. Every day students learn. Students in Pre-K through 3rd grade have the opportunity to be physically in school every day. Students in grades 4 through 12 are in-person half of the week and remote the other half of the week while their teachers teach both groups of students simultaneously. This is the plan created by our Superintendent, Dr. Kustka, along with our administrators under her leadership. This plan was created to bring as many students back safely and prioritized our youngest learners. The responsibility of the reopening plan, including creating a plan that is safe in the midst of a global pandemic, falls on the Superintendent as our district’s leader. Prior to the start of the school year, the union worked with administration to come to an agreement clarifying the issues impacted by the global pandemic. The union did not delay, amend, alter or change the district’s plan for reopening. The schools are a place of learning and they are also a place of employment. Holliston Public Schools is an employer and bears the responsibility for providing a safe working environment for its staff as well as for our students.

The purpose of this letter is to respond to an increasing assertion that the union is the reason our schools are operating the way they are. We are hearing these sentiments nationally, state-wide, and at the local level. Every school district faces its own unique set of conditions that determine the parameters in which they must work to provide on-going education for students. Our focus is on what is happening here in Holliston. Holliston has its own unique challenges that are intimately understood by our building and central office administrators. These challenges contribute to the parameters we must work within as a school community. The agreement between the HFT and the School Committee addresses many issues related to the reopening of schools during the global pandemic, but it does not prevent Dr. Kustka from amending the plan that she and her administrators created to reopen schools.

The educators of Holliston are doing our best every single day to provide a meaningful education within the parameters of our current school setting. We miss our bustling classrooms full of students. Each day brings countless setbacks and challenges like creating an all-new curriculum every single day, yearning for the hands-on learning activities where students thrive, manning a teetering A/V cart repurposed as a mobile teaching unit to teach in-person and remote students simultaneously, and longing for an environment conducive to building meaningful relationships with students. Some teachers are experiencing the loss of their entire curriculum as they have been moved from teaching Unified Arts subjects to being reassigned as a co-educator to make the reopening plan work. K-3rd grade teachers are teaching their class of students separated into two different rooms while a paraprofessional or repurposed UA Teacher leads the second classroom. Teachers in Grades 4-12 teach students at home and in-person at the same time while moving between locations themselves to minimize student movement. Social distancing makes it incredibly difficult to provide opportunities for group-work, collaboration, teacher-to-student reteaching, and intervention. The teachers, paraprofessionals, and secretaries of Holliston didn’t choose this. Administrators didn’t choose this. Parents didn’t choose this. This is the result of the global pandemic we are all facing. Thoughtful planning on the part of our administrators created a reopening plan that brought as many students back in-person as possible. None of this is ideal, but we are making the best of it. Every day, it takes an enormous amount of energy, focus, and patience to pull this off, and we do, without hesitation. We create safe environments for students to be in. We work to form relationships with students despite the obstacles. We work together to support one another. We make sacrifices.

Many of us are parents, too. We have children going through the very same things that the children of Holliston are experiencing. And some of us have children in Holliston Public Schools. The stressors of the pandemic are not lost on our staff. Many have experienced the onset of health issues due to the pandemic or have been challenged to find child care in order to be at work. The anxiety and stress felt every day is palpable. The professional struggle as a teacher to feel as if we need to produce the same results with our hands tied is an impossible feat. Yet here we are, every day, doing our best.

There is likely no other profession in which the public openly judges what should and shouldn’t be happening like in public education. We see this, we hear this, it affects us. Despite the judgments and feelings of not being recognized for our value, we push forward. We are powered by the daily reminders that we make a difference in the lives of our students. Their words of appreciation make all the difference. Our students are what is most important to us and we care deeply about providing them with all of the opportunities to be healthy and thriving. This pandemic has ripped us of opportunities for ourselves, our children, and our families. As educators, we teach our students how to grow from this, how to learn to face adversity, how we handle daily setbacks, how to overcome the challenges and learn that we can do things that are hard. Yes, there is loss. And in some cases, a great loss in the life of a loved one or irreparable harm. This is not a choice, it is the situation we are faced with and we’re making the best of it.

The current mitigation strategies employed at HPS seem to be effective and are consistent with the CDC’s evidence that “strictly implemented mitigation strategies” allow for in-person instruction as stated in the Executive Summary of the CDC Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools through Phased Mitigation published February 12, 2021. Any transmission within the schools has been minimal from what we can tell, indicating that what we are doing in Holliston is working. The elected union leaders meet regularly and frequently with Dr. Kustka, Dr. Botelho, and Mr. Buday where we each engage in an open, free-sharing of concerns, ideas, and thoughts about many issues but certainly those related to the current model we are operating under. Each of us works toward maintaining a collaborative relationship amidst this inherently divisive situation for the betterment of our schools, keeping the safety and health of our students, staff, and families at the forefront.

We, the teachers, paraprofessionals, and secretaries of Holliston Public Schools, will continue to engage in conversation about our operational models with Dr. Kustka. We will have open, honest conversations about striking a balance to keep students in-person and keep our staff, students, and families healthy in the midst of a global pandemic. We will do this together, in cooperation with our administrators and under the leadership of our Superintendent.