Russ's Ravings: Threatening Teachers Now? That Where We're At?

Editor's note: The following is Patch Field Editor Russ Crespolini's, hopefully, weekly column. It is reflective of his opinion alone.

It hit our virtual newsroom last week.

A colleague made a blanket statement about all schools needing to be reopened and quickly the battle lines were drawn and the discussion got heated. Some do believe that schools across the Garden State need to reopen no matter what. Others, like myself, know from covering this pandemic because that isn't possible due to the guidelines each individual district needs to adhere to.

For example, a school might not meet ventilation, social distancing or staffing metrics in order to open safely. Some districts can or can under hybrid conditions. But a mass reopening just isn't possible, nor is it smart.

One of the reasons there have been virtually no cases of COVID transmission in schools...

...wait for it...

...is because...

...we AREN'T throwing open the doors, and we ARE following the guidelines.

But those answers are not ideal and frustrations are boiling over.

But there has been a disturbing trend to now take those frustrations and point them at educators who are doing their level best under difficult circumstances and that needs to change. In the last week I have seen threats leveled at teachers, administrators and school board members who are not opening up to in-person learning at the speed these self-appointed experts would like.

Ignoring the fact that the districts cannot make the majority of the concessions being demanded, there is a right way and a wrong way to express frustrations. Some parents have organized protests, made impassioned public comments at school board meetings and have started petitions for like-minded individuals.

Others have chosen a different path. Some have bandied about lawsuits, become social media trolls and now have begun threatening educators with violence when they do not get their way.

Pandemic stress and strain or not...this is simply unacceptable.

And it is happening in towns all over New Jersey.

In one of the communities I cover, the board of education needed to contact the police after a series of social media posts turned violent as a poster was suggested a physical confrontation with educators. Kicking down their doors, he wrote. Forcing their will on others.

In this particular case, the person making the posts didn't even live in the community in question. He was trying to instigate an assault on a district that had nothing to do with him. But the frustrations are boiling over across the numerous social media accounts I monitor for work.

And no, it is no longer the fringe "Stop the Steal" or the COVID denier types that are leading the charge. It is average, ordinarily reasonable people that have been pushed the brink by health, education, financial and socioemotional challenges where there is really no one to blame.

But in that desperate need to find someone to point the finger at, the cry of "school districts just aren't trying hard enough to get students in the classroom" has grown stronger.

And it is a bunch of nonsense.

There is no teacher, no administrator, no board of education member that wants these conditions forced on us by COVID-19 to continue. I have seen teachers lambasted for asking for assurances about their safety and requesting accommodations for illness. I've seen school boards unable to provide in person instruction because they cannot provide the classroom space for distancing or PPE needed.

I've seen them bridle, like all of us, under the guidance in the hopes that more concessions are made. And in some cases, they are. Some districts have been and are finding a way to make it work. But for every Hunterdon County school that can accommodate five days a week there is an Essex County school that cannot. For every private school that meets the opening guidelines there is a public school that cannot.

But the fault does not lie with the local districts. And those who continue to attack them are not only foolish, but cruel.

In the town I live in, which is not a Patch town, I've seen plenty of that. There was one keyboard warrior who was hosting secret sporting events and trying to come up with ways businesses could open in secret as well. He has waged an impotent war on social media against the school district, with laughable petitions, posts and even calls for attorneys to sue.

While pathetic, this is benign. Most people see things like this for what they are, misplaced anger and frustration. But not all of it is harmless. At the last meeting of my town's school board they addressed a series of inflammatory comments over snow days.

You read that right. Snow days.

Now don't get me wrong, a lot of these people have been nasty over the district's inability to do more than hybrid learning, but this particular venom was over a virtual day being called in advance of inclement weather.

It began with someone indicting that she was going to "riot" if the Superintendent called another virtual day due to an upcoming storm. The president of our school board felt after the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 that this term was "beyond inappropriate."

That didn't bug me so much. But what did bug me were statements like this:

“I hope this waste of a human being gets buried in a freaking snowdrift” in reference to the superintendent and referring to the superintendent as "a waste of a human life who was not entitled to any respect.”

What are we doing here people?

We're attacking teachers over being afraid to teach during a pandemic. We're attacking school boards for not ignoring the rules imposed by the state, and we're wishing harm on administrators for how they are managing emergency days.

And these are only a few of dozens of examples.

Freedom of speech does not give you the freedom of the consequences of that speech. In most of these cases, we are seeing a peek behind the mask into the true nature of people and how ugly they can be when stressed. But in some of these cases we are seeing a move towards the extreme.

There are laws to protect against such actions. Laws that I guarantee you every educator and law enforcement official is reacquainting themselves with now.

Time will erase many of these memories of the pandemic and so much of these struggles will recede into the background as normalcy returns. What will not be forgotten is how we conducted ourselves when faced with this adversity.

How will you be remembered?

Russ Crespolini is a Field Editor for Patch Media, adjunct professor and college newspaper advisor. His columns have won awards from the National Newspaper Association and the New Jersey Press Association.

He writes them in hopes of connecting with readers and engaging with them. And because it is cheaper than therapy. He can be reached at russ.crespolini@patch.com