‘Fear and confusion’ among KY teachers. ‘They will be frontline workers’ as schools reopen.

For Kathleen Slattery Lewis, an Ashland Independent second grade teacher, reopening schools in the fall amid the coronavirus pandemic “seems like it’s a logistical nightmare” with mounting questions and no announced plan.

She wonders how she will interact safely with small groups of students who need extra help understanding an academic concept. What happens if her students come to school without a mask, or if a mask gets dirty and a student needs another? Will her students have to sit at their desks all day? Can she keep them six feet apart on the playground?

Lewis is not blaming school administrators for the uncertainty. “It’s just the nature of the beast right now,” she said.

School districts across Kentucky are in varying stages of making reopening decisions, but the unknowns outweigh the finished plans. Growing numbers of districts are announcing they’ll attempt in-person classes and an alternate virtual learning program beginning in late August or early September.

“As I talk to educators across the state there is a great deal of concern, fear and confusion surrounding the reopening of schools,” Eddie Campbell , president of the Kentucky Education Association, told lawmakers this week.

“It’s critical we get this right,” he said. Campbell said it is even more critical that the voices of teachers and others who work with students each day play a large part in making decisions.

“With schools reopening, we are asking our educators to step into, at best, a medium risk environment and they will be front line workers,” he said.

Teachers are worried about three main things, said Campbell: resources, responsibilities and health and safety.

In addition to routine duties, Campbell said, in the era of COVID, teachers may have to take on distance learning, work longer days, help with temperature checks, cover other classes, maintain logs, help with contact tracing and sanitize classrooms with no additional compensation or assurance of protection.

“We can no longer overburden our teachers and education support staff with more and more responsibilities,” he said.

While in-person learning is most effective, the new reality of COVID-19 means that schools already strapped for funds will need even more money for technology, cleaning supplies and personal protection equipment. Educators have already been spending hundreds of dollars from their own pocket for resources and materials.

When those needs increase, Campbell said, “Who’s going to pay?”

To make the reopening work, it will be important to clearly define the educator workday, to require protections and to set reasonable job expectations for educators, said Campbell.

“We need answers as soon as possible so we can start to move forward and make the appropriate plans ...so that it’s successful,” said Lewis, the teacher at Ashland’s Oakview Elementary.

Sara Green, a teacher at Lexington’s Crawford Middle School, is worried about equity for low-income students who are returning to class and equity for high poverty schools.

Green wants to know whether schools will give low-income students access to facial masks, which at this point appear to be required for in-person learning.

She expects that some Fayette schools will have more in-person learners than others, because their parents can’t stay home to facilitate virtual learning. Green hopes the district equity council and equity office will focus on providing schools that have more in-person students with ample resources.

While Pam Combs Elkins, a teacher at South Laurel Middle School in London, hasn’t been informed of a firm plan for reopening Laurel County schools, she is concerned because much of what has been suggested by the federal Centers for Disease Control is dependent on parents taking temperatures and teaching their children to wear masks and social distance.

“I just can’t see them all doing it and I don’t like the idea of my health and the health of my family dependent on good faith,” said Elkins. “Also, I know a lot of people here, who have kids in school, who refuse to wear a mask because they don’t believe this is real. What’s the likelihood their kids will follow the guidelines in school?”

Montgomery County teacher Sammi Davis Hatfield said she’s “fully confident” that her school district and Superintendent Matt Thompson will do everything possible to keep the students and employees safe during the transition back to school. She says teachers are committed to doing better by students who choose virtual learning.

“However, we are living in uncertain times, and just when we think we have Covid-19 figured out, something new happens,” she said.

The 47-year-old, a teacher for 23 years, said she has health issues that make her more susceptible “to the scary effects of this virus. “

Her husband, also a teacher, is a cancer survivor and severe diabetic. Her 6 -year-old son has a genetic condition called Prader-Willi Syndrome, and that makes him more vulnerable.

“I’m not selfish. I’m not self-absorbed. I’m a teacher, a mother, a wife, and I’m human. I’m scared,” she said. If a student or fellow staff member gets sick and she is required to quarantine, she wonders if she is expected to use her sick days or will the district provide emergency days ?

“We struggle to acquire subs already, and because so many of them are retired teachers and are more susceptible, I can’t imagine that they’ll be waiting in line to cover for me. “

Hatfield said she feels the pain, confusion, and frustration of parents who are also trying to put together a new normal for their family.

“I just hope that they, too, can understand that many teachers are parents of immune compromised children, spouses of those who are also at risk, and many are caregivers for elderly parents. We just aren’t willing to offer up a family member as a sacrificial lamb. It’s not fair to expect that from us,” she said.

Gov. Andy Beshear said in an interview with WLEX on Thursday that school officials should not be asking educators with underlying health conditions who are at serious risk if they contract COVID to come back to school in person. He said those teachers and staff members should be given the option of performing services that don’t require them to go into schools every day.

Krystina Sheehan, a Jefferson County teacher , told the Herald-Leader that her top concern is being exposed and spreading Covid to her son, 6, who has type 1 diabetes.

“I myself have asthma, which puts me at risk, but he is high risk,” she said.

Too, she is worried about her students at Shelby Traditional Academy not being able to focus on academics because of all the new protocols and procedures that must be put in place.

“My students’ mental health is just as important as their academics, if not more so right now with the current situation of the world. Throughout the day there isn’t a 10 minute window where I don’t have a small group of students, a child asking to use the restroom, needing an extra snack because they came in late, needing to talk about a stress they have going on,” she said.

“Sometimes it’s just a hug they need, and that won’t be an option right now which is heartbreaking.”

This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 11:39 AM.