We are now into the second month of the school year under these strange and scary circumstances, and I am amazed that each day, as I deal with the vast and varying needs of my students while simultaneously trying to navigate curriculum, I also recognize the many risks we face in our schools in new and frightening ways.
Should the virus enter our school, which I know is reflective of many schools, especially middle schools where they today announced more new cases, there are layers upon layers of potential points of contact and exposure.
Despite the formation of classroom cohorts, staggered lunch scheduling, and the fact that our hallways, once bustling with life, are like ghost towns, and beyond the fact that there is still no opportunity for social distancing in classrooms at all, there are staff in the school, quite a significant number of individuals, who continue their work with large parts of the student population.
I have been reflecting, or perhaps procrastinating, all week on the various challenges, and risks, not just to teachers in their classrooms, but to various school staff, who, by doing their jobs, are also increasing the risk to themselves and everyone else in the school, while simultaneously dissolving the notion of cohorts.
There are a number of teachers who teach one subject, like physical education, band, technology, and applied arts to a number of cohorts, or classrooms, sometimes outdoors, and more often in their own learning environments. The masks, sanitizing, and other time consuming safety measures they are taking every day still only go so far, given the number of students they see in our poorly ventilated classrooms. Some of these teachers also teach students coming from different schools without the resources ours has, increasing exposure even more.
Our three learning support teachers essentially work with one third of the school population each with some crossover. While they don't work with every child, they generally have close contact with a number of students often among the most vulnerable. Some of our students also live with physical disabilities that require direct contact, including feeding and other activities even though these students cannot wear masks. These teachers then go on to visit every school in the classroom between them. Under the current system, their jobs as learning support teachers requires them to work with large parts of the population.
While some of their time is spent in classrooms, and fairly large spaces, there are times when learning support teachers also work with a couple of students in small offices, or with different groups of students, again usually among the most vulnerable students who are challenged being in classrooms, in their alternate learning spaces.
When students return to the classroom, which is the ultimate goal, they are also bringing the contacts they have made, and the risk of exposure increases. The contact with teachers who have worked with students from other classes, as well as times when different students share the learning space, also challenges the ability to maintain any sort of classroom cohort.
The fact is that when individuals, who do the jobs essential to the lives and well-being of students, are working with many different students, just by doing their jobs, the risk of contact and exposure in the school is increased and the ability to cohort students decreases.
The gravity of the situation began to sink in when I was watching CBC last Saturday morning and they were interviewing a doctor. He was speaking to the risk involved when people socialize, and as he described women sitting around a table playing mah-jongg, he stated that while the risk in handling the tiles is low, it is the duration of time they sit, and the air quality in the room, that are the mitigating factors. He stressed that even if all the players are wearing masks and fairly distanced, after a certain period of time, if present, there is the potential for the virus to hang like smoke in the air, especially in rooms with poor ventilation and therein lies the greater risk.
As I watched, my mind flashed to the various encounters I have been having with our guidance counsellors as we work together to support some of the students in my classes facing a number of issues no adult should have to deal with, never mind a child, in what are among the smallest spaces in our schools.
Our two guidance counsellors have offices situated across from the library, sandwiched between the boys' and girls' bathrooms. They each have an office that is about the same size as our art storage closet, at maybe 3.5m or 4m long and 2-2.5m wide. They share a bigger 3rd office in the area that houses a piano, as well as a table and chairs, that in the past would be used for groups, and can now accommodate two students with some room between them. The guidance space is connected with its own waiting area, where, in the past, students could find comfort on the couch as they waited, or if they needed a few moments to de-stress, and is now locked. Another loss for kids.
Our guidance counsellors are in constant demand and between them work with most, if not all, of the school. They spend time in classrooms collaborating with teachers to deliver the health curriculum and mental health programs, they facilitate groups, they attend administrative and support meetings, and they spend time talking with individual students, which is arguably the most important part of a guidance counsellor's job, especially to those students.
The students who seeks out the guidance counsellors, or are sought out by them, are once again almost always among the most vulnerable. These kids find refuge in the offices of the guidance counsellors as they are safe spaces to be themselves and talk about their lives and their problems. More often than not, these kids are facing serious issues and life challenges. They are worrying about unemployed parents and how they will pay the bills. They are wondering who they are, and in too many cases, who their parents are and why they were left behind by their families or taken from them.
When a child is debriefing after returning from a few days with the crisis response unit, or sharing their worries about confronting their abuser in court months from now, or mourning the death of a family member, or disclosing that they feel alone in the world and have been cutting themselves, face to face communication in a safe and private space is essential.
Today, for conversations like these, one guidance counsellor can wedge the student just inside the door and move to the back end and get the prescribed 2m of distance, so they can both remove their masks for a few minutes to have as comfortable a conversation as possible during what often feels like the worst times in these children's lives. Sometimes these conversations happen several times a day.
Our guidance counsellors do incredible work every day facing ridiculous challenges to support hurting children in awful situations that are generally the result of the systemic racism at the foundation of our institutions, as well as the bureaucracy that continues to fuel them.
They are doing the best they can with what they have to support the students they care about, as is every staff person in our building.
But that does not diminish the fact that by doing our jobs we are facing risks, and the level of risk is not being properly addressed.
After seeing the doctor's interview, I wrote my administration and the guidance counsellors and suggested that at the least they consider purchasing standing air purifiers for their offices and some of the other small spaces in our building. It seems a logical investment and an important step to protect staff and students in our school, especially considering the guidance counsellors' offices seem to be a nexus point and potentially dangerous point. I assured them I would be happy to learn we have air purifiers, or at least that they are on back order, and that I would be very happy to learn I wasn't the one to come up with the idea.
When it comes to the pandemic and our safety, it doesn't seem like I should be the one coming up with the ideas. At the same time, it also seems as though the opinions of teachers continue to go unsolicited and disregarded as leaders in government and education remain disinterested in the opinions or expertise of teachers in the field. Not new, but still disappointing.
This is the hardest reflection I have had to write so far, and my fear is the situation is only got to get worse, with more illness and fear of its inevitability permeating more classrooms. With 50something new cases in Manitoba yesterday, and 67 new cases today, it seems the province and leaders of medicine and education are in denial, or deluding themselves into a sense of security by believing that the problem is only in restaurants and bars.
It seems they believe that by professing that there will be social distancing and safe protocols in schools, they magically believed it could happen, even though there are over 20 students in the average classroom maintaining even 1m between students is impossible in most cases.
I believe every child deserves to learn in school, but there are more options than the current social construction of 9 a.m - 3:30 p.m for every child. If the government actually cared about the health and well-being of students and staff, leaders would begin by investing in doubling support staff and teachers, in order to cut class sizes in half so students can be properly distanced, cohorted, and safe.
In the meantime, I am grateful for each warm day I can take my students outside, and the fact that I can keep the windows open, even though my students are already complaining it is cold- I tell them to get used to it and bring a sweater.
I am trying not to think about the winter to come for now, and how much worse it could be, just as in this post, I didn't even mention the educational assistants, secretaries, administration, custodians, and library staff, who all also share space, and the air, in our school, with a variety of students and other school staff each day, and add even more layers of risk.
Once again I am hoping to be wrong, but I am afraid the numbers will come to reflect this too.
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