The Time a Handful of Politicians Tried to Kill Me

The Dangerous Antics of a Foolish School Board

The Pandemic

I didn’t die during the pandemic. I got Covid once. I could hardly tell I was even sick. I had just recently been vaccinated for the fourth time, so that might have helped.

But before I was vaccinated, I, like many, was deathly afraid of contracting the virus. I had several of the health issues that would put me statistically in the high-risk category. So, I sheltered in place, bought groceries using curbside pickup, masked up if I had to go out, avoided people I couldn’t stay 10 feet away from and worked from home.

Teaching from Home

I am a high school math teacher, and I will echo much of what the world concluded, that remote learning was a horrible way to conduct school, and in fact, very little learning took place.

However, it was all we had.

Back in the Classroom

Then, our local school board, encouraged by the district’s administration, decided to put teachers back in the classroom and bring the students back in the buildings. There was no consideration for high-risk teachers. Vaccinations were not yet available.

It was scary but perhaps a necessary evil. Remote learning, like I said, was really going poorly.

So, I set up my classroom the best I could. I created a barrier between me in the students with a wall of desks and tables.

My desk was situated right next to an open window and a fan blowing straight across me and towards an open door, even during the winter. I taught from my Surface Pro laptop, writing on it instead of a board and the students sat, as spaced out as I could manage, ten feet away.

Mask Mandate

We all wore masks and that comforted me a little.

Enforcing the mask rule was a pain. Some students didn’t want to wear them, and some didn’t know how to wear them. The masks were inconvenient and uncomfortable.

Masks were difficult to teach in. It was hard to hear the kids and it was hard for them to hear me. Breathing in them was certainly not as easy as breathing without them.

Nobody enjoyed wearing them, but they did make me feel safer and kept us from being remote. The mask mandate kept schools open by preventing a nightmare of quarantining, testing and absences.

Keeping Schools Open

Without the masks, every time a student tested positive for Covid, every kid that sat within a 6-foot radius of that child also had to be quarantined and would not be allowed to come to school for 10 days.

With the masks, there was no extra quarantining. The mask mandate prevented forcing teachers and students to stay home after a close contact.

The students and I found our groove. Teaching did go much better than remote. Even though we hated the masks, I found a way to teach wearing a mask, and the students found a way to learn from me while wearing a mask.

New Board Members

Then, our local school board held elections and suddenly there were three new members, not elected because of educational backgrounds but because of a political agenda. They ran mostly on the platform of being anti-masks.

At the first meeting, where a handful of students across the district had gathered to be recognized and awarded for various deeds, the three newest members of the school board were to be sworn in.

Anti-Maskers

The three showed up to the meeting held in one of the many school buildings in the district and refused to wear masks, blatantly disregarding a rule that was enforced across the city by tired teachers every day.

Rationally, the school board president suspended the meeting. The kids waiting to be recognized had to go home because three elected adults cared more about their comfort and a political stunt than the students’ accomplishments.

The Rules Apply to Everyone

As a member of the community, I was embarrassed. As a teacher in the district, I was scared for what the future held under their leadership. As a parent of a young student in the city, I was appalled for the blatant disregard for my daughter’s education.

I understand protesting when you do not like a rule that you feel is oppressive or unfair. I understand breaking the rule if you feel that your hands are tied, and you have no other means to change the rule. But when you have been elected to the very board that makes that rule, you have an avenue to change that rule that others do not.

A school board’s job is to make rules and policy that they expect teachers and students to follow. If teachers and students were allowed to follow only the rules that were convenient to them, it would be impossible to run a school district. What message is a school board member who blatantly disregards district policies sending to teachers and students?

Resolution

It turned out that the three new members who knew nothing about running schools were the only ones on the board that felt that mandating masks at that time was unnecessary. The other members voted to keep the mask mandate in place.

Eventually, vaccinations became available and I was able to breath a sigh of relief. At subsequent meetings, the newest members did wear masks and eventually, as was the case across the country, the mask mandate was no longer necessary, and it went away.

My fear is what is going to happen when these new members who sit on school boards across the country find out that running schools is more than just debating about mask mandates. What is going to happen when we need decisions made by qualified people with experience in education?

Across the country, morale among teachers is at an all-time low. Now is not the time to test that morale with asinine antics from our elected leaders.