We get it.
The science tells us schools are capable of reopening safely.
The data tell us remote instruction has depressed students’ progress.
For the parents among us, our own experiences tell us nearly a year’s worth of remote learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic has been untenable.
But with all of the the social media message boards, the virtual meetings of our school boards, the marches for reopening and even the new billboards, we may have lost sight of something important: the teachers.
Our public school teachers, and their private school counterparts, have endured the same COVID-19 pandemic we all have. They’ve weathered the fear of sickness and death, and the still-looming fear of the unknown, while undertaking a veritable tectonic shift in the educational landscape at lightning speed starting last spring. Many have children of their own also engaged in remote learning.
Last March, few of us could have predicted the sobering scope of the coronavirus pandemic, which was isolated for a time on a cruise ship before that ship made its way under the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. One case turned to dozens, then hundreds, and so on.
As the United States grapples with an unbelievable death toll – 500,000 gone – Sonoma County, too, recognizes the loved ones we can never get back. More than 295 have died in the county, the cases and deaths coming in waves. For the past year, we’ve been a county and a nation under protracted siege.
The most optimistic among us hoped it would all be over by August 2020. We hoped for a return to restaurants and coffee shops, another shot at fellowship at some of our favorite fall festivals and the sense of relief that return to normalcy would entail.
Through it all, teachers worked all last summer to hone their new digital craft to ensure they’d be ready to give the best instruction possible to our children when school resumed in the fall - regardless of circumstance.
And for nearly an entire school year, our teachers have done everything in their power to lift our students up, even as the nature of online learning has dragged scores down. If you know any teachers, you know it breaks their hearts to fail at that mission – even if it’s not their fault.
And that’s the key point: This is not their fault.
We may yet get our children back in school this year. Teachers are now being prioritized in the county’s vaccination campaign, providing safety and assurances for these crucial workers.
Before that happens, we encourage everyone to voice their opinions and engage in healthy, rigorous debate about this critical issue.
But we also encourage you to keep teachers in mind. Maybe even take a moment to send a special note to a teacher you know. Thank them.
We’ll start.
Thank you, teachers, for all you do.