This week the US reported more than a million Covid-19 cases in one day – a new global record!
As this latest surge in the pandemic hits, schools all over the nation are closing up again and returning to on-line classes.
People everywhere are wondering if teachers are to blame.
Here are some things for school directors and administrators to consider:
–If you don’t require all students and staff to wear masks – don’t blame teachers.
–If you don’t regularly test students and staff for Covid – don’t blame teachers.
–If you don’t require all students and staff to be vaccinated – don’t blame teachers.
–If your classrooms are not well ventilated – don’t blame teachers.
–If you force staff to come into the building for professional development and don’t allow them to attend remotely – don’t blame teachers.
–If you don’t provide K95 masks to all students and staff – don’t blame teachers.
–If you didn’t devise a schedule to keep students socially distanced – don’t blame teachers.
–If you don’t deep clean each classroom and other student spaces between classes – don’t blame teachers.
–If you don’t have lunches outdoors or in some other extremely well-ventilated space – don’t blame teachers.
–If you don’t require a negative Covid test before sick students or staff can return to school – don’t blame teachers.
–If students and staff have steadily been getting sick for weeks and you’ve done nothing to prepare – Don’t Blame Teachers.
–In short, if you haven’t done everything you can do to prevent an outbreak sweeping through your school and your community – DON’T. BLAME. TEACHERS.
BLAME YOURSELF.
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gadflyonthewallblog 
Anyone that blames teachers for anything does not know how to blame anyone else since they were programmed to think this way by GOP fascist tactic in use for more than fifty years.
If it doesn’t rain, blame teachers.
If the earth gets hit by an asteroid, blame teachers.
If our pets get ticks and fleas, blame teachers.
If our god, Trump lies, blame teachers.
et al.
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I am sick of blamed for every social ill under the sun. I predict many more teachers will get sick. There is no social distancing in my school. Kids are told to wear masks, but there are no consequences if they don’t. We have no proof that our ventilation is up-to-date in my 50+ building where everything else is falling apart.
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I hear you, Susan. It’s crazy out there. We raise our voices. We tell the truth whether people want to hear it or not. Take care.
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I would also add:
-If you haven’t reduced class sizes so that social distancing can be maintained within the classroom – don’t blame teachers!
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This is so true. And the district in which I teach has a “Covid data dashboard” that isn’t updated. We have no mask mandate and only 6 staff in the school (staff of 60) and about 3-4 kids in class wear masks. I have started double masking. We don’t enough custodians, so the only cleaning is done by me with supplies I mostly buy myself. My classes are from 35-40, the district finally brought in HEPA filters about 3 weeks ago, but the building is 56 years old and can’t have school-wide filtration. Kids are sick everywhere, but there is no requirement to inform us if a kid has Covid and some have come to school, unmasked, 3 days after testing positive, when they have a pending test (that turns out to be positive), or their household has Covid. A teacher at a nearby school died of Covid and the news didn’t even mention it–how many other staff have died of Covid? And yet this is all our fault…
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Maybe it’s just different in my town. We don’t require masks (unless you’re a close contact), tests, vaccines, social distancing (Lunches outside? It’s cold!), remote learning/professional development. Here, we have no intention of shutting things down, but you bring up a good point. Everybody wants to blame somebody, and this is a bigger issue when districts make large sweeping decisions. Some want restrictions and at-home learning and some don’t. This got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be great if people had more freedom to decide their child’s education? Maybe there could be multiple schools in a district. Some could offer certain things (shut down, require everything, remote everything) and others could offer a different model (in-person, encourage but not require). There would be less blaming because more people would have greater satisfaction. I think people blame teachers out of frustration since they don’t have options. This whole thing has me really rethinking how we do school.
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No, JC, I don’t agree. We don’t need the choice to have unsafe schools. All schools should be safe. At most schools should allow staff and students who are most at risk to stay home and teach/learn remotely.
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[…] No mask mandate. No vaccine mandate. No random testing to see if anyone even has the disease. […]
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[…] there just wasn’t enough staff available to keep the schools open. And not enough students left to teach […]
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