JANUARY 2022 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 19
COVID CRISIS
SCHOOLS NEED SUPPORT
BY RICHARD HAASE
PRESIDENT, HALF HOLLOW HILLS TEACHERS’
ASSOCIATION
Covid has upended the lives of many
working Americans. For educators,
the last two years have come as an
exclamation mark on a systemic crisis
of stability that’s shaken our schools for
more than a decade. It’s driven millennials
away from teaching, exhausted a
generation that set out simply to make
a diff erence in the lives of children, and
had a lasting impact on the climate in
our schools, places that must continue
to be a safe haven where children can
develop personally, academically, and
socially into strong, centered young
people.
Ten years ago, we defended our schools
against a national eff ort to break public
education. We repelled attacks from
elected offi cials and self-motivated entrepreneurs
who demoralized teachers
and pushed for-profi t testing and accountability
platforms. In the backdrop,
economic crisis led to deeper cuts in
education funding, tens of thousands
of educators laid off nationwide, and
an increase in school closures. Teacher
preparation programs immediately saw
a decrease in enrollment.
Far worse than the verbal and fi nancial
attacks was the dramatic increase
in mass school shootings. They cost
countless students and teachers their
lives and ushered in increases in drills,
surveillance, and emergency protocols.
When there isn’t actual violence, we
now contend with threats on TikTok
and other social media platforms. These
are among the new realities that shaped
the fabric of our schools before Covid
struck.
Since 2019, schools have pivoted dramatically
and repeatedly. Sudden closure of
the system forced millions to redefi ne
their work overnight. The following
school year required navigating infection
rates and looming closures,
contact tracing, quarantining, hybrid
instruction, and tectonic shift s to our
work that occurred monthly. Educators
ended the last school year, like so many
Americans, exhausted.
Today, we continue to work through the
residual and lingering challenges of the
Covid crisis. Students returned this year
with varied degrees of learning loss,
exacerbated for language learners and
students with disabilities. Teachers wear
masks all day, which is both right and
exasperating. We continue to overhaul
our teaching methods. We use our lunch
and planning times to cover classes for
quarantined colleagues, deliver instruction
and support to students who are at
home, and try to meet the increased
needs of our own classes.
Two years into the Covid crisis, everyone
is stretched thin. Our educators are
now ten years into crisis, and thinner
than we’d be if it was ‘only Covid’ we’d
been dealing with. We can’t undo all
we’ve endured, but communities must
immediately lay down their arms and
recommit to the trust and support we
need in order to protect our schools so
they can be the places we need them to
be for our children.
POINT OF VIEW
“We can’t
undo all we’ve
endured.”
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