San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
SOME TEACHERS READY TO RETURN
Every weekday, David Moisl, a kindergarten teacher at West Portal Elementary, puts on what he calls “The Mr. David Show.” He smiles, dances, reads in his most animated voice, jokes and hams it up, because that’s what it takes to get little kids’ attention through a computer screen. But it’s not working. The morning circles? Gone. The singing together? Gone. Learning how to share and socialize? Gone. The joy? That’s mostly gone, too. “What we’re left with is the other parts of kindergarten — the ABCs and the 123s,” he said. “Usually, it’s a feelgood profession. Now we’re putting in a lot of time, effort and work, and we’re not getting the emotional satisfaction.” That’s why Moisl is ready to go back to the classroom once the Department of Public Health
“Usually, it’s a feelgood profession. Now we’re putting in a lot of time, effort and work, and we’re not getting the emotional satisfaction.”
David Moisl, kindergarten teacher at West Portal Elementary
says all the necessary safety precautions are in place. And he’s not alone among educators in San Francisco’s public schools. So far, they’ve just been the quiet ones, too afraid to speak out. Until now.
As the fight over reopening San Francisco’s public schools after 11 brutal months of distance learning heats up, we’ve heard plenty of loud voices. We’ve heard from City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who sued the school district and school board Wednesday over what he said was their failure to craft a clear plan to reopen. We’ve heard from Mayor London Breed, who supports the lawsuit because distance learning is damaging children’s mental health and their mothers’ careers.
We’ve heard from Superintendent Vincent Matthews, who swears he has a plan to open schools — even though that plan includes no dates, timelines or specifics.
We’ve heard from Susan Solomon, the president of the United Educators of San Francisco, who on Friday presented for the first time a list of clear demands for what it will take for teachers to go back to school. And we’ve heard from the school board — about a host of unrelated topics.
We’ve also heard from teachers who are understandably wary about returning to campus. Who are older or who have underlying health conditions or who take care of elderly parents. They’re the ones most likely to comment in articles, post on social media or speak up among their colleagues.
They have fair points. Teachers are underpaid and underappreciated, and many of them don’t trust district administrators to deliver on their promises of safe schools.
But the impression all this gives is that teachers are a unified block refusing to return to their classrooms — and that’s simply not true. Sadly, the issue has become so fraught, it’s controversial in San Francisco to say, “I’m a teacher, and I want to go back to school.”
“I’ve been ready for a long time,” Moisl said. “But it’s such a touchy subject that I haven’t brought it up. Talking to the media, I somehow feel more comfortable than talking to my staff, which is strange.”
He avidly reads news about coronavirus transmission in schools and trusts scientists, doctors and the city’s public health leaders who say it’s safe as long as distancing, masking, hand hygiene and ventilation are in place. He knows inschool virus transmission has been rare at the 113 private and parochial schools operating in San Francisco and the public schools up and running in many parts of the Bay Area.
“My position is the Department of Health and health care professionals should be making these calls — not me and not the union,” he said.
Jessica WallackCohen, a classroom aide in two fourthgrade classes at Sunnyside Elementary, agrees that the Department of Public Health should decide when public schools are ready to reopen. She also thinks teachers should be able to choose whether to return or continue distance learning, but says even that is controversial.
“It’s hard to know who you can talk to ... but I’ve made a decision recently that I’m just going to say what I’m feeling,” she said.
And how is she feeling? Depleted. Her students have reached their breaking points — not turning on their cameras, not paying attention in class and not turning in their assignments. Her own daughter, a secondgrader, cries every day.
“It’s terrifying as a mom to know she might not recover from this,” she said. “She might never revert back to that happy, bubbly, charismatic kid that she was.”
Kevin Robinson, a substitute teacher in the district, said he would return to the classroom immediately. He doesn’t understand why some educators, who are all about studying the facts before forming opinions, are so adamant that the scientists and doctors have it wrong.
“It used to be if you were sick, you needed a doctor’s note to go back to school,” he said. “We have the doctor’s note, but we’re saying we don’t believe you, doctor. We know better.”
He would also send his son, a firstgrader at Yick Wo Elementary, back right away. His boy, he said, is “Zoomed out” and has regressed academically, asking him how to spell “the” and “of.” On a recent outdoor playdate, his son’s good friend, usually an outgoing kid, was so anxious he hid behind his mother and wouldn’t play.
Callen Taylor, a librarian at Visitacion Valley Middle School, said she fields text messages from parents asking what to do about kids who won’t leave their rooms and are despondent.
“That’s the heartbreaking part while everybody’s playing the blame game,” she added.
She’s also livid that the city’s community hubs for lowincome children to distancelearn in groups are mostly run by young people of color — many of them recent graduates of the city’s public schools — for far less money than teachers receive for working from home.
“We’re being hypocrites,” she said. “We’re allowing our hubs to assume the risk that we don’t want to assume.”
It seems the lawsuit has already prodded the school unions closer toward reopening. Solomon said at a news conference Friday that they will not require lids on all toilets or kids to be vaccinated before returning — two items that had been talked about before, dismaying many parents who found them unreasonable.
She said the unions will agree to return if the county reaches the state’s red tier and all school staff have access to vaccinations. Or if the county reaches the orange tier if they are not. They will also require updated ventilation systems, personal protective equipment such as masks, robust contact tracing, small cohorts and cleaning and disinfecting regimens.
“We reject the idea this has been a wasted year,” she added. “Students, their families, educators and support staff have all been working as hard as we can.”
That’s largely true, but distance learning just can’t work in many cases.
Cicily Ennix is a case manager for students with special needs at Independence High School. She usually works one on one with as many as 25 students. Now, she’s tasked with helping only 14. But she hears regularly from just four.
In the past few years, she lost one student to suicide and another to a drug overdose. She doesn’t know whether her current students who ignore her inquiries are OK.
When they do engage, they often turn their cameras off and mute themselves, just typing words into the chat box. District policy allows students to keep their cameras off, which means teachers are often talking to blank screens.
“It’s this constant pulling for a response. It’s very exhausting. There’s no substance,” Ennix said of distance teaching. “It just seems like a placeholder. Just a facade.”
She’s ready to see her students facetoface again. The question is, when can she?