Open schools? Not without funds and preparation

Ihave been teaching high school in Santa Fe for 16 years. I believe most people in Santa Fe share two goals: a high-quality education with equal access for all our children, and a healthy, safe environment for teaching and learning.

To achieve these goals, the Public Education Department recently issued guidelines for school reopening, recommending a hybrid model that combines in-person learning with distance learning. With COVID-19 cases rising dramatically, safe, in-person teaching and learning grows more problematic by the day. As a result, I believe distance learning will be a significant component of the coming school year.

Distance learning should really be called “disadvantaged learning.” Parents, students, teachers and administrators are aware that distance learning penalizes all students, and especially penalizes the students who already are the most short-changed by our education system. These students have a right — an urgent need — for high-quality, equal access education.

If distance learning is disadvantaged learning, is there an alternative? There is — but do we have the courage and determination to pursue it?

The Santa Fe School Board should consider the following approach:

1. Delay the opening of school until April 1 and conduct an eight-month, April 1-Dec. 1 school year.

2. Launch an all-out campaign to obtain the funds needed to maintain and improve quality education for all students in Santa Fe.

Why delay the school year?

Three reasons: Over the next nine months, meaningful progress is likely to be made toward the development of a vaccine, treatment, and management of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19; a delay to April 1 avoids conducting school during the potentially deadly fall and winter flu/virus season; and a delay opens a critical window to prepare for school reopening, including by mounting an all-out campaign for funding.

Why an all-out campaign for funding?

A detailed look at the requirements for in-person teaching in smaller, safer groups shows that more teachers, paraprofessionals, administrative staff, technical staff, health care staff and janitorial staff are essential to make in-person school possible.

Funds exist — the question is, do we have the will to fight to obtain them? Black lives mattered when people across this country insisted that they did and then built a determined social protest movement to back that up. Will our children’s lives matter? Will quality education matter?

Let’s commit ourselves to a nine-month campaign to obtain the funds we need for Santa Fe to reopen schools safely and effectively. Let’s begin with letters and petitions. Let’s organize parent, teacher, student and neighborhood committees to discuss next steps. Let’s think about rallies, demonstrations, marches and other creative and compelling actions to demand that the funds for our educational crisis be made available.

Where would the funds come from? From state reserve or permanent funds. From money currently allocated elsewhere. From an emergency tax on our biggest corporations and our most wealthy citizens. Is this too much to ask if our children actually are our future?

Five years from now, do we want to look back at this moment and say, “You know, we really should have done something to prevent an entire generation of young people from losing out on their future,” or do we want to be able to say, “We showed up, we were there, we conducted the biggest, boldest ‘save our children’ campaign Santa Fe has ever seen. It was our finest hour.”

In our hearts, I think we all know which choice we should make.

Rod Mehling has been a Santa Fe teacher for 16 years. He teaches history to 11th and 12th graders in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program at Mandela International Magnet School. Mehling is also the school’s History Department chairman.