We’ve already burdened our teachers enough

Re: “Five reasons to open schools,” Aug. 2 commentary

As the mother of a 30-year old teacher, I cannot support your position that schools should be reopened in less than a month for in-person instruction.

We do not pay our teachers enough or offer them enough respect to send them into battle on the frontlines of the pandemic.

I recognize that it is difficult for some families to supervise learning at home while one or both parents are also trying to work from home, that some students are disadvantaged because of a lack of home resources, and that “falling behind” is a problem for many.

These are not problems that we should put on the backs of our teachers or ask them to be responsible for solving.

We need to have societal solutions that we, as taxpayers and humans, are prepared to devise, fund and implement.

While only 30 years old, my son is not at high risk for coronavirus. But his life partner is. If he is forced to return to in-person teaching, he will have to move out of his home, and find an apartment or other accommodation because he will not put her life at risk.

Would you — or those supporting in-person learning — like to pay his rent expenses for the next 9 months so that he does not become a threat to his partner’s health?

Elizabeth Steele,

Sadly columnist Vincent Carroll didn’t think things through.

My cousin is an experienced and dedicated elementary teacher, in classrooms with no windows (therefore dependent on the school’s HVAC system for un-virus-tainted air), and a single mother dependent on help from her nearby grandmother who is at high COVID-19 risk from respiratory challenges. The students could easily become asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers, putting the grandmother at risk via her daughter and the rest of the family at risk, including other high-risk elders.

That said, my cousin was dissatisfied with the on-line learning processes at the end of last year. Too many parents were not ready to make that work for their children. She’d love to get back to the more effective in-person teaching, but not at risk of her family members.

To open schools because students or teachers are unlikely to become severely ill themselves is absurdly short-sighted. As with any public policy, the whole systems in play need to be well understood and respected.

Christopher Juniper,