Who will teach your kids? Schools don’t know who’s teaching online, in the classroom
Kansas City area schools are set to open in just weeks, yet many teachers still don’t know if they will be in the classroom or not.
Landra Fair, for one, would like to know.
A science teacher at Mill Valley High School in the De Soto school district, she asked last month to teach online. The Johnson County district, like most others, starts after Labor Day with options for online, in person, or a hybrid of the two.
“We haven’t heard back yet about our assignments but the superintendent has said that it is unlikely that any high school teachers will be 100% online,” she said.
“I’m very worried. I have no idea how I am going to social distance my students. And I don’t feel super comfortable policing my students.”
Administrators expect to know more about teacher placement after parents finish enrolling their children. Parents in many districts are choosing from two options — online only or in-person learning. Students could also wind up with a hybrid model of learning — at home and in-person with modified schedules.
Once parents have their say, the districts will have to ensure there are enough teachers to operate the different models of school for a full semester.
And plans could change depending on whether the number of coronavirus cases in the area rises or falls.
Teachers have been asked where they want to work, but there’s no guarantee they will get their preference.
“Online spots are limited and are given to the older teachers or those with seniority,” said Julian Vizitei, who teaches 10th grade advance placement world history at the Ewing Marion Kauffman School, a Kansas City charter school.
The Kauffman school announced in June that it will be online for the fall and is planning to be online for the entire school year, so Vizitei isn’t worried for himself. But as a co-founder of Missourians for Educational Change, an online teacher advocacy group, he’s concerned about the many teachers he’s heard from this summer.
“Some teachers are literally saying, ‘if I don’t get an online slot I’m going to quit,’ ” Vizitei said.
“I feel so lucky because we got information early and I thought then that this was gonna happen all over Missouri,” he said. “Then July hit and I started hearing from scared teachers. I was inundated and the question they were asking is why were they being forced to risk their lives. “
He said teachers “are told to suck it up and do it for the kids. Buy your own supplies, be ready to take a bullet for a kid, and if we complain they say we don’t really care about the children.“
Wait until it’s safe
Fair, the Mill Valley teacher, said she has “a hard enough time keeping students off their phones. I don’t know how they expect me to keep them six feet apart and to keep their masks on.”
“And what if friends get too close to one another, do I give them a warning, do I give them detention for not social distancing, not wearing a mask? Teens are going to challenge us. It’s what they do,” she said.
Teachers have echoed the same concerns across the Kansas City metro. In a survey submitted to staff, the Shawnee Mission district learned that about 18% of certified teachers say they feel comfortable returning to classrooms, compared with 28% of teachers who do not. About 9% strongly agreed with returning to school, and 25% strongly disagreed with going back to class.
Roughly half of all staff members responded saying they have one or more high-risk health conditions associated with COVID-19, including 42% of certified teachers.
“No one wants our students back in schools more than educators, but we must prioritize student and educator safety,” said Phil Murray, a Poplar Bluff teacher and president of the Missouri National Education Association.
A July 30 survey of 24,270 Missouri teachers found that nearly 80% of teachers are skeptical about returning to in-person classes. They said “districts should not rush to meet an arbitrary opening date but instead should focus on opening when it’s safe.”
Districts say they are doing all they can to keep staff and teachers safe. Kansas City Public Schools recently announced it will take every employee’s temperature before they enter buildings.
Dan Clemens, superintendent of the North Kansas City school district, said his district has been gathering feedback from teachers who this summer have been working in NKC’s two year-round schools and working with the district’s Collaborative Team for Teacher Negotiations “to prepare solutions together.”
“We understand our teachers’ concerns, and have worked diligently with local and national health departments to develop extensive safety measures to provide for everyone’s safety and well-being,” he said.
Still, some teachers are worried.
“There are a lot of people in the profession who are veteran educators who fall into the high-risk category, and quite honestly, they are afraid for their lives,” said Marcus Baltzell, with the Kansas National Education Association. “Yes, teachers have contractual obligations. But at the same time, we all have obligations to one another as humans.”
For now, many of these educators are waiting to learn whether they’ll be standing in their classroom, facing dozens of students next month.
“Unfortunately there are some districts that are forcing folks to choose between the health and well-being of themselves and their family to come into a situation that teachers may believe is unsafe,” Baltzell said. “Nobody should be faced with the decision that I have to go back and continue my career, or I have to resign because of the health of myself and my family.”
Making the math work
Officials in Johnson County districts, including Shawnee Mission, Blue Valley and Olathe, said they are figuring out how to staff brick-and-mortar buildings while also creating fully online schools — complete with principals and teachers instructing nearly all grade levels and subjects.
“If the stars align appropriately, then we’ll have the same percentage of teachers and students who line up together,” said Heather Ousley, president of the Shawnee Mission school board. “There will be a logistical challenge coming up with an entirely online model, in-person model and hybrid model. And it’s been a herculean task.”
In Blue Valley, Eric Punswick, chief human resources officer, said the district has considered hiring outside teachers for online instruction.
“It is possible and we have plans to address this if needed; however, we are anticipating that we have the necessary staff to accommodate both in-person, hybrid and virtual,” he said.
Across Kansas and Missouri, Baltzell said hiring additional teachers is challenging in the midst of an ongoing teacher shortage.
“And now we have a condition where a global crisis is trying to be managed at a local level,” Baltzell said. “That is why districts need to collaborate with teachers. If they instead say here’s the plan, now go execute it, that’s when there’s a serious concern that shortages will be even more pronounced.
“We say we don’t want to overwhelm hospitals with patients. Well, we don’t want to overwhelm school districts with a lack of staffing because everybody is sick.”
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, in an attempt to address the potential shortage of substitute teachers, approved the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s request to temporarily waive portions of the state statutes that limit the number of hours retired school employees can work in a substitute position, and the total salary they can be paid in that role.
Not knowing is frustrating
Even after teachers are given their initial assignments, districts warn they may have to switch to a different learning model within a matter of days. That will depend on guidance from local health departments, based on the spread of COVID-19 in the community.
“While there’s a lot of stress and anxiety around this, I think everyone at their core is really concerned about the health and well-being of our community,” Ousley said. “Uncertainty is difficult. But we all need to be aware that whatever decisions we’re making right now, we may have to alter.”
And not knowing has teachers across the metro area worried that by the time districts tell them where they will teach, they won’t have enough time to plan lessons. How they teach, in some cases, will depend greatly on whether they are doing it virtually or in person.
Kansas City Public Schools officials said they have been training teachers for months to deliver engaging lessons virtually and working with parents so they understand how the online learning platforms work and can help their children manage them.
Tymia Morgan teaches English at Central High School in the KCPS district and believes teachers can connect with students remotely. She has other worries.
Last year Morgan got sick at school with “walking pneumonia,” which progressed to sepsis and she eventually had to have lung surgery. “I truly understand how easy it is to get sick at school. I am going to try and stay out of school as long as possible.”
But what’s frustrating, she said, is not knowing where she will be assigned for the year, in class or remote from home.
“As teachers we have been in this weird space now, in limbo since March. We’ve been in a constant state of ‘I don’t know’ all summer long.”
The only way to plan, she said, is to “plan for online and in the classroom. You have to have a backup plan and a fail safe plan in case nothing works and everything changes. You have to be super prepared. We are working hard. Give us teachers some grace.”
Uncertainty has some other teachers confused and unable to plan for the year.
“There are teachers telling us they have nothing prepared because they don’t know if they are going to be online or in person,” said Vizitei, with Missourians for Educational Change.
He said a lot of teachers are just not eager to go back into the classroom full time right now because they don’t believe it is safe yet for students or for them.
“What we would like to see is for the state department of education to mandate online only until there is a vaccine or at least until the positivity rate is under 5%,” said Andrew Rexroat, a fifth grade teacher at Foreign Language Academy in the KCPS district. “I am pretty upset with state leaders.”
Missouri Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven has said there are “no statewide health mandates related to K-12 school reopening being issued at this time.” But state education leaders did offer districts some basic safety guidance.
In Kansas, the state education department provided more than 1,000 pages of guidelines on how to safely reopen schools. But it is up to districts to follow it, and determine when to begin in-person instruction. Gov. Laura Kelly also issued an executive order requiring everyone to wear masks and have their temperatures checked when classrooms do reopen.
Parson has pushed for all students and teachers to return to classrooms full time. He met with district superintendents this summer and is leaving it up to local educators to decide how their schools reopen.
Rexroat understands the desire to get kids back in class, but said there are more pressing concerns.
“We know that having kids come to see us makes learning more enjoyable but I think online is the only safe way,” Rexroat said. “I believe that teachers will do the most they possibly can to make sure as many students as possible learn as much as possible given the circumstances. We are really trying to make really engaging lessons.”
Social distancing in some schools, he said, is nearly impossible because classrooms are too small to space students six feet apart.
“And even if we are in person, with COVID-19 and all the restrictions we won’t be anywhere close to having the same level of engagement that we had before the virus,” he said.
Rexroat, who is a co-founder of Missouri for Educational Change, said teachers also are worried about the emotional impact students might suffer if they were to get sick and carry the virus home.
“If they think that their going to school is the reason their grandma died, there is long-term trauma involved with that.”
With several unknowns, teachers are preparing for the complicated balance of keeping hundreds of children safe while providing the level of education and resources that students rely on. They just want to know, Baltzell said, that their safety will be given the same level of consideration.
“Quite honestly, teachers want to be with students teaching. We know face-to-face learning is what we all want,” he said. “But they want to have that respect, and don’t want to be forced into making decisions that risk their own safety. There is no teaching and learning relationship if there is no teacher.”
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
