Teacher deaths

Teachers Continue to Die from Covid-19!

By Stephen Wilson

 

 

There seems to be no reprieve. For after almost two years of one of the worst pandemics in world history, teachers feel more, not less, exposed. Indeed, confusion seems to reign. 

School staff are being sent back to schools as if everything has returned to 'normal'.  No clear, coherent and consistent protection policies have been uniformly enforced in America. 

Teachers are being sent back to many schools where masks are not mandatory for school students, social distancing policies are absent, and overcrowded classrooms where there is an absence of basic measures in hygiene such as the deep cleaning of schools. Teachers are also facing no proper protective measures such as small class sizes, contact tracing, mandatory wearing of masks for students as well as staff, intensive cleaning and a mass vaccination policy as well as daily testing, and properly ventilated classrooms.

Teachers and staff will continue to be exposed!  

 

The exposure of staff to an unsafe environment has worsened rather than improved. 

The problem has been compounded by a growing shortage of school teachers. For instance, as many as 10% of teachers in Providence, Rhode island have either retired or left their jobs. Schools now have a huge shortage of school teachers. In Florida the number of school vacancies has risen by 67% since August 2020 compared to only a 38.7% increase in August 2019.

The reasons for such a growing shortage of teachers is no mystery. Low pay, lack of respect and abysmal conditions quickly alienate new teachers, especially in the South where there are no unions! Going into over crowded classrooms with a rising number of infected children who are without masks seems reckless by any standards. There have been 200,000 reported weekly cases among children over a period of 5 weeks. 

Being exhausted and stressed out renders staff more vulnerable to catching this virus. Increased stress significantly weakens your immunity system. By sending staff into such an unsafe environment one wonders whether the authorities regard them as expendable. As those teachers are not being replaced, remaining staff are being asked to teach their classes. So some classes are even combined increasing class sizes! So much for social distancing measures!

 

The tragic results of this rush to return to the classroom without proper protection is clear to see. {see last month's article on the tragedy of Jensen} 

According to Education Week, since the beginning of the pandemic to early October 2021, at least 1,161 active and retired k-12 educators and personnel have died of Covid 19 in America. Of those, 387 were active teachers. 

However, those figures are likely to represent a huge underestimate. Education Week regularly publishes the photos, names and profiles of those victims. When you flick through this it seems never ending. A brief glance through it quickly undermines the myth that the main victims of Covid 19 are the elderly. For instance you can find Eric Miller, who was a 40-year-old teacher from School Chain of Lakes Elementary School from Winter Haven, Florda, and 23-year-old Savanna Davis, from the school district of Vinemont Elemetary, Alabama, who died this year, and Kaylee Dabe who was a 25- year-old teacher from a school district Dayton, Ohio. 

All those victims don't deserve to remain just a statistic. They deserve better than this. Their stories should not remain untold!