By Kim Laidlaw
Dear Governor Scott and Secretary French:
I am writing to let you know that our family is in a seemingly impossible situation with regard to schedules for next year. Specifically, HUUSD, where our children attend (Harwood Union High School -- 11th grade, Harwood Union Middle School -- seventh grade, and Waitsfield Elementary School -- fourth grade) is planning to have students in the school building only one day per week and expects students (and, therefore, parents of young students and students with special needs) to participate in remote learning the other four days per week. Because that is what Superintendent Brigid Nease came up with.
Montpelier High School, where my husband teaches, is planning to have students in the building four days per week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday) with Wednesdays as an "at home" day to do work. Teachers are expected to be in the buildings five days per week. Because that is what Superintendent Libby Bonesteel came up with.
I teach in the Lamoille South Unified Union District, and although we don't have any finalized information yet, it is my understanding that my superintendent is expecting (most? all?) teachers to be in our buildings, working with LSUU students, some number of days per week. Because that is the plan Superintendent Tracy Wrend will have to come up with.
This is an impossible scenario, and I feel exceedingly frustrated that this is "the best you all could do." Seriously? Just kick that can down the road until it lands in the yards of our state's teachers? Seriously?
For those people in our state who are too unwell or too afraid to be in our school buildings or too afraid to send their children to them, we need a statewide remote option -- staffed by those teachers who must work remotely. Location doesn't matter for those teachers. They can teach students in any part of the state, online, from anywhere.
For the rest of us who want our kids back in school and are willing to take the risk, we need five days a week, in school, and after school care needs to happen. Working parents -- working teachers -- need care five days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Waiting until people “warm up to the idea of five days a week and become comfortable with it,” as the governor said in his press conference, is nonsense and simply not any kind of realistic option.
Parents can't be two places at once. Obviously.
Or we all stay home. All school year. And all next year. And forever, unless and until there is a vaccine.
Or you all -- you, Governor Scott, and you, Mr. French, you can get together with the leaders of the Vermont NEA and come up with an actual plan.
This "one thing here and one thing there" simply puts our working families (who you purport to care so much about) in impossible, unworkable positions.
Further, this situation of "all the kids have different schedules and teachers are supposed to be in their buildings full time" is creating a huge schism in our communities -- and the fault line divides the "haves" and the "have nots" in spectacular fashion.
This model is forcing parents to make their own pods in the community with other kids, and those with means will pay someone to babysit them and help them log on, complete assignments and generally manage the myriad issues that accompany having elementary school children learn online.
These kids, when they are remote learning may or may not wear masks (I'm guessing not). They will play together. They will not social distance. They have been playing together all summer. They will be together in groups all year long. They will share germs and bring those germs into their homes and into our schools on their in-school days -- not because this is what we want, but because you have left us no choice. And that makes none of us safer.
And the families who can't afford to do that? All of those kids will be left behind, unable to access the remote days in any kind of real way. Or their parents will have to quit their jobs and go on unemployment, further financially crippling our economy and those individual families.
The inequity that this nonplan plan is creating is astonishing.
Nothing -- nothing -- works in our state economically unless and until our children are taken care of. Nothing. You need to fix this before September 8, 2020.
Laidlaw lives in Fayston.
