Schools may open, but will teachers return? Educators weigh risk during the pandemic
State and local governments are weighing how and if schools can reopen in the fall as the coronavirus pandemic drags on.
But what if teachers won’t come back?
One in five educators said they were unlikely to return — even if schools were given the all clear to reopen, according to a new survey conducted by USA Today and the market research firm Ipsos.
Teachers at a higher risk of contracting the virus, either because of age or underlying health conditions, have said they wouldn’t feel safe returning without a vaccine.
President Donald Trump has also acknowledged the risk.
“I would say that until everything is perfect, I think that the teachers that are a certain age — perhaps, you say, over 60 — especially if they have a problem with heart or diabetes or any one of the number of things, I think that they should not be teaching school for a while,” he said during a White House briefing on May 6. “And everybody would understand that fully.”
By the numbers
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines individuals at “high-risk” for COVID-19 as anyone older than 65 or those of any age with underlying health issues, including asthma and serious heart conditions or who are otherwise immunocompromised.
According to a report published by The National Center for Education Statistics in April, close to 18 percent of teachers are older than 55.
American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said that figure encompasses 646,000 public and private K-12 teachers across the country, but it doesn’t take into account personnel such as bus drivers, administrators and custodians also over 55 years old.
And that’s just age.
“Some unknown number of school personnel will have (those) underlying health conditions that make them more susceptible,” AEI said in a May report.
Weighing the risk
A 62-year-old teacher in Chicago told ChalkBeat that she has high blood pressure and wasn’t sure about going back to school without a vaccine — but she said she’d be “willing to keep teaching remotely,” the non-profit news outlet reported.
“It’s very scary right now,” Belinda Mckinney-Childrey said, according to ChalkBeat. “I can’t chance my health to go back. I love my job, I love what I do, but when push comes to shove, I think the majority of us will be like, ‘I think we’re going to retire.’ ”
Some aren’t prepared to make that decision.
“I’m not ready to retire, I’m just not,” Cossondra George told Education Week. “I love what I do. ... I don’t want somebody else to make that decision, and I don’t want my health to make that decision.”
George is a 58-year-old middle school teacher in Michigan with asthma. She said she’s worried about her and her students’ health if they go back in the fall, but she also hasn’t been happy with the quality of instruction distance learning provides, Education Week reported.
There isn’t a clear process for who gets to decide when it’s safe to return, or what happens when teachers disagree with a district’s decision, John Bailey, who co-authored the report for AEI, told ChalkBeat.
Some experts have called for a hybrid model that allows students to return with a remote work option for teachers.
In a blog post for Education Week, Dr. PJ Caposey, a superintendent of schools in Illinois, said parents, kids and teachers should be able to opt in or out of whatever model of in-person schooling their district chooses to follow.
“If the risk is too much for you as a teacher, you would become a remote learning teacher,” he wrote. “If the risk is too much for you as a parent/student, your student would be a remote learning student.”
Fallout
Whether it’s offering an early retirement incentive or pooling resources for online instruction, going back to school in the fall is likely to cost school districts money — and talent.
Younger teachers replacing those who opt to retire might cost a school district less, ChalkBeat reported, but “they are not always cost-savers.”
The teachers who replace them might also be less qualified, Mother Jones reported. And without as many teachers, class sizes could increase — “meaning less individual attention for students and greater risk that students in closer quarters will more easily transmit the virus.”
Bailey, one of the co-authors of the AEI report, said the question of returning is a complicated one.
“I don’t see any way for this scenario not to be a cost driver,” he told ChalkBeat.
This story was originally published May 26, 2020 at 2:48 PM.
