Why does NYC refuse to protect its teachers?
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BRONX TIMES R 12 EPORTER, JULY 24-30, 2020 BTR
BY ANTHONY SCIARRATTA
Public-school teachers in
New York City are underpaid,
undervalued, and overworked.
In a city that hails itself as a progressive
safe haven, New York
City has consistently neglected
to properly handle the massive
problem that is its education system.
The coronavirus pandemic
is only highlighting the already
massive underlying issue that
we have all known for too long:
Why does New York City not
value its teachers?
COVID-19 does not discriminate,
it’s affecting people of all
races, genders, and ethnicities,
yet, we are valuing the lives of
some more than others. How
can elected offi cials in New York
City force teachers to come into
work, where they will be prone
to infection by COVID-19? There
is already blood on the hands
of those who didn’t act quickly
enough, with over 50 Department
of Education (DOE) employees
who died from COVID-19.
Remember when Mayor Bill
de Blasio and Schools Chancellor
Richard Carranza closed
schools around the time the pandemic
fi rst hit?
This didn’t apply to teachers,
who were forced to come into
work for three more days. The
lives of those 50 plus DOE employees
could have potentially
been spared, and New York City
is on track to making that same
mistake again.
The pandemic is far from
over and a rush to reopening
is sweeping across the United
States. New York has made
strides in fl attening the curve,
but why should our leaders ruin
it here?
My mother is a 55-year-old
teacher who is only a few years
away from her retirement. She
has been employed by the DOE
for around 30 years now. Being
around her and her coworkers
my entire life taught me everything
I know about the DOE and
teacher’s rights.
I often tell my mom when I see
her working past midnight that
she should have been a lawyer.
She’d be doing the same amount
of work, with similar stress, for
a lot more money. Her dedication
to her craft and children is tearjerking
because I know she truly
loves her job and the students
whose lives she’s touched.
For teachers who can be
so selfl ess, why should we devalue
their lives and the lives
of their family members?
This is not a matter of education
any longer, it’s become
a matter of life or death. Public
schools are not babysitting services
and that overwhelming
amount of parents that want
their children back in school
don’t understand the risk they
are posing to everyone’s life.
It’s easy to forget that teachers
come in contact with hundreds
of people a day including co-coworkers,
parents/guardians,
and children of all grades.
Putting kids at school in
any capacity is just as stupid
as allowing a movie theater to
screen fi lms at any capacity.
Children would be in an enclosed
space where there will
be hundreds of people a day.
No matter the number of children
allowed into school, there
will never be enough social
distancing for children who
haven’t fully grasped the severity
of the pandemic yet.
One key issue that the NYC
offi cials are forgetting is that
they have to tell children to
social distance, not play with
each other, cough, sneeze,
wear a mask, and to not put
their hands in their mouth.
Most parents have trouble
taking care of one child on
their own, hence the whopping
75% of parents who want
their kids back in school. How
can elected offi cials tell a
teacher to handle nine of them
per classroom while writing
two different lesson plans for
those both in school and online?
Keep in mind that this is on
top of wearing a mask the entire
day, maintaining social
distancing, traveling, and being
underpaid.
No one is safe until there
is a vaccine, that’s the bottom
line. Keep teachers and children
out of schools. “Social
and emotional” connections
that our leaders are claiming
matter can’t exist if you’re on a
ventilator, or worse, dead.
Sciarratta is a published author
with Post Hill Press.
This story fi rst appeared on
amny.com.
P.S. 108 in Morris Park Photo courtesy of Sonia Marini
/amny.com
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