Of course children get COVID-19. And what is “very sick”? Children don’t get very sick? In fact, the data supports this position. Mayo Clinic reports that children make up only a tiny percentage of diagnosed COVID cases They tend to recover within a week or two. For children, this disease can be more like the traditional cold than a severe flu.

Still, Mayo reports “symptoms can include:

• Fever
• Runny nose
• Cough
• Fatigue
• Muscle aches
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea

If your child has symptoms of COVID-19″ they advise calling your family physician.

These reports contribute to some calls to open elementary schools. That above list all sounds like typical school stuff. Kids are out every year with similar complaints.

But…

Here’s the magical disconnect from reality: My dad listens to conservative talk show radio and he asked me a few days ago, “Is it true that no student has ever given a teacher the virus?’ Searching this, I find that those infected teachers are thin on the ground, although I suspect the existence of a number. Almost no one can ever prove the provenance of a microbe, not without sophisticated DNA testing.

Before we engage in wishful thinking, we should consider the facts.

Fact 1: In hot spots, many schools closed in the spring. Regardless of transmission rates back then, there were simply a lot fewer sick people at the start of the pandemic. Those hot spots of March are nothing like the hot spots of July. In March, if your county had 46 cases, that was a big deal. Now if your county has 46 cases you are pretty much considered to have been spared. The numbers have climbed rapidly. For the issue we are discussing, numbers are crucial.

Summer vacation shut down further school infections during the last school year. In affected areas, the summer school that existed was often online. This proposed live experiment of child to adult transmission was mostly not happening in June, July and August.

THAT experiment will actually start with this school year.

Fact 2: Numbers cannot be trusted. I recently read that COVID-19 has an R_O of 1.7. Before we panic, though, I find many alternative sources with smaller numbers. Try: https://rt.live — this is state specific. (Who exactly are these authors, though?) Trying to find useful numbers feels a bit like falling down the rabbit hole. The numbers are “not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, their reality is just different than yours,” the Cheshire Cat might say. Numbers change, too. When people shelter, R_O naturally goes down. When the beaches open, suddenly 1.002 can become 1.3 — and small numbers are huge when thinking about R_O. An R_O of 2 means each sick person is getting two people sick: in a short period of time, that’s an explosion of illness.

(For those who have been ducking that R: Pronounced “R-naught,” the R_O reproductive number is an indicator of how easily a disease spreads. The number is important because government leaders are using R_O to determine where outbreaks are growing, shrinking or holding steady. Simply, if R_O equals 1, then each sick person infects one other person. In that scenario, the disease numbers stay the same over time. When R_O is greater than one, the infection is growing. When it is less than 1, the number of infected persons is shrinking.)

Testing has been a mess in this country. Testing is still a mess in some places. Many people are not being tested. Yet our data depends on that testing.

Again, the official numbers cannot be trusted.

Fact 3: Israel. Kids in Israel sure managed to get the adults sick. Check out: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-america-wants-to-reopen-schools-here-s-how-to-learn-from-israel-s-mistakes-1.9006697

“Rushing to get kids back into the classroom this spring was one of the reasons infection rates skyrocketed in Israel – offering a teaching moment to the world,” the article begins. I’ll add one powerful paragraph from the article.

“Once you open schools, be prepared for them to close and then reopen. Repeatedly. Expecting schools to welcome students without expecting infections to frequently occur is an exercise in magical thinking.”

Fact 4: We have had far too much magical thinking already. National and local leaders have been indulging in magical thinking throughout this crisis. Maybe it will be gone by April. All we need are enough doses of sunlight and bleach, right?

The fantasies have to stop. Maybe the lost city of Atlantic will be discovered by the bored crew of a nearly empty cruise ship. But I would not bet teachers and students lives on this possibility — or the possibility that maybe somehow kids won’t spread the virus. Maybe a highly contagious respiratory virus will stay inside children’s noses. More and more data suggests kids can, of course, spread this virus. Can I just say, “Duhhh”? And this idea that kindergarteners and other little kids can manage full days in masks?

For those who like corroboration, I offer the following from two days ago: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/study-hints-young-children-may-spread-covid-19-easily-adults-n1235301. I loved a quote by a doctor in the last paragraph: “…COVID-19 can be shed in the stool, it can be in the mouth and the nose. Kids touch that. They are little germ factories.” Parents know that. Teachers may know even better than parents. They are the ones listening to the cough, cough, cough all winter as they keep replacing the classroom Kleenex box.

Middle school and high school students are their own too-often-ignored category. They get sicker than little kids. They also get around a lot more. I pass a high school sometimes that’s across the street from a Starbucks and within walking distance of a mall. If we open that high school, I guarantee those kids will be buying frappuccinos like last year before ambling in groups toward that mall. At best, we can hope they will keep their masks on, but I frankly wouldn’t even bet my pocket change on those masks.

Eduhonesty: Some locations can open schools. But others should keep the doors locked and the cafeteria closed. The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 map shows 153,000 dead from this airborne virus.

Let’s save the magical thinking until we uncover some more magic of our own. And let’s allow our teachers and students to stay home where the numbers look too risky. In this fight, there should not be “acceptable losses.”

P.S. An issue that does not seem to be hitting the table deserves a mention here. So we open, and Mr. Smith the gym teacher catches COVID-19 and does not survive. How do his students feel? That’s a crazy load of reality for a kid. What if that kid is or was sick? That’s a recipe for lifetime of guilt and remorse.

“If only I had not gone to school…”

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-in-babies-and-children/art-20484405

Distance learning has been called a failure. Parents, administrators, teachers, school boards and even people who only sideswipe education from time to time — so many stakeholders and others are calling last spring’s at-home learning a failure. Many of them are entirely correct, too.

But before we just take a quick snapshot of that car crash, let’s step back from the accident scene for a moment.

My daughter’s school was lucky. They had an extra day or two to get ready for what was coming, because they anticipated a shut-down that others only half believed. Some schools had virtually no notice before everyone was sent home. The lucky ones got a week or two to get ready.

What does “get ready” mean? It means nothing less than moving an entire curriculum to online instruction — sometimes in districts where many students do not/did not have the hardware necessary to access that instruction. It means figuring out how to do something that we has never been done before… that no one ever planned to do until America’s school districts crashed into shut-downs and quarantines. Zoom, Google classroom, Facebook… How to establish groups? How to protect privacy and keep information safe? How to provide services for students unable to manage the remote classroom — whether because of lack of internet connection or because of more complicated academic, emotional and physical issues? How to…? How to…? Administrators and teachers were building this new “distance learning” plan from scratch without a template and without experience to draw upon.

Eduhonesty: We crashed the car. I’m not going to say, “big deal” since obviously any academic crashes ARE a huge deal. But when my daughter backed my car into her dad’s car, when she hit that new-car bumper at the dealership, when she sideswiped the neighbor’s car… I have more than a couple of stories. My girl was a bold kid. When she did these things, I did not say, “That’s it! No more driving for you!”

I understood new skills take time to develop, and some personalities naturally tend to go fast. I kept reminding her to slow down, cautioned her not to trust other drivers, and I let her learn. I’d trust her to drive me anywhere now.

We learned from those remote learning efforts, learned more from the remote learning fiascos and fails. When we have to go online now, we will do it better. Many districts have recognized and studied what went wrong. Many have held discussions, both formally and informally. Teachers all over the country are using social media to share what worked, what did not work and what kinda-sorta worked and might work with the right tweaking.

More and more districts are declaring an intent to start with online instruction. Not all parents are happy. Some parents, teachers and academic researchers are justifiably worried about the impact the coronavirus will have on the achievement gap. In this time when we are exquisitely aware of past academic injustices, the fact that we may be hurtling into another version of unequal education is especially poignant. This is the year when schools should have made a fierce and renewed attack on the achievement gap — and virtual learning is going the wrong direction.

But it’s also going the ONLY direction — at least in many locations. Not all accidents are avoidable. You can be doing everything right when the guy stealing a car loses control as he rounds a curve at maybe 90 miles per hour. Squeal, screech, crash! Glass all over the road, a shorter car and the firemen with the jaws of life. Another car rolling to a stop a full block down the road. (That was me, not my girl.) COVID-19 is like that crash.

In parts of this country, Zoom, Google, Facebook classrooms are the best of the bad options. Opening schools is not safe. If I divide todays total death rate into today’s total number of cases I get a mortality rate around 3.5%. That’s not the true rate — testing’s been too messed up to get a trustworthy count of cases or deaths, and not everyone who was ill has been tested. I’m confident the mortality rate is lower than my math suggests, less sick people being less likely to be tested. But we have over 150,000 deaths now — that’s a city of dead, not a village.

We are leading the world in COVID-19 cases by a couple of million people — despite the fact that we have only 4% of the world’s population. The current number of U.S. cases is 4,407,052. Brazil is coming in second with 2,423,798. (https://epidemic-stats.com/coronavirus/). What that means in practical terms is we have hotspots all over the our map.

Many areas will be forced back into virtual learning for awhile.

But we won’t give up. We won’t quit trying to improve virtual learning. We will keep adding as much necessary new technology as we can afford. We will take care of our kids as best we can. Our best will be getting better and better. That girl who crashed the cars? She’s helping run schools now and I guarantee those schools are among the luckiest schools anywhere on this planet. She’s not afraid to try new things. She never stops learning and she never gives up.

All across this country, teachers and administrators are culling through what worked this spring, what didn’t work, and what might work with minor changes and adaptations. We will get through this. Our children will get through this. Our goal right now should be to keep as many people as safe as possible while preparing our children to learn as much as possible.

Hugs to my readers. Jocelyn

P.S. Time to put the little library out front? I love these.

From a post last week: Where are the masks? Where are the real ones, the ones that are documented to work — not the cute, handsewn ones with American flags and butterflies? Where are the wipes for the classrooms? Those shortages were entirely understandable in March and April, but we are now closing in on August. 

Meanwhile, the PPE crisis is back in the news. I was struck by one sobering moment while listening to a CNN broadcast. Apparently some hospitals are “stockpiling” PPE equipment. Readers, stockpiling is a less-loaded synonym for hoarding — a nicer way of saying “we don’t know if we will be able to get supplies later, so we have stashed everything we can lay our hands on in the basement.” Only recently, I remember friends trying to find toilet paper because so many people had ‘stockpiled’ rolls. Neighborhood apps were filled with helpful sightings of Charmin, hand sanitizer, and other helpful items. 

It’s almost August now: Where are the wipes? Of more concern, where are the REAL masks? How can it be that there is still not an N-95 in sight, outside of a hospital? 

WHY ARE TEACHERS IN SOME AREAS AFRAID TO ENTER THE CLASSROOM? 

LET’S START WITH THE REAL PPE CRISIS IN A TIME WHEN THE CDC RECOMMENDS MASKS FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS. 

A teacher shared social media advice from a nurse friend recently. The nurse had recommended she obtain five N-95 masks for the school year and label them — M, T, W, Th, F. Then let each mask sit one week between uses to allow any attached germs to die from germ old age. That might be a fine plan — except for the part where she has to somehow find N-95 masks. 

The Washington Post’s July 8th headline: “America is running short on masks, gowns and gloves. Again.” A snippet from the article: “Nurses say they are reusing N95 masks for days and even weeks at a time. Doctors say they can’t reopen offices because they lack personal protective equipment. State officials say they have scoured U.S. and international suppliers for PPE and struggle to get orders filled.” Meanwhile, the White House says PPE supplies are “adequate in most states.” Adequate in most states? What will that mean for school needs? 

Even now, in hard hit areas, health professionals are locked in absurd battles to lay their hands on equipment they require to do their jobs properly. Governor Jay Inslee of Washington state described the situation as “akin to fighting a war in which each state is responsible for procuring its own weapons and body armor.” States are still competing with each other to find PPE supplies. In the absence of leadership and a coordinated response by the federal government, those supplies are not always available, while prices have been skyrocketing. 

What will happen to the teachers who need those supplies? Doctors and dentists are looking for those better supplies, along with prisons, nursing homes, and other group care facilities. Traditional users of masks, such as construction and other factory workers, also want real masks, the masks that keep out toxic dust. 

Yet within a month or two, millions of new users are scheduled to enter the market. According the the U.S. government, about 56.6 million students attended pre-K, elementary, middle and high school in the U.S. in 2019.  They were taught by 3.7 million teachers. I ask readers to pause to think about those numbers. Let’s say we could do it right — which we can’t — we need, oh, about 60,000,000 masks for this group TO START.

Obviously we will be starting in different versions of butterfly masks and blue doctor’s offices masks. We have no choice. Those cute butterfly or Marvel superhero masks are not useless, but they certainly are not medical protective gear. They are better-than-useless-anyway-and-hopefully-good-enough protective gear. 

Will education systems even try to enter the REAL market? I doubt they can afford to do so. Let me throw in another headline, this one from Newsweek: “Supplier Charging $7 Per Face Mask That Typically Costs 58 Cents, Hospital CEO Says.” Some sources are charging more than $7 apiece for those N-95 masks. For the vast majority of teachers, I would say the N-95 has to be taken off the table. School districts don’t have that kind of money for a commodity that has to be replaced regularly. I’m not sure who does. 

WHY ARE TEACHERS AFRAID TO ENTER THE CLASSROOM? 

ASIDE FROM THE LACK OF PPE EQUIPMENT, CLASSROOM DEEP CLEANING MAY ALSO LOOK OVERWHELMING TO MANY TEACHERS. 

The absence of wipes for everyday consumers has to be spooking many teachers. How did I clean my classroom? At least one common technique involves walking around the classroom and passing out Clorox, Lysol or other wipes. But if there are any wipes in the greater suburban Chicago area, I have been unable to find them.

Yes, wipes can’t be considered essential. I can go through my room with a bottle of “This-Kills-Germs-Somehow,” passing out paper towels. I can’t do this with little kids, but older students should be able to help me. Otherwise I will be using lots of bottles of “This-Kills-Germs-Somehow” on my own in a classroom that may or may not have decent ventilation. 

Because I know down in my bones that the custodial staff will not be rescuing me regularly. Yes, I am sure they will do an expanded night cleaning. But I doubt most districts can afford to expand the custodial staff beyond maybe one or two extra people at most. Those who hire out for cleaning probably don’t have funds to greatly increase their cleaning costs — and may be hit for higher costs regardless, depending on their contract. 

These custodians doing the night cleanings are the same people who have been dumping the wastebaskets nightly but changing the trashbag once a week, the same people who sweep five days and mop once a week. I don’t want this to be construed as criticism. Our custodians work hard. A single day of school can create a breathtaking mess in some classrooms, common areas and cafeterias. But teachers looking at guidelines are clear — classroom cleaning is about to begin sucking up extra hours each week, with or without the help of students in the classroom. 

Nursing homes, stores and other special needs facilities are managing to lay their hands on wipes. I am betting schools will too. But teachers looking into the empty gaps where those wipes used to sit cannot be blamed for feeling nervous. The usual snot on elementary school desks may feel like a biohazard in 2020. 

Eduhonesty: Teachers and others are being asked to take a great deal on faith: 1) Faith that essential supplies will be available, including adequate sanitizer and barriers in classrooms and bathrooms; 2) Faith that rigorous night cleanings will be possible and will happen; 3) Faith that cute butterfly masks will work since the real stuff remains unavailable and 60,000,000 NEW PEOPLE MAY POTENTIALLY ENTER THE MARKET when America’s school doors are actually thrown open. 

I suppose we could say that 3.7 million people are entering the PPE market, since the kids will probably be OK with little unicorn, Ironman or blue doctor’s office masks. But 3,700,000 or 30,000,000 or 60,000,000 — that’s a gigantic increase in demand for personal protective equipment given that we can’t meet demand now. I am leaving that 60,000,000 number out there for now, too. How much protection will teachers and students actually require to make the next school year work? No one knows. 

The administration currently telling us kids hardly get sick is the same administration that told us COVID-19 might be gone by April, operating under the same leader who finally admitted in JULY that masks just might be a good idea. That administration is hoping that not too many kids will get sick. Well, we’ve seem a lot of hope in Washington D.C. get dashed on the rocks of reality. 

I wonder if the 2020 administration has given any serious consideration to the impact on the PPE market of all those teachers, paraprofessionals, principals, assistant principals, deans, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, school nurses, school librarians, office workers and custodians? My millions above left out many people — all the nonteachers in a school who work together to help educate America’s children. I won’t belabor the well-covered issue of children losing, not using, chewing and abusing masks that then have to be replaced. 

A quote from Stephen Covey: “Stop setting goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them.” Is there a plan? A better plan than an unworkable set of CDC guidelines? Because whether those guidelines can be made to function or not — and some school districts have much more money to throw at the problem than others — any plan that depends on PPE and deep cleaning is already in deep trouble.

So this appears to be the current status: If you open schools and go live, then you get federal money. If you decide in favor of online schooling, then you don’t get federal money. The areas with little or no COVID will get help. The areas under microbial attack, who could unquestionably use funds to get ready for opening later and for supporting distance learning — which heavily favors wealthy districts already — get no help.

What part of this makes sense? Does it make any sense?

I understand what is happening here. Money is being used to pressure school districts into doing what the Federal government* wants. That money has not stopped many areas from backing away from on-site instruction. San Diego and LA plan to start online. Texas has postponed in-person attendance until at least November now that the state has clocked over 300,000 coronavirus cases. The Florida Education Association has filed a lawsuit against Governor Ron DeSantis and Department of Education to stop schools from reopening at the end of August. Other districts across the nation are backing away from reopening their hallways next month.

Members of the federal government keep telling us that children don’t get sick or they don’t get as sick. None of these officials discusses the fact that children leave school every day and go home to their families. Can adults get COVID from kids? Of course they can. They can also get it from teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, office staff, custodians, bus drivers, nurses, librarians and cafeteria workers. And high school kids are not exactly little children. Their COVID experiences tend to be demonstrably rougher than those of elementary age children. One critical concern: A July 21, 2020 article in WebMD says that “children and teens between ages 10-19 are more likely to spread the coronavirus among family members than adults and children under 10, according to a new study in South Korea.”

But I don’t want to bog down in the facts, especially since the current administration seems hell bent on ignoring those facts — at least when they prove inconvenient. I want to keep this post short: In short, those who most need help will get little or no help, at least not from the current administration.

Eduhonesty: I am actually rather fascinated by the fact that the administration seems surprised that a highly infectious, mostly respiratory illness is somehow spreading in direct response to open bars, beaches, campaign rallies, and large holiday gatherings. How could such a thing happen? At the moment, we are losing. Our caseload is approaching 4,000,000.

On the plus side, the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams just a few hours ago said the country needs to lower the COVID-19 transmission rate before reopening schools. Perhaps the President will now back down on his demands. After all these months, he has at last finally put on a mask.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, a city of 7.4 million people which is currently considered a special administrative region of China, the COVID death toll today stands at 14 people. In this area which masked up immediately in response to the COVID threat, they are having a little trouble. Cases are up there as cases are up in much of the world. But that death toll serves to remind us that there is a way to do this right.

Science is real. Social distancing and masks help slow the spread of infectious diseases. Not throwing a bunch of kids into close proximity when a disease is exploding… that just might be a MUCH better plan than sending everyone to school willy-nilly, regardless of where they live — especially since the masks that are documented to work effectively remain in short supply. Wipes are impossible to find where I live. The PPE crisis has only partially abated.

I am not sure that the title for my post is accurate. Are we making up facts or simply ignoring facts? Let start with the obvious: Children go home at night. Those children spend the school day constantly coming in contact with adults. This disease can be spread by people who do not have a fever — yet or ever –and current data suggests that on average, every person who gets sick will infect 1.7 new people.

We are a long ways from out of the woods yet.

*i.e. the Trump Administration and Betsy DeVos

P.S. If you live in a safe enough area and can go back to school soon, have a great year! I know these news reports must seem absolutely freakish to some people in small, rural mountain towns or distant prairie farming areas..

(https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/07/13/covid-schools-reopening-lausd-san-diego-online-classes/5429995002/, https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-schools-may-be-online-only-november-hybrid-model-2020-7, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-florida-teachers-sue-governor-desantis-school-reopening-plans/, https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200720/teens-tweens-more-likely-to-spread-covid-19?ecd=wnl_spr_072120&ctr=wnl-spr-072120_nsl-Bodymodule_Position4&mb=UT0EfRiJlerLe8Nl%2f6BrJGdEpmNqbUHLZTN%2fwNIxCow%3d, https://www.britannica.com/place/Hong-Kong ,https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/covid-19-hong-kong-new-cases-deaths-locally-transmitted-12950280 , https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/tunedin/us-surgeon-general-jerome-adams-on-reopening-schools-funding-for-coronavirus-testing/vi-BB170kRg

Regarding the sometimes still problematic lack of PPE across this country: Where are the masks? Where are the real ones, the ones that are documented to work — not the cute, handsewn ones with American flags and butterflies? Where are the wipes for the classrooms? Those shortages were entirely understandable in March and April, but we are now closing in on August. Those empty store shelves are getting harder and harder to believe and to understand.

Stick with me through these personal details. They lead directly to your classroom next year.

My husband broke his neck in a diving accident when he was seventeen. He’s charming, witty, has a couple of masters degrees, including an MBA from the University of Chicago, and he has managed the slow decline of age with determination. He is a living embodiment of the word grit. He talks too much about politics, but nobody’s perfect.

We’re at retirement age now. He requires help with his daily routines. We’ve been paying over $400 each month for a morning shot that we hope is helping his bone density. On Monday, I will take a wheelchair tire out to be fixed. The wheel’s no big problem. We have a few back-up wheelchairs. They accumulate over time. It can be harder to give away an old wheelchair than readers might expect, and each keeper has a function. One fits in the bathroom easily. Another relieves pressure on a certain area of his back. The new one makes trying to come to a stand easiest.

But this morning, as I was talking to my husband and putting on his support stockings, I realized I had neglected to write a vital post. We are so preoccupied right now with details and dangers of COVID-19 that issues of wages and salary have fallen off the table. I intend to put them back on the table right now.

I will not be subbing next year. I have subbed since I retired and I am a good sub. I follow the lesson plan. I teach the topic and often I can add fun details to the material I am given. I am certified to teach Spanish, French, general science for middle school, English for high school, business, social science, bilingual and ESL classes, not to mention my original teaching choice, high school mathematics. I did love school. I still do.

But here’s a fact that should be out front and center right now: In some districts, I make less as a substitute teacher than I would as a home health care worker. In others, it’s a wash. Between my spouse and my parents, I know a few home health care workers well. They are making about $14 – $17 per hour. If I sub for a half day, I make $50 to $62.50. Let’s say my commitment is from 8 AM to 12 PM which is pretty typical. That breaks down to $12.50 – $15.63 per hour. Subs typically do not receive benefits.

I would have to be out of my mind to work in a school next year.

Financially, subbing never made much sense. I could work a full day which would about pay for three hours of a home health care worker hired out of an agency. Local agencies get a little over $30 per hour, of which the health care aide typically is lucky to receive half. So I was working to pay for a likable, sturdy woman to help my husband into the shower and onto his exercise machine, among other tasks. The dishes got done. I had an enjoyable day with kids.

But the risk/reward profile of substitute teaching has changed dramatically.

I am older and in a couple of risk groups. Many subs are older. A substantial portion of the nation’s substitute teacher pool consists of men and women who are retired and take pleasure in interacting with kids in the classroom. It’s not about the pay. Teaching can be fun, and subs don’t have to spend the evening putting in grades. Subs also benefit from scheduling flexibility. They can work a half day or a full day, and can pick the classrooms they wish to occupy.

Only now subbing will be a high-risk job with subterranean pay and no benefits. I have always known that Starbucks would be at least as lucrative as subbing, and might include health and other benefits if I put in enough work hours, not to mention the perk of free coffee. Add in those benefits and suddenly Starbucks pays considerably better than substitute teaching. I simply did not want to be tied to a schedule prepared by someone else.

Starbucks would be SAFER now, though. I don’t plan to become a barista. I don’t need to work. If I did, I suspect I would fill out that Starbucks application. Or another application elsewhere. Because almost any job that does not involve standing on a line inspecting potatoes or cleaning meat would be safer than on-site teaching in parts of Texas or Florida right now. Driving for Amazon would allow me to make as much money and would probably be safer. Even making pizza and/or doing contactless delivery for Dominos Pizza might pay as much and would be safer. With tips, that pizza delivery might well pay better.

The problem of redeployment is about to change substitutes’ working conditions for the worse, too. That fact alone will shrink the sub pool.

Shortages of substitute teachers have become common is some areas. When that happens, school administrators take the subs they have and jury rig the day’s schedule to get subs to cover as many classes as possible, rescuing regular teachers who will otherwise lose their planning periods to take over for absent colleagues. I may become a missing kindergarten teacher as well as the reading resource teacher who had put me on her preferred substitute list. Under the original schedule, I had a break during that reading teacher’s planning period. Now all breaks have disappeared, as I take over for unknown teachers without subs. I may run into a problem many teachers know too well — oops, my bathroom break is gone! I may also have to work those classes that no sub wants, the ones we warn each other about. Redeployment has always been a risk of subbing, but as the pool shrinks and more teachers decide to stay out when even slightly sick, that risk will likely skyrocket. Regular teacher vacancies will go up, too. A regular teacher who would have gone to school with a low fever — I did more than once — will stay home now. As part of a better-safe-than-sorry strategy, teachers may even opt to stay home with mild new cases of the sniffles, just in case. As redeployment goes up, some of a district’s remaining subs are likely to drop out of the sub pool. The pizza parlor at least has a bathroom.

Eduhonesty: I am done. I am done until the vaccine arrives. I am about to become a retired retiree.

I knew that before this morning, but this morning the thought hit me that led to this post: I would be better off going to work for a home health care agency right now, at least if I stayed out of nursing homes and convalescent centers. I would be better off performing the job of my parents’ home health care aide. The range of jobs in home health care varies considerably, but giving my mom a shower and then doing her hair, helping her dress and making Costco salmon burger sandwiches for my dad does not sound unpleasant. I don’t mind light cleaning and vacuuming. The pay is about the same and I am only exposed to two elderly people who hardly ever leave home. Many part-time options exist.

Is there something wrong with the fact that these wonderful women who sometimes don’t’ even have a high school education are making the same amount of money as a woman with three degrees and useful classroom experience? I’m sure there’s a huge problem there. But it’s not my problem anymore. (Although I reserve the right to blog further about this absurdity.) My problem is what I want to do next year.

Currently, I plan to finish multiple jigsaw puzzles while listening to books or watching TV in the basement. I will also try to market two books on education I finished recently. I will blog and crochet. Maybe I will make a Tik Tok video soon just for fun.

But I won’t be risking those coughs and sneezes in the classroom. I won’t be wiping any little noses or sending older children to the nurse. I am grateful to the administrators who called me to thank me for my past help. I am grateful to the district that has been sending me cake, journals and other little presents. If I can help those districts from my home, I will do so. I would consider virtual subbing.

But I won’t be walking into any schools. Not this year. Not until there’s a vaccine. I am certain I am not alone. My schools are in an area that’s been in the red zone for weeks.

This post is a warning: Are you trying to decide whether to quit or retire? I’d factor this into my decision making process. Teachers in districts that already had sub shortages should prepare to cover for colleagues. Classes may also be broken up and their students dispersed throughout the school. Those extra students in your room will add to your risk, not to mention to the general confusion — and with all the new protocols, confusion will be high.

I believe the demand for substitute teachers is about to go up dramatically at a time when the supply collapses. This may help address the poor wages for substitutes, but those future pay raises won’t help regular teachers during the 2020-2021 school year.

Hugs to all my readers. Jocelyn

P.S. For any nonteacher readers who feel willing and able to enter those rooms of congested kids — and some kids seem to be congested all year long — I expect subbing jobs will be plentiful and administrations will be grateful to meet you. In some areas, the risk will be light. The rewards are many, even if they are not monetary in nature.

That scar on my neck? That was a completely unexpected left carotid endarterectomy that ended my school year early some seven years ago. I’m fine now, but that was one wild raft ride through the rapids, complete with a visit to the ICU. You never know… No matter how healthy you seem or how careful you are, reality can bite at unexpected moments — even on a completely peaceful Sunday morning while composing review questions for final exams.

_________________________________________________________________________

Sticking to my thread from the last post: What is coming at you, teacher? As I read my social media feeds, I find a number of teachers on the fence about retiring or quitting. To go or not to go? “I love my job but…” their posts say. Should I risk it?

I fully understand. Teaching is not a job as much as a calling. That classroom beckons, a huge annual adventure filled with exciting new faces. Walls are being decorated with posters and favorite internet memes even now by eager teachers, hoping for in-class instruction and determined to be ready for the upcoming year.

If you are on the fence about returning this year, though, I want to help. I’m off the fence myself. I’m retired, but if I still had my girls at home, I know I would home school this year. I’m in Cook County, Illinois, however, not far from Chicago. I would feel differently if I lived in a quiet county in Alaska or North Dakota.

Here’s a consideration I’d put in my t-chart if I were deciding whether or not to go back: What is my insurance situation? If you teach, you almost undoubtedly have health insurance. How good is that insurance? If you leave, how will you replace your insurance? Can you use a spouse’s policy? You can COBRA, but COBRA’s price often shocks people. You end up paying for the part your district covered previously. That relatively painless policy may suddenly cost over four figures each month.

One of the perks of teaching used to be superior health care policies. Like government workers, teachers often received top-quality insurance with low deductibles and extensive coverage, low or no co-pay, drug plans that covered almost everything, plus dental insurance and help with glasses. Those policies helped make up for the low salaries starting teachers received.

But that was then. This is now. A few districts still have great insurance. Many others have pretty good insurance with higher deductibles and stiffer copays. Some have mediocre insurance with limited networks and less-favorable coverage. A few are running self-insured or are offering catastrophic plans with those $1,000 deductibles. You may have a choice between a PPO and an HMO. Multitudinous options exist — the good, the bad, the ugly and even the abominable.

And unusual drugs drain the bank fast. Even”usual” drugs can be a strain. Epi-pens currently cost over $600. Insulin — my friend’s daughter makes trips to Canada because that’s the only way she can afford a drug she requires to survive. (One tip: Don’t take a new drug home until you know the cost. Pharmacies may not let you return a drug once it leaves the premises. Sometimes your doctor.can prescribe a more affordable alternative.)

This post is about numbers, nebulous numbers, but numbers that should still be part of any decision-making process. What happens if you actually get sick? Your odds on getting well remain strong — and those odds are improving as doctors get COVID experience — but the process seems to be taking weeks or even months for many people. What drugs will be prescribed? What medical care will you need?

How does your medical plan work? Here’s a sample from the Affordable Care Act plans.

From https://www.insurance.com/health-insurance/health-insurance-basics/how-to-buy-an-individual-health-plan.html:

“Health plans in the Affordable Care Act marketplace are divided into four categories:

• Bronze – Plan pays 60% of your health care costs. You pay 40%.
• Silver – Plan pays 70% of your health care costs. You pay 30%.
• Gold – Plan pays 80% of your health care costs. You pay 20%.
• Platinum – Plan pays 90% of your health care costs. You pay 10%.”

Reader, let me throw in one quick math fact: 30% of $40,000 is $12,000. An overnight stay at a hospital can easily run over $40,000.

So how good is your district’s insurance? How good is your health network? Should you make changes during an upcoming open enrollment period? I moved from a PPO to an HMO some years ago due to PPO costs. The HMO has worked well enough. My primary care physician is caring and helpful. My access to specialists is adequate and often much better than adequate. I am lucky enough to live in a state with seven medical schools, most of them near me. The HMO covers pretty much everything except for co-pays.

If you consider changing plans, do your research. Are HMO customers happy? Why or why not? What doctors are available to you? Go to your calculator app and run some numbers as part of the process. What percentage of your care do you currently cover? How much does that amount to in different scenarios? You have to look carefully at your policy. What about mental health care and rehab expenses? Policies are filled with limits, a few that benefit you and others that do not.

Eduhonesty: Now I have to pass this question on to readers. How will you manage insurance if you quit your position? Can you use spousal insurance? If you are just out of school, could your parent(s) pick you up? Do you want to stay where you are? Do you want to change insurance?

You definitely should have insurance right now. You may or may not want to be in a classroom. Here’s one wild card in the deck: As people quit, vacancies will open up. Do you want to try to switch to the better-funded district this year? The district with excellent insurance and an actual budget for supplies? The district that may actually be able to implement most of the CDC guidelines because that district has enough money to do so?

I recognize this post has not provided the Great Solution to any problem. I’ve raised more issues than I’ve solved. News articles seem to be outlining risks right now and emphasizing the possible dangers of going into the classroom. On the backside of those stories will be the teachers and students who do get ill. Many teachers will become ill if we reopen without regard to local conditions. We are in the middle of July with the coronavirus nowhere near under control. .

So today’s advice: Look at your insurance plan. Can you do better? How could you do better? How should you factor this into your possible plan to quit or retire? Health trumps finances obviously, but any plan you make demands some type of health coverage.

Hugs to my readers.

P.S. I’ll throw in one more item for your t-chart: What does your district plan to do if you have to quarantine during the year?

Some districts are expecting teachers to use sick days if they have to quarantine for COVID. You will use your sick days whether you are sick or not. That’s appalling. It may potentially be a much bigger loss than some teachers understand yet, especially if teachers are home for multiple periods of quarantine. My retirement check was boosted by my unused sick days. In Illinois and other places, if you don’t use those sick days, they add on to the total days used to calculate your pension. Every month I am rewarded for the fact I almost never stayed out sick.

As far as that quarantine sick leave question: This issue’s worth marching for, even worth a strike. A sick-leave for quarantine policy has the potential to chop hundreds of dollars a month off pensions down the line for unlucky teachers in the wrong areas who end up going in and out of virtual learning while quarantined. I would hope districts would leave sick leave alone and simply shift to virtual learning — but I would never leave that up to the benevolence of the district.

Even if pension issues don’t exist, emergencies happen and you may need that accumulated sick leave later. If that left carotid endarterectomy had occurred in the middle of the school year, instead of right before finals, my unused sick leave days at retirement would have been badly depleted. You may or may not find those days useful for retirement purposes.

You definitely want them for the morning when you suddenly develop double vision and end up in the hospital for a week, surrounded by kindly doctors giving you all sorts of bewildering advice that ends in major surgery. When the vascular surgeon wires you up like some modern version of Elsa Lanchester in The Bride of Frankenstein Returns because he is about to shut off a major source of blood flow to your brain, you want the best health care coverage possible.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” (John Lennon, Allen Saunders and others.)

Fight for that sick leave.

P.P.S. Useful comment from a friend: Check out AFLAC, which provides a cash benefit directly to the insured, money for expenses not covered by your health insurance.

Here’s a thought for us all:

From https://m.facebook.com/ictlearnwichita/?ref=bookmarks

If teacher’s social media posts are any indicator, the U.S. educational system is nearing Defcon 2 where reopening is concerned. The Coronavirus took a great leap upward with re-openings across the country. Many teachers are scared to go back. Many school boards and school administrations are trying to figure out which direction to take. The American Academy of Pediatrics has been pushing for schools to reopen with students physically in the classrooms this fall, observing especially that evidence is piling up to show isolation has led to mental health issues that must be weighed against other health risks. In the meantime, teachers are sharing sites with masks and face shield instructions, debating how they will manage new safety requirements. Some are retiring. A few are even resigning with COVID fears as the cause.

I saw this picture today, though, and I wanted to share its message with parents and teachers. As I write this, I am thinking of a local parent who posted to the neighborhood app that she is worried online schooling will prevent her son from getting his golf scholarship Other parents have chimed in on both sides of the elearning dilemma, some issuing warnings about dangers to immunocompromised kids and kids with diabetes, arthritis, other pre-existing conditions. On the other side are those parents who are frantically worried about learning losses from elearning.

I know a number of kids are aware of their parents’ worries, and adolescents especially are reflecting those worries as they communicate with friends over social media. The younger crowd may not be writing down their fears, but all children listen to their parents speak. Sometimes they may appear to be playing Mario Kart 8, but today’s children are experts at multitasking.

As much as kids appear to ignore adult conversation, morsels of that conversation are being chewed on all the time. The above picture says it all for me: Stay positive and model perseverance. Young people cannot control the current school situation. Sometimes their parents may be unable to affect plans they dislike. Parents near me are trying to get the district to open the two local high schools and allow students on campus. Maybe they will succeed. Maybe they won’t. In either case, I hope parents will not add to their children’s stress by sharing too many concerns.

Eduhonesty: We are making history right now. Every so often, a microbe slips off the leash, and COVID-19 remains nowhere near in control, despite some rah-rah speeches that ignore the numbers. Not only will there be no perfect choices for our next school year, sometimes there may not even be good choices — at least in comparison to 2019.

But attitude is huge and kids tend to adopt the attitude of their parents and teachers. If parents and teachers remain positive, our students will have a far greater chance of holding onto their own equanimity and enthusiasm for learning. At home, whatever the plan, the best approach will be to be enthusiastic about what happens.

“It’s so great that I have a chance to spend all this time with you!”

“I loved that video presentation you prepared on Costa Rica!”

“These new online bedtime stories are great. Didn’t Ms. Porter do a wonderful job of reading “A Porcupine Named Fluffy?”

“Be sure to wear your mask, but I know it will be fine. Maybe we can buy some fabric you like to make a new mask or two. That would be fun!”

“Yes, I imagine you don’t like the cafeteria changes, but maybe you can help me plan next week’s lunches. I bet we can come up with something more delicious than the old cafeteria meals.”

“I bought you the cutest penguin to hold your hand sanitizer. It attaches to your purse/backpack/belt loop.”

“We should make lawn signs for your birthday party! We need to plan the games for when we Zoom, too.”

“You should take up running to keep in shape for when sports open up again. Maybe we could all go biking more often.”

“Your report on the mating habits of armadillos is so interesting! Who knew armadillos did that? This is great research.”

For the kids’ sake, please let’s all try to sell whatever plan our local school district decides to put into play. In or out, remote or not, for the kids’ sake, we have to make the best or it. We want to encourage enthusiasm for this year and for all the years to come. When the next school year arrives, it will be a time to emphasize the importance and joy of learning — however we can manage to pursue that learning. Today more than ever, that question “What did you learn in school today?” should be worked into as many evenings as possible.

As to our real and valid concerns about COVID-related educational changes — I recommend we discuss those with other adults while out of earshot of the kids whenever possible.