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Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

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Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#31
post #13

My mother is an elementary school teacher, and I don't want her to go back to school this year. The federal government is worse than useless, and the state government is feckless and unwilling to make the tough calls to protect people's lives. She's been a teacher for ~15 years and still makes less than $30k a year teaching. She loves helping the kids, but her life isn't worth it.

Where does she work that pays $30k for an experienced teacher? Teacher pay sucks

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#32

Serious question. At this point, why can't teachers wear n95 masks? Data has shown they adequately protect even healthcare workers that are constantly exposed to heavy viral loads.

Even if N95 masks worked, do you think school districts will give every teacher an N95 mask every day? AFAIK there are way more teachers than "healthcare professionals" and we failed to get all the healthcare professionals N95 masks. I highly doubt we'd be able to get teachers the same amount.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#33
post #4
post #2

Maybe all nurses should quit, too.

idk if it's a tongue in cheek comment or what but when you sign up to work in the medical system it's kind of implied (and probably explicitly written in your work contract) that you'll encounter dangerous and unpleasant situations, much less for teachers, especially when the whole thing is unnecessary and preventable in the first place.

It's also kind of implied that teachers signed up to work with sniveling children who spread germs. That being said, there's evidence this particular virus doesn't even spread easily among children.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#34
post #6

I feel like there is too much emphasis on these and not enough on the ones that earnestly want to go back to work. There should be a balance here, as we really do need a lot of students to have access to schools in the fall. Remote learning doesn't work for everyone and leaves a lot of people behind. The overall consequences of another lost semester may be far worse than the consequences of reopening.

Strong statement: dumb kids are better than dead kids.

Deaths in children are essentially 0

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#35
post #16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the danger is overblown, there is risk ? yes of course, like everything else in life there is risk. Thats being said If they feel uncomfortable to work then they should quit, give opportunity for other teacher to take their job.

No. The danger is not overblown. New teachers just don’t appear out of the woodworks, it takes time to be trained. Plus, since in the US it’s such a poorly paid and poorly respected profession (at least not respected by society; Id imagine parents appreciate teachers), where will these new teachers come from?

>No. The danger is not overblown.

Ok not for you but at least for me and whole lot other people consider the risk be overblown.

>New teachers just don’t appear out of the woodworks, it takes time to be trained

This assume there are more teacher who are afraid than not. If there is truly lack of teacher then there are plenty of ways to urge them to work, such as giving more benefit.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#36

Serious question. At this point, why can't teachers wear n95 masks? Data has shown they adequately protect even healthcare workers that are constantly exposed to heavy viral loads.

Even if N95 masks worked, do you think school districts will give every teacher an N95 mask every day? AFAIK there are way more teachers than "healthcare professionals" and we failed to get all the healthcare professionals N95 masks. I highly doubt we'd be able to get teachers the same amount.

why not? also, they have machines that can sanitize them so they can be reused.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#37
post #13

My mother is an elementary school teacher, and I don't want her to go back to school this year. The federal government is worse than useless, and the state government is feckless and unwilling to make the tough calls to protect people's lives. She's been a teacher for ~15 years and still makes less than $30k a year teaching. She loves helping the kids, but her life isn't worth it.

My parents are both nurses and they went to work and they were fine.

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#38
post #6

I feel like there is too much emphasis on these and not enough on the ones that earnestly want to go back to work. There should be a balance here, as we really do need a lot of students to have access to schools in the fall. Remote learning doesn't work for everyone and leaves a lot of people behind. The overall consequences of another lost semester may be far worse than the consequences of reopening.

I would prefer every student to be held back 1 semester from graduating high school than 1 more dead (if that were a possibility, but you get the point). I don't even understand how its possible to prefer sending kids back over one semester. Of course I think the bigger issue is its just parents that want kids out of the house for a multitude of reasons including getting back to their own work.

It is easy to go about and proclaim, "life is priceless", "I would prefer to have every student held back than one dead", and so on.

What of students that have debt and now will have to wait more to get their "education"? Do you realize this is all going to cause more pain and suffering and possible deaths?

Do you realize given more budget it is possible to save more people if you spend it wisely?

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if N95 masks worked, do you think school districts will give every teacher an N95 mask every day? AFAIK there are way more teachers than "healthcare professionals" and we failed to get all the healthcare professionals N95 masks. I highly doubt we'd be able to get teachers the same amount.

why not? also, they have machines that can sanitize them so they can be reused.

Schools generally do not provide many supplies to teachers. Given that many teachers do not receive basic supplies like paper from the schools, why do you think schools would purchase sanitation machines and tens of thousands of N95 masks?

Re: Teachers are ready to quit rather than put their lives at risk

#40
Well it is definitely true that having schools fully open does not contribute to much greater risk if the community already has the virus under control as this has been widely demonstrated by many European countries where infection rates continued to decrease, hospitalizations and deaths decreased, even as schools fully opened. But in those countries, they actually did the responsible thing and had a full uncompromised lockdown for months to get the virus under control.
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