Knock on Wood

At the beginning of the school year, at a board of director's meeting at my school, we were reviewing our crisis management plan which includes a pandemic plan. I remembering saying something flippant about how prepared we are for any crisis, even a pandemic, ha ha like that would ever happen lol. And then right after that sassy remark, I didn't knock on wood. This post is all about the importance of knocking on wood to prevent future disaster.

Just kidding. Knocking on wood is important, but that's not what this post is really about. Sorry about the misleading headline.

So, of course, everyone knows that we are now in the midst of a pandemic, possibly partially because of my flippancy and lack of wood-knocking, but for whatever reason (let's not point fingers) here we are.  I work in a small school with about 200 students and about 35 staff. It's a public school so we follow public protocols and listen to guidance from the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Department of Education. Our director has been in daily contact with MDH and MDE getting updates on what is happening with the virus and what schools should do in response. We are aiming to be cautious, but not hysterical. (A good motto for life in general, if you ask me.)

As of today the guidelines are to implement social distancing (stay 6 feet apart from other people), wash hands, stay home when sick, avoid crowds, and clean all surfaces with disinfectant daily. Sounds reasonable. The Minnesota legislature canceled all meetings yesterday in response to this guidance. The board of directors was supposed to have training for new board members today. There were going to be nine people in the class with a trainer. The trainer canceled the class because of the guidelines. Reasonable? I don't know. I think it would be easy to have a training and stay 6 feet away from the other 9 people in the room, but whatever. However, apparently it is too dangerous to spend time in the same classroom that was just the day before being used to teach 20 teenagers figurative language, and is expected to be used for that same purpose again on Monday.

As a teacher who wants to do what's best for her students and also doesn't want to contract a virus and die, I have been doing my best to follow the guidelines. I clean all the surfaces in my classroom with Clorox or Lysol every day. Well, I did until we ran out of supplies at school and the order for more is being delayed by a lack of those products being available. I went out the other evening to get more cleaner on my own time and with my own money, but they were sold out everywhere I looked. I found one container of Clorox wipes in the wrong place at Menards, and I got three cans of Lysol spray. Is that sufficient to kill a virus in my room for as long as the pandemic is a threat? I don't know. I hope so. I am thinking of making my own disinfectants from bleach and Everclear. I have to go out today to see if I can find bleach. I don't think I can buy Everclear in Minnesota but I live right on the border with Wisconsin, and I'm pretty sure I can get it there.

Now here's the part that is really frustrating: the guidelines from MDH and MDE contradict because their advice for public schools is to STAY OPEN. Keep having school. Surely they know that it is impossible in a classroom to implement social distancing. Surely they know that most kids aren't overly concerned with hand-washing, or coughing into their sleeve, or staying home when sick. The reasoning behind keeping schools open is that the benefits outweigh the risks. Many students depend on public schools for food and other services. Many students in Minnesota don't have personal access to computers or wifi so they couldn't do online distance learning even if they wanted to (and they don't). Health care workers might have to stay home with their kids if schools closed, leaving patients and hospitals short staffed. Suddenly teachers and schools are an important and vital cog in the wheel that is society. WHAT A FUCKING REVELATION! Schools provide day-care (even though that is not what they are for), schools provide food and shelter, schools provide caring adults educated and trained to guide students into adulthood, schools provide health services and social services students wouldn't get otherwise, and of course, schools provide education; and yet schools are continually underfunded and overtaxed.

We are expected to teach kids what to do in the event of a school shooting (hide, run, fight is the current protocol), but nobody cares enough to do what must be done to STOP SCHOOL SHOOTINGS. We are expected to address the massive increase in mental illness in school-aged children, but we are not given funding or adequate training or time to do it. And now we are expected to hold back the tide of a pandemic with home-made cleaning products and hand-washing songs.

The Centers for Disease Control says that COVID 19 generally isn't that serious for young people and the survival rate is good. Elderly people should take extra precautions because it can be fatal for people with pre-existing conditions (another blow for people who can't get insured for pre-existing conditions). I'm generally a pretty healthy person but I'm not exactly young, and I'm a total hypochondriac so the constant worrying has been stressful (Hello doctor, me again, can COVID 19 get in through the cracks in my hands from washing them 500 times a day?)

Here is another dimension of this crisis that is maddening for me. A few years ago I had a terrible cold that involved coughing that kept me from sleeping. I went to the doctor for some relief (codeine, please) and she diagnosed me with viral-induced asthma and said there is the perfect medicine for it that comes in the form of an inhaler. The inhaler opens the airways and then the medicine dries up the mucous and after a few days: voila, renewed health. The brand of medicine that was covered by my extremely shitty insurance was $450. The brand of medicine that was not covered by my extremely shitty insurance was $250. My deductible is $6500 so I was going to pay out of pocket for either one. (The budget line for teacher benefits in our school general fund is shamefully thin because of the atrociously small amount of revenue provided to public schools by the state, hence the shitty insurance.) I had just gotten paid. My net paycheck was $800. My gross income is considerably more than that, but much of it was taken out to cover the health premiums for my dependents. I still had not gotten groceries or paid the bills for the month. I couldn't afford to spend over 50% of my paycheck on a fricking inhaler. I couldn't afford to spend even 25% on an inhaler, so I had the doctor prescribe Albuterol which is only $50. It opens the airways but does nothing to dry up the mucous.

What if I get COVID 19? What if the viral-induced asthma comes back with it? What if the schools are closed and the state doesn't pay the schools, and the schools then can't pay the teachers? What if we have to close our school and the kids who depend on us for food and social services are left out in the cold? What if enough staff get sick where we couldn't even provide minimal services to our kids? Welcome to my 3 am thought circle.

What is the point of this rant? I don't know. I have had a dull headache for a few days so I guess it could be a diary of my last days (hypochondria is real, my friends).

Or it could be a call to action, but what form of action that might be, I don't know. How about all public school workers around the country walk out until schools are adequately funded? Of course this would be extremely bad-timing for that and most likely anytime we did that the people that would suffer most would be the most vulnerable kids and teachers wouldn't have the heart to do it.

Should we write to our inept self-serving legislators (most of them fall into this category) and demand social change? Unless it got them TV time, they wouldn't be that motivated to rock the boat enough to make real improvements.

How about this: go to my Go Fund Me page (linked here) and help me pay for Clorox and Everclear so I can single-handedly stem the tide of a global pandemic for my students and myself? Maybe.

If nothing else, I hope that the next time you boast or make a flippant remark you remember, at the very least, to knock on wood.