The Mayor Sends Principals a Bill For Missing Students

 

Under Pressure: As Mayor Insists Schools Go Five Days a Week, NYC Principals Receive Notice That They Owe Money for Missing Students

The 74, December 13, 2020

New York City Principal Darlene Cameron was already stressed about a sudden edict from the mayor that elementary schools offer five-day-a-week in-person instruction, when she learned that her school on Manhattan’s Lower East Side owed the city about $145,000 in per-pupil funding reimbursements.

She had been juggling her finances at S.T.A.R. Academy, using the salary from an unexpected teacher retirement in September to cover additional COVID-19 costs. That money won’t last past March, she said, and now she’s likely in the red for September 2021.

“Because of that deficit, the DOE won’t give me new money for my next budget,” said Cameron, whose small school serves 280 students in grades pre-K-5.

Cameron isn’t alone. Mark Cannizzaro, president of the principals union, said that 60 percent of city schools suffered register, or enrollment, loss this year, as attendance numbers crashed during the pandemic.

“This is obviously an unusual year,” he said. “It’s not practical to hold schools accountable for this register loss because they’re not going to be able to sustain it and operate next year. We have a lot of schools now that have deficits that no one could have predicted, and they won’t be able to pay them back in any practical way, without severely affecting the education of their students come next September.”

On Dec. 2, school leaders started receiving emails containing their regularly scheduled updates about per-pupil funding reimbursements, the amount of money they either receive or owe the Department of Education, based on the difference between anticipated student attendance and the number of kids who actually showed up.

Denise Watson-Adin, principal of P.S. 32 in Brooklyn, informed families of the bad news over an early December Zoom call, where she was already fielding questions about the elementary schools offering five days a week.

“We owe [the DOE] hundreds of thousands of dollars — some [principals], $600,000, almost $700,000 that the DOE is saying we need to pay, or we’re going to start the year in a deficit,” she said. “How is that even possible? Schools won’t be able to open.”

Cannizzaro said that, for over a month, he’s been urging the DOE to change its register loss protocols this year to account for COVID-19. In a typical year, principals and district representatives are generally able to make accurate educated guesses about the number of students that will show up in classrooms, he explained. This year is different.

“The funding formula is not fair to begin with, but for a school that’s already behind the eight ball, and then had a registered loss that’s greater than expected, it’s just unfair,” he said.

The reasons students aren’t showing up are varied, he added. Some families moved out of the city; others enrolled their children in private or parochial schools. Principals also talked about the most vulnerable students, particularly those in temporary housing or without internet, falling off the grid.

Principals unable to pay back the deficits will carry them into the following school year. Having to repay per-pupil funding could do particular harm to schools needing money for student outreach, instructional materials, and mental health supports in the fall of 2021.

So far, the DOE hasn’t budged. Cannizzaro, meanwhile, is holding out hope that officials will reevaluate the process if the federal government delivers much-needed aid. “We might still be talking about this in May,” he said.

Three DOE spokespeople would neither explain why this year’s register loss protocols remain unchanged nor answer whether more federal funding could sway officials on the matter.

Principals interviewed by The 74 said the looming financial losses are the latest in a series of demoralizing updates dispatched by the DOE since the pandemic struck in March. Most often, school leaders said, they’re getting information from Twitter and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press conferences, along with the rest of the public.

They added that the mayor’s Thanksgiving weekend announcement — and his recent statements doubling down on the feasibility of five-day-a-week in-person learning for the families that want it — revealed a disconnect between his take and the view that principals have on the ground. They described a collision course of tight budgets, unmet parental expectations, inadequate staffing, and, in some cases, insufficient space to accommodate students during the winter.

Cameron said children who opted for blended learning at S.T.A.R. Academy can come into school three days a week, although the majority of her families have selected remote learning. Many, she said, are people of color who are scared about how the virus has adversely impacted their communities.

If she did follow the mayor’s guidance, all of her careful planning would go out the window, Cameron said. “We wouldn’t be able to provide the small groups for our neediest students, who mostly are remote,” she explained. “A lot of our special education students are fully remote. A lot of our students who are considered Title I students or students in poverty are fully remote. If I now shift my entire staff to only focus on those students in-person, that means all of the kids who are remote will either be served by substitute teachers, or they’ll be in remote classes that go past the legal class size.”

Principals said it’s become increasingly difficult to get substitute teachers to teach in-person.

Left without other resources, some school leaders have turned to each other in text chat groups and over Zoom. Some older, more experienced principals are mentoring younger ones.

“It’s hard because you have to be the calm in this storm,” Watson-Adin said. “Even if you’re feeling frenzied or unsure, you can’t present that to your community … That takes a lot of emotional strength. No one’s talking about the mental health of principals … If you’re a brand new principal, and you’re scared for your job, you’re gonna try to make this work, regardless of if you can do it or not.”

Principals had to fill out an in-person instruction survey by Dec. 7, indicating whether they’d be able to offer five-day-a-week in-person learning for at least some of their families. District superintendents were given until Friday to fill out their own versions of the survey.

“Schools are swiftly but carefully moving students to 5-day a week programming based on in-person attendance, space assessments, and timelines that are least disruptive for kids, while prioritizing students with disabilities and other vulnerable populations,” DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer said.

While school leaders said they have received pressure from higher-ups asking them to explain why they’re unable to offer full-time in-person instruction, many feel stranded.

“We all understand that students can benefit from five days,” Watson-Adin, told her parents. “Unfortunately, the mayor shouldn’t have said that we could because he knew we couldn’t do it. My colleagues are beyond themselves because they just knew as he was saying it that it wasn’t possible, and setting expectations for you as parents for something that can’t happen.”

Given the financial, staffing, and spatial constraints, most schools haven’t been able to live up to the mayor’s promise. According to the DOE, of the 850 3K, pre-K, elementary, and specialized District 75 schools that reopened for in-person instruction last week, 161 are offering it full time to at least some students. Across individual schools, the percentage of families choosing in-person learning ranges widely, according to Cannizzaro: from 10 percent all the way up to 75 percent.

Many principals have started to feel like they have to make their own calls, mayor’s statements aside.

“At this point, I don’t feel like being flexible anymore,” Cameron said. “I just feel like making the decisions that are best for my students and my school and my families.”

Betsy Combier, betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ Blog
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

Coronavirus Cases Close The John F. Kennedy Jr School in Elmhurst Queens

How many more schools Will Close Before The City Goes Full Remote For Everyone?

Students at St. Francis Preparatory School test positive for COVID-19

Betsy Combier

betsy.combier@gmail.com

Editor, ADVOCATZ.com

Editor, ADVOCATZ Blog

Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

Coronavirus News: Queens school is 1st in NYC to shut down over COVID cases

WABCTV- COVID-19 News and Information

ELMHURST, Queens (WABC) -- A school in Queens will be closed for two weeks after two staff members tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the first school in New York City to close due to a potential outbreak.

The John F. Kennedy Jr School in Elmhurst will remain closed through October 13, according to a letter sent home to families on Wednesday.

"As always, the health and safety of our students and staff, and everyone in the DOE family across the city, is our top priority," the letter read. "As you know, our school building was closed for an initial 24 hours because two or more members of our school community tested positive for COVID-19. Today, we are writing to update you that the NYC Test + Trace Corps and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene have determined that at this time the main site building must remain closed for 14 days."

The Department of Education said the staff members were in different classrooms and are not linked. The incident meets the protocols of a 14-day switch to remote learning, which is what occurred.

Related: 1st day of in-person learning for NYC middle and high schoolers

All teaching and learning will continue remotely, and officials hope to reopen the building on Wednesday, October 14.

"It has 262 students in their blended learning program and 88 staff so that school as of today is shut down for two weeks," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "That's the only one the entire time that has experienced that."

Anyone with a positive COVID-19 test will not return to the school until they are no longer infectious.

Close contacts of the persons who tested positive have been notified and will continue their 14-day quarantine period.

"If the safety comes first, there might be times when the school community has to flip the switch and go remote," United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said, "We are not closing our schools. Are we live or are we remote? Those are the two new things that schools operate under."

Related: 10 NYC neighborhoods with COVID-19 positivity rates above 3%

If additional close contacts are identified, they will also be instructed to quarantine for 14 days.

Families are reminded to stay home if you feel sick, monitor your and your child's health, wear a mask and practice social distancing.

"Kids will get instruction remotely, then the school will be back up," de Blasio said. "Everyone who was quarantined will come right back, and will continue with the rest of the school year."

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 COVERAGE

How coronavirus changed the New York region
Do you have coronavirus symptoms?
What's Open, What's Closed in the Tri-State area
Back to school information
COVID-19 Help, Information. Stimulus and Business Updates

UPDATES
New York City
New Jersey
Long Island
Westchester and Hudson Valley
Connecticut

In NYC, No One Trusts Anyone - Parents, Teachers, and Staff Stay Away From Their Schools

NYC Chancellor Richard Carranza, Mayor Bill de Blasio,
UFT President Michael Mulgrew

In New York City distrust reigns. No one believes anyone anymore.

The Mayor, Bill de Blasio, says his wife should get $millions of dollars for her organization ThriveNYC which is supposedly established to keep people happy and sane. Evidently this was, and is, untrue, at least according to multiple stories on the internet. ...Which is what this entire post is about. 

Who do you believe?

Parents do not believe the Department of Education; educators at all levels do not believe their unions (UFT and CSA).

But the one thing everyone is in agreement with is that every person must look out for their own safety and that of their loved ones, 'cause no one else can be trusted to do it for you.

 Betsy Combier

betsy.combier@gmail.com

Editor, ADVOCATZ.com

Editor, ADVOCATZ Blog

Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice

Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

Teachers at Grace Dodge Educational Campus in the Bronx rallied on Tuesday to call attention to safety concerns about reopening school buildings. Teachers are worried ventilation is not adequate in the cafeteria, where they say the windows don’t open and the air conditioners don’t work.

 Courtesy photo/Cristobal Vivar

NYC ventilation reports say most classrooms are safe. Educators aren’t convinced.

By Christina Veiga, Chalkbeat,  Sep 8, 2020

New York City’s education department on Tuesday released room-level inspection reports for the ventilation systems at every single public school and found most classrooms are safe to reopen, but most school bathrooms are not.

Mayor Bill de Blasio promised the records would help school communities understand all the precautions put into place for Sept. 21, when students are slated to return to in-person learning for the first time since the pandemic forced the country’s largest school system to close its doors last spring.

But many educators say the reports do not match what they see on the ground and want more information about how city leaders are making decisions about which spaces are safe.

The reports released Tuesday show that 96% percent of classrooms had functioning ventilation systems, leaving another 2,882 in need of repairs.

Many school bathrooms will need attention, though, with only 43% percent deemed usable, and repairs needed in 13,248 others, according to the city.

Overall, officials say that 81% of school spaces are up to par. Those that can’t be fixed before the school year starts will not be used. The city already took off-line 10 buildings, housing 21 schools, less than a day before teachers were expected to report back there to begin their preparations for the new year.

“The ventilation issue was: Was there proper air circulation, in combination with all the other health and safety measures? And what this inspection regimen was trying to determine is which classrooms had that,” de Blasio said at a press conference. “I don’t think it’s a lot more complex than that.”

Since school buildings were shuttered in March, a growing body of evidence has shown that the coronavirus can linger in the air. That has made proper ventilation a key line of defense, in addition to mask-wearing and social distancing. Experts say that classrooms need to have fresh air coming in, and stale air being pulled out — which can usually be accomplished with fans, powerful air filters, open windows, and, in spaces where all that is not enough, portable air purifiers.

City leaders have offered little explanation for how they are determining that ventilation is up to par and whether buildings are safe to reopen. The reports released Tuesday include a breakdown of whether each space in a building has at least one functioning window, and whether the mechanical components of the ventilation system are working in that room. There is no determination included in the reports of whether a particular classroom is usable.

That information is a good starting point, said William P. Bahnfleth, a professor and the chair of the Epidemic Task Force at The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, which has issued ventilation guidance for schools that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has adopted. He wishes the reports also showed the amount of outdoor air circulating in each space has been measured, and compared against the size of the room and the number of teachers and students expected to be inside.

“They don’t go to the extent of verifying that the outdoor air supply and filtration are what you would hope they would be,” Bahnfleth said of the reports. “You would hope that a building that is going to be occupied would be checked more thoroughly.”

Lorraine Grillo, the head of the School Construction Authority, or SCA, suggested the city is working with unions to conduct “engineering-type” inspections along the lines that Bahnfleth recommends. But she did not provide specifics.

Grillo said those returning to school “can feel very confident that the union, as well as SCA and school facilities, have been working very hard to make every classroom safe.”

Not everyone is convinced.

When Principal Rashid Davis saw the education department’s list of schools with ventilation issues so serious that they cannot immediately open, he was surprised that his school, P-Tech, the Pathways in Technology Early College High School in Brooklyn, was not on it.

He thought about P-Techs ongoing effort to overhaul the century-old school’s ventilation system. He recalled the construction noise and dust that would float inside classrooms when the building’s windows are open, and the scaffolding that blocks fresh air from coming in.

“We should be on this list,” Davis emailed his school community late Monday and attached P-Tech’s own ventilation inspection report. It spans three pages and shows not a single space has a working supply or exhaust fan to promote air circulation.

Davis raised the alarm in an email to senior city officials, and said a raft of union and education department leaders came to his building Tuesday morning to hear his concerns. They promised the building’s fans would work by the time students arrive. He’s worried not only about classrooms, but also hallways and bathrooms, and wants to know what criteria are being used to keep the building open while shuttering others.

“We don’t know that,” he said. “And without knowing that, it’s not as transparent as they are saying.”

Without such details, some educators said they are taking the matter into their own hands. Melissa Williams, for one, ordered a simple wind speed meter. Since Williams, an occupational therapist in Washington Heights, has an accommodation that allows her to work from home this school year, she handed off the $30-device to a colleague who planned to use it to check the airflow in her own classroom.

“I do not feel safe with my coworkers going into my workplace,” Williams said.

At the Grace Dodge Campus in the Bronx, which houses three schools, teachers were told they could use the cafeteria for their own lunch breaks. That’s worrisome for Israel Soto, a union representative and social studies teacher at the campus, who said the space has neither functioning air conditioning nor windows that open.

Soto and his colleagues at Crotona International High School rallied outside the building on Tuesday morning to highlight their safety concerns and demand that the school year begin with remote instruction only.

“There’s no ventilation,” Soto said of the lunchroom, adding that the campus has faced maintenance issues for years. “We’ve been saying it, that’s the sad part. It’s not that it has not been known.”

What happened?

JD2718, SEPTEMBER 5, 2020 PM30 1:40 PM

August 19 and August 20 the United Federation of Teachers leadership began work towards a school reopening job action. NYC and the NYC Department of Education had been mostly uncooperative all summer. Disagreements about safety were not close to being resolved. The Department wanted minimal testing requirements, the union wanted stringent testing requirements.

There had been cooperation over the summer – but the results were generally bad for teachers and schools: Blended learning with impossible constraints, 1800 plans written by 1800 principals (with training in pedagogy, not in safety planning), Instructional lunch, and just now more roles than teachers.

So August 19 and 20 the UFT holds a press conference, announces safety non-negotiables, and begins organizing meetings. First chapter leaders were invited to borough-wide meetings. Then members were invited to meetings in smaller groups.

My union is run top-down. Central gives instructions to the boroughs, and often directly to District Reps. District Reps give directions to Chapter Leaders – some of whom follow them – and that’s all that’s really expected. In a few chapters there is actual discussion, but in many, the CL doesn’t even communicate information from the Central, and in most the CL just communicates from Central. There is not much two-way flow of information. The idea of Officers and Reps “serving” members is paternalistic, at best. (with very notable exceptions – if you almost jumped out of your chair when you read those words – you are probably in that minority. And we are incredibly thankful to the handful of you)

So Chapter Leaders, then members got invited to meetings. And the stakes, possible job action, questions about personal safety and safety of our students, were high. Very high. Higher than at any other union meeting most of us have been to. Ever. And the reaction was not what the leaders expected. In the UFT, instructions are given, chapter leaders follow them, or ignore them. But here there were questions. Lots of questions.

• Do we have to strike? (Quite a bit of nervousness)
• Why aren’t we demanding full remote (Quite a few challenges to Central’s “We want to go in, but safely” strategy)
• What’s the timeline? (Central had not prepared a timeline. These were designed a bit like pep rallies)
• When’s the vote? There was no answer.
• What steps should chapter leaders take? The answers were absent or nebulous, came from a variety of sources, but not central. I was asked to organize a chapter meeting, but not yet. And there was no follow-up to say “now” (passive voice there, intentionally so) (Central had not prepared the next steps. These were designed a bit like pep rallies)

The process gets repeated in the member meetings, but attendance is gooooood… but not excellent. And members might ask fewer difficult questions, but there is a clear “enthusiasm gap” (larger when considering the significant numbers who did not come).

What happened? 

That’s easy. You should not run a union top-down. You cannot organize a strike top-down.

By August 27 and 28 it was clear to many that this was not going right. Instead of vagueness about a schedule for voting, the discussion was filtering to the members that it would be Exec Board 8/31 and Delegate Assembly 9/1, and there was no time for a membership vote. After the DA, the move would be to court for an injunction against an unsafe opening.

I was worried about what was going on. I wrote to Mulgrew and the officers, urging them NOT to skip a membership vote:

I understand that there is consideration of strike authorization votes at the Executive Board and the Delegate Assembly. 

I also understand that there may not be a membership vote. I hope I am mistaken.  That would be a serious error.
There is the issue of democracy. but I think that is relatively minor.
But the issues of member engagement loom large. Organizing a vote increases member engagement, and member buy-in. It also provides real-time feedback from the field. Are chapter leaders organizing? Is there resistance? What are the issues?
The activity around organizing a vote makes a strike more effective.
For members who are already on board, it makes a smaller difference; the vote increases enthusiasm.  But for members on the fence, skipping the vote sends the message that the leaders don’t trust the members, or don’t care what they think. It will harden the pockets of resistance.
I don’t know if support in the field is at 95%, 85%, 75%, 65% or 55%… but even at 85% we need to win more people over.
A membership vote makes us – and any potential job action – stronger.
I hope that I was indeed mistaken – that a membership vote is planned. But if that is not the case, I would thank you to consider the matter carefully,

And then on Monday August 31 the vote at the Executive Board was for both strike authorization, but also for 24 hours more to negotiate. And Tuesday morning de Blasio and Mulgrew and Carranza announced a deal.

Why the deal?

From the mayor’s side, there really are serious problems with the plans. September 10 (which had been scheduled to be the first day with kids) was looking like a disaster. He bought time, and he bought labor “peace” without much cost.

From the UFT leadership’s standpoint, the strike threat was not nearly as effective as they had presumed it would be, and they did not have confidence they could pull off a job action. Under those circumstances, a deal might not have been such a bad move.

An alternate explanation comes from Mike Schirtzer, one of three non-Unity Caucus members on the Executive Board, and the only one to vote against the deal:

It was the very threat of a job action and litigation by our union that forced this mayor to come to the negotiating table to address the issue of keeping our children and educators safe. Before that point he wouldn’t budge.

I agree with most of Mike’s reasoning and appreciate his willingness to speak openly about it. But I don’t agree with his assessment that the threat was effective (and I dismiss the UFT leadership’s similar assessment as self-serving)

What would have happened if the UFT had moved forward towards a job action? 

Given the very tight tolerances for scheduling (unworkable, actually) a school might not be able to function, even if everyone shows up. But 30% staying out (beyond those with accommodations) might have shut a school. And the real number would have been higher. But how much higher? Some schools, maybe not all, but probably most, would have been unable to function. A strike, even with the preparations looking half-assed, would probably have shut the system.

A strike might have shut the system, would probably have shut the system, but without any guarantee. And a few entire schools might have kept working – a few at first. With time a weak strike (and there would have been time) could have easily become weaker.

But even if a strike had been effective in shutting the system, a weak strike would have done incalculable damage to the union in the long run. It would have divided us. It would have made members bitter at members and further diminished trust in the leadership. A short term win was possible. But a long term, expensive loss was in the cards.

Couldn’t there have been a better threat?

Yes. But that would have required a different approach.

• Open discussion. Organizing for a job action requires that members talk to each other. Members need to convince themselves and convince each other. Most of our chapters do not engage in open discussion of union issues. That should change. But that’s hard. The UFT has developed a culture where asking hard questions or disagreeing is treated as disloyal. It will take a conscious effort to end that. I mean, in fact, it is disloyal to the membership when one of us knows there is a potential problem, but says nothing. But how do we get to the place where showing loyalty to the union and the membership comes before showing loyalty to an officer?
• Time. Any kind of organizing takes time, but especially when we need to get 100% or close to 100% on board. Starting August 19? Come on. And it is not just now. Union decisions have to allow members time to figure things out. To talk. To schedule. But three weeks to go from zero to strike was not adequate.
• Sharing information. Real discussions require real information. And holding information back from the membership should be considered incompatible with leadership. It’s not just now. This organization speaks to the Mayor, to the Chancellor, to the Press before it speaks to members. That’s bad. At the Chapter Leader meetings two weeks ago CLs asked “what’s next?” and DRs said they didn’t know – because UFT Central was not sharing information. At the DA Peter Lamphere asked where we could read the agreement. You know what? The UFT leadership has asked members and delegates to vote on agreements in the past when we did not have them to read. (Here’s an example) That’s wrong.
• Knowledge of strike organization. No one in the leadership of the UFT has led a teacher strike. Almost none of the school-based membership have been involved in a strike. We went into this without experience. But other AFT locals have had those experiences. All layers of our leadership, in better days in the future, should learn from locals with strike experience. For officers and reps arranging trips and seminars should not be too hard. Workshops in NYC for chapter leaders and chapter activists would be useful. And they, in turn, could bring the knowledge back to chapters.
• Goals. This gets really specific. But the UFT leadership’s goals were wrong. Early on, maybe late May or mid-June, they decided that NYC schools could open in September. I have written about the fixation on blended learning, and on compromising all sorts of stuff to make it happen. The UFT leadership, before this talk of job action, had already given up on the one clear issue that had a chance of uniting the membership: keeping our schools remote. Look, members agreed with Mulgrew that the “schools should be safe” and that we needed “better testing” – but those were not enough.

So they cut a deal. We cut a deal.

What’s in the Deal?

Random testing, of a pretty big chunk of staff and students (UFT had wanted 100% before school began)

Delayed opening, teachers 9/8, remote for sign-in purposed 9/16, full instruction 9/21

(Vagueness warning) – some ability for a chapter to have safety issues addressed before going into a school

Is this a sellout?

This deal? No. Each one of those points is something we should want. Better testing. More time to prepare for the year. And some ability for chapters to walk out.

We can be disappointed that it is not nearly enough. It is not.

But we also know that we averted a risky strike that could have weakened us in the long run.

Of course, there is more. We still have plans that won’t work. We have unnecessarily risky maskless instructional lunch. We have 1800 plans devised by 1800 principals, some of whom I wouldn’t trust to tie their own shoes.

We also have to address the individual school safety issues. This has been dumped onto individual chapters – potentially dividing the strength of the union. We need to see how aggressively UFT Central and the Borough Offices pursue violations, and how actively they encourage and support chapters standing up.

Are we done?

This is not the last deal for this year. If schools open September 21 there will be huge problems and issues all over the City. But we have a few more days. We want to teach. We want the teaching to work, as best as it can under these circumstances. And we want to keep all of us, ourselves, our families, our schools, our colleagues and our students, safe. We will ultimately need to be remote.

Arizona Superintendent Jeff Gregorich Speaks Out on His Angst Concerning Safely Reopening Schools

Arizona Superintendent Jeff Gregorich

‘I’m sorry, but it’s a fantasy’
Washington Post, August 1, 2020

“This is my choice, but I’m starting to wish that it wasn’t. I don’t feel qualified. I’ve been a superintendent for 20 years, so I guess I should be used to making decisions, but I keep getting lost in my head. I’ll be in my office looking at a blank computer screen, and then all of a sudden I realize a whole hour’s gone by. I’m worried. I’m worried about everything. Each possibility I come up with is a bad one.

The governor has told us we have to open our schools to students on August 17th, or else we miss out on five percent of our funding. I run a high-needs district in the middle-of-nowhere Arizona. We’re 90 percent Hispanic and more than 90 percent free-and-reduced lunch. These kids need every dollar we can get. But COVID is spreading all over this area and hitting my staff, and now it feels like there’s a gun to my head. I already lost one teacher to this virus. Do I risk opening back up even if it’s going to cost us more lives? Or do we run school remotely and end up depriving these kids?

Jeff Gregorich, superintendent of schools at Hayden Winkelman Unified School 
District in Arizona, shows results of a district survey.
(Photos by Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)

This is your classic one-horse town. Picture John Wayne riding through cactuses and all that. I’m superintendent, high school principal, and sometimes the basketball referee during recess. This is a skeleton staff, and we pay an average salary of about 40,000 a year. I’ve got nothing to cut. We’re buying new programs for virtual learning and trying to get hotspots and iPads for all our kids. Five percent of our budget is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Where’s that going to come from? I might lose teaching positions or basic curriculum unless we somehow get up and running.

I’ve been in the building every day, sanitizing doors and measuring out space in classrooms. We still haven’t received our order of Plexiglas barriers, so we’re cutting up shower curtains and trying to make do with that. It’s one obstacle after the next. Just last week I found out we had another staff member who tested positive, so I went through the guidance from OSHA and the CDC and tried to figure out the protocols. I’m not an expert at any of this, but I did my best with the contact tracing. I called 10 people on staff and told them they’d had a possible exposure. I arranged separate cars and got us all to the testing site. Some of my staff members were crying. They’ve seen what can happen, and they’re coming to me with questions I can’t always answer. “Does my whole family need to get tested?” “How long do I have to quarantine?” “What if this virus hits me like it did Mrs. Byrd?”

We got back two of those tests already — both positive. We’re still waiting on eight more. That makes 11 percent of my staff that’s gotten COVID, and we haven’t had a single student in our buildings since March. Part of our facility is closed down for decontamination, but we don’t have anyone left to decontaminate it unless I want to put on my hazmat suit and go in there. We’ve seen the impacts of this virus on our maintenance department, on transportation, on foodservice, on faculty. It’s like this district is shutting down case by case. I don’t understand how anyone could expect us to reopen the building this month in a way that feels safe. It’s like they’re telling us: “Okay. Summer’s over. It’s been long enough. Time to get back to normal.” But since when has this virus operated on our schedule?

I dream about going back to normal. I’d love to be open. These kids are hurting right now. I don’t need a politician to tell me that. We only have 300 students in this district, and they’re like family. My wife is a teacher here, and we had four kids go through these schools. I know whose parents are laid off from the copper mine and who doesn’t have enough to eat. We delivered breakfast and lunches this summer, and we gave out more meals each day than we have students. I get phone calls from families dealing with poverty issues, depression, loneliness, boredom. Some of these kids are out in the wilderness right now, and school is the best place for them. We all agree on that. But every time I start to play out what that looks like on August 17th, I get sick to my stomach. More than a quarter of our students live with grandparents. These kids could very easily catch this virus, spread it, and bring it back home. It’s not safe. There’s no way it can be safe.

If you think anything else, I’m sorry, but it’s a fantasy. Kids will get sick, or worse. Family members will die. Teachers will die.

Mrs. Byrd did everything right. She followed all the protocols. If there’s such a thing as a safe, controlled environment inside a classroom during a pandemic, that was it. We had three teachers sharing a room so they could teach a virtual summer school. They were so careful. This was back in June when cases here were starting to spike. The kids were at home, but the teachers wanted to be together in the classroom so they could team up on the new technology. I thought that was a good idea. It’s a big room. They could watch and learn from each other. Mrs. Byrd was a master teacher. She’d been here since 1982, and she was always coming up with creative ideas. They delivered care packages to the elementary students so they could sprout beans for something hands-on at home, and then the teachers all took turns in front of the camera. All three of them wore masks. They checked their temperatures. They taught on their own devices and didn’t share anything, not even a pencil.

At first, she thought it was a sinus infection. That’s what the doctor told her, but it kept getting worse. I got a call that she’d been rushed to the hospital. Her oxygen was low, and they put her on a ventilator pretty much right away. The other two teachers started feeling sick the same weekend, so they went to get tested. They both had it bad for the next month. Mrs. Byrd’s husband got it and was hospitalized. Her brother got it and passed away. Mrs. Byrd fought for a few weeks until she couldn’t anymore.

I’ve gone over it in my head a thousand times. What precautions did we miss? What more could I have done? I don’t have an answer. These were three responsible adults in an otherwise empty classroom, and they worked hard to protect each other. We still couldn’t control it. That’s what scares me.

We got the whole staff together for grief counseling. We did it virtually, over Zoom. There’s sadness, and it’s also so much fear. My wife is one of our teachers in the primary grade, and she has asthma. She was explaining to me how every kid who sees her automatically gives her a hug. They arrive in the morning — hug. Leave for recess — hug. Lunch — hug. Locker — hug. That’s all day. Even if we do everything perfectly, germs are going to spread inside a school. We share the same space. We share the same air.

A bunch of our teachers have told me they will put in for retirement if we open up this month. They’re saying: “Please don’t make us go back. This is crazy. We’re putting the whole community at risk.”

They’re right. I agree with them 100 percent. Teachers don’t feel safe. Most parents said in a survey that they’re “very concerned” about sending their kids back to school. So why are we getting bullied into opening? This district isn’t ready to open. I can’t have more people getting sick. Why are they threatening our funding? I keep waiting for someone higher up to take this decision out of my hands and come to their senses. I’m waiting for real leadership, but maybe it’s not going to happen.

It’s me. It’s the biggest decision of my career, and the one part I’m certain about is it’s going to hurt either way.”