What We Spend Our Money On.
The above photo is actually from the Chicago Teacher's Union Strike this past fall. One of our key issues was that we wanted a nurse and a social worker in every school every day. Now, during a pandemic, it is even more so the case.
In America, Trump has already been threatening public school districts saying if they don't go back full time they won't be funded, even in areas where there are extreme surges in cases and 20-30% of the population is testing positive. In Chicago, our positivity rate for Coronavirus is down to 4.2% which is remarkable but there are still around 1,000 new cases every day. A preliminary study from South Korea suggests kids 10 years old (5th grade) and up can spread the virus to adults similar to adults can spread it to other adults though they need to do more research with larger sample sizes:
wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-1315_article
Still, at the very least, what we can learn from day cares that have managed to be safe during this pandemic is that we need to have social distancing or smaller number of students in each room, temperature checks, regular cleaning, and masks. Chicago Public Schools released their tentative plan recently and it is proposing 2 days on 2 days off sort of schedule but is "budget neutral" which means that they aren't planning on hiring staff to handle remote learning while teachers are teaching. They also are most likely expecting us to buy our own masks and cleaning supplies to clean up (which we are used to doing before the pandemic but some deeper cleaning would be nice) and kids to bring their own and the schools to figure out how they will afford regular temperature checks.
We also still don't have a nurse and a social worker in every school every day. But you know what we still have money for? You guessed it! Cops! We have money for cops to arrest kids in schools and not money for nurses or social workers or basic safety measures. This really shows where our priorities are.
I remotely attended a meeting of several parents, community members, and teachers of this school district last night who are meeting to try to vote their police out of schools. There has not been any movement by the mayor to cancel a $30 Million+ contract with the police just for placing them in schools, however. Meanwhile, there have been several complaints of the police being aggressive with kids and racially targeting kids who are not white. Again, when you would rather arrest kids than teach them, you are not changing the world in a better way but causing irreparable damage.
**All photos are copyrighted.**
What We Spend Our Money On.
The above photo is actually from the Chicago Teacher's Union Strike this past fall. One of our key issues was that we wanted a nurse and a social worker in every school every day. Now, during a pandemic, it is even more so the case.
In America, Trump has already been threatening public school districts saying if they don't go back full time they won't be funded, even in areas where there are extreme surges in cases and 20-30% of the population is testing positive. In Chicago, our positivity rate for Coronavirus is down to 4.2% which is remarkable but there are still around 1,000 new cases every day. A preliminary study from South Korea suggests kids 10 years old (5th grade) and up can spread the virus to adults similar to adults can spread it to other adults though they need to do more research with larger sample sizes:
wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-1315_article
Still, at the very least, what we can learn from day cares that have managed to be safe during this pandemic is that we need to have social distancing or smaller number of students in each room, temperature checks, regular cleaning, and masks. Chicago Public Schools released their tentative plan recently and it is proposing 2 days on 2 days off sort of schedule but is "budget neutral" which means that they aren't planning on hiring staff to handle remote learning while teachers are teaching. They also are most likely expecting us to buy our own masks and cleaning supplies to clean up (which we are used to doing before the pandemic but some deeper cleaning would be nice) and kids to bring their own and the schools to figure out how they will afford regular temperature checks.
We also still don't have a nurse and a social worker in every school every day. But you know what we still have money for? You guessed it! Cops! We have money for cops to arrest kids in schools and not money for nurses or social workers or basic safety measures. This really shows where our priorities are.
I remotely attended a meeting of several parents, community members, and teachers of this school district last night who are meeting to try to vote their police out of schools. There has not been any movement by the mayor to cancel a $30 Million+ contract with the police just for placing them in schools, however. Meanwhile, there have been several complaints of the police being aggressive with kids and racially targeting kids who are not white. Again, when you would rather arrest kids than teach them, you are not changing the world in a better way but causing irreparable damage.
**All photos are copyrighted.**