Congratulations everyone, we made it through our first Covid school year. Go ahead and pat yourselves on the back while holding a really big cocktail. You deserve it. Teachers, staff, and students all worked really hard this year to maintain social distancing, direct classrooms with masks on, and most importantly, keep Covid out of our schools.
While the groups above did a phenomenal job of going with the Covid flow, there seemed to be a lack of support from the district level. And that one stung. We needed that guidance and leadership.
This year held an opportunity for district leaders to support the administrators and teachers that were keeping their districts going. Instead, many of them worked from home throughout the entire pandemic. Despite administrators attempts to inform the district leaders on what was happening in their buildings, these officials scheduled meetings that could take up entire days, multiple times a week, made excessive demands to the workday, all while preaching self-care.
Self-care is not easy when you’re consistently adding more to an already full and exhausting plate.
The fact that district officials were making calls about how to run a school when they haven’t even stepped foot out of their homes, was tone-deaf at best.
What would’ve been helpful is to significantly reduce the number of mandatory meetings. Meetings take people away from their jobs and when you’re trying to run a school in a pandemic, you need all hands on deck, not to be stuck in a meeting all day. They should’ve acknowledged that there was a pandemic going on and cut back on new initiatives and demands. Making jobs harder and not easier during a pandemic is not helpful.
It was also infuriating to see new positions pop up that came with a big paycheck. Meanwhile, the true heroes who are teaching the kids didn’t get, nor will they probably see a raise, in a very long time.
I love my job and grateful I was able to keep mine during the pandemic, but I am very frustrated by how this school districts’ officials behaved over the past year. My hope for next year is that there is more consideration and empathy given to all the people working in the school buildings and less focus on what seems to be making up jobs for their friends in the official offices.
Most of all I hope that all staff members, from the principal to the custodial staff, get what they deserve after pulling off an incredibly difficult and exhausting school year because they truly deserve it.
