It’s not safe: Concord educators push back on in-person teaching plans

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The joint school committees of the Concord and Concord-Carlisle districts unanimously approved during their Aug. 3 virtual meeting Superintendent Laurie Hunter’s reopening plan for the 2020-2021 school year.

The plan offers three options for families: full remote, full return and a hybrid.

But before the vote, educators from Concord-Carlisle Regional High School voiced opposition over any type of in-person option.

“I am deeply concerned about going back to school,” said Caitlin Smith, a teacher at CCHS and department chair. “I think that the remote option is the safest. While it has limitations, we learned a lot from our spring and there are lots of ways we can deliver curriculum in a way that would be the most healthy for students and teachers in terms of mental and physical health.”

Smith said she was “perplexed” educators were being asked to return to school while there was a safe option to continue with remote learning.

“I understand the many appeals from parents and students especially wanting to get back to school. But it must be understood school will not be normal,” she said. “It will not be a place we know and love. It will be very difficult to hear each other, to breathe freely, to move around and I just fear for our well-being on so many levels.”

While fighting back tears, Smith praised Hunter’s compassion and thoughtfulness during the coronavirus pandemic and said other educators feel her support. But she begged the joint committee members to reconsider if they feel returning to school in any capacity is not safe.

“Consider the human beings that are going to be in these schools every day,” Smith said. “We have families. We love our students, and we would like nothing better than to be there and love them and support them and teach them. But I think until it’s safe we need to do that from our homes.”

Remote learning can be successful

Kelli Kirshtein, a 23-year school adjustment counselor at Concord-Carlisle, said she has an eighth-grader at Sanborn and a college sophomore who is learning remotely to start the school year.

Said she wants nothing more than to be with her students and knows the pain they are feeling not being in school but had more pressing concerns.

“What if it’s me?” she said. “What if I leave my own children? What if all the children I love and all of you have to deal with the possibility that not only could I die but I could become disabled. I may never be the same again. I might live and not be able to do the work I love.”

Kirshtein blasted recent studies that report it is safe for students to go back to school and cited recent reports from other parts of the country where students became sick after schools reopened.

Kirshtein said she has taught remotely in the past and is confident she and her colleagues can do it well.

“We don’t know what this virus will do to us,” she said. “We don’t know who it will strike. It seems to be striking kids a lot more now than it was before.”

Kirshtein said her younger son plays in a local baseball league and she sees both players and parents take their masks off at the games and don’t follow social-distancing rules, making her worry kids at school will do the same.

“I love the children of Concord. They are good kids,” she said. “The people of Concord are wonderful. But human nature is what it is. These kids are not going to spend six-and-half hours with the masks pulled up tightly over their noses. It’s inevitable if you bring us back one of us will get sick. Someone is going to be disabled. Someone is going to die and you’re going to have to try to live with that if that what happens.”

Other risk in coming back

Alyssa Bigay, a Concord Middle School teacher and supporter of a fully remote model, said committee members should also consider the social-emotional issues the kids will feel returning to a school atmosphere they aren’t used to.

“When we were in person in March when there were only six confirmed cases in Middlesex County, kids were afraid,” she said. “It was hard for them. If something worse happens – a teacher, a student, a grandmother is ill – how difficult that’s going to be on our kids.”

One parent, Gail Hire who has a third-grader at the Alcott school, said it would be a mistake to move away from in-person teaching and asked if there could be an option for teachers who want to physically be in school, allowing others who are uncomfortable to teach remotely.

“If the state thinks this can happen, I think we should move forward,” she said.

Hunter said she was unsure when a vote on which plan would be made.

“I expect we will be discussing right until we would look to start,” she said.

Committee members also voted to approve the revised 2020- 2021 calendar and the Retirement Incentive Plan. The Concord School Committee also voted to approve the CPS Capital Plan.

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