A decision is expected by the end of the month from Gov. Tim Walz on the status of school openings this fall and Thursday we learned some more about what teachers may think about the future.
A couple hundred teachers held a march/parade by car around the capitol, some with signs reading “Let science decide,” and “Children are not guinea pigs,” while collecting cards to give Walz. Like many lawmakers, parents and staff, they’re conflicted except about one thing: that safety is the utmost importance.
A survey released by Education Minnesota from more than 20,500 of its 86,000 members shows 49 percent support distance learning, 17 percent want in person instruction, and 29 percent prefer a hybrid.
Union president Denise Specht said there are things they agree on: following the science, being nimble to change course if need be, and listening to those at schools every day..
“Not to mention when educators are wearing face masks, how can they teach? It’s very difficult,” Specht said. “You have to show how to make sounds, when you’re talking with deaf and hard-of-hearing students, it makes teaching and learning very difficult.”
The support for distance learning is 11 points higher for teachers of color. Sizi Goya, a math teacher in Brooklyn Center, said the pandemic has laid bare racial inequities that cannot be ignored.
“I still want to teach my students,” he said. “But I urge Gov. Walz and all administrators who will make decisions about how our schools learn to consider this question through the lens of racial equity and justice.”
The teachers’ results follow a parents survey two weeks ago from the Minnesota Department of Education which also found split results: a majority in that survey supported in-person school, but more than a third said they were “uncomfortable” or “unsure.”
District 197 parent Katie Dohman wants her three children, ages 7, 5 and 3, back in school but is worried about teacher and student safety.
“If we return to school, it will not be the school that any of us have known,” Dohman said. “We long for normalcy, but that is long gone. It gives me much more anxiety to think that we can return to normal than to acknowledge this feels like a world we very much do not know and need to learn to navigate. We have to readjust our expectations, our empathy and our everything.”
State Republicans favor allowing school districts to decide how and if students return to school. Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said this month that schools should open back up, but school boards should decide.
“But to close it down completely -- we already discovered that all kids, but particularly kids of color go farther behind when they don’t have the classroom settings,” he said. “I think schools are essential and we have essential businesses, I think we should be calling schools essential as well.”
Specht said she hopes the survey helps lawmakers see above all that teachers are on the front lines, and though there are different comfort levels, their voices need to be heard.