Being a School Board Member During This Time of COVID19

When I became an educator 49 years ago, no one every prepared me for the number of deaths I would have to deal with through the years.  

I remember the first time I had to deal with this was either my second or third year of teaching special ed.  I had a child who had some emotional issues.  I loved him, but his behaviors would sometimes get in his way.  His mom was incredible and we had scheduled a time to meet after school one day.  I waited for her to come to the meeting and she never showed up. I found that hard to believe because she was so supportive.  Later that evening, I found out that she was killed in a car accident on her way to meet with me.  That broke my heart.

Through my years of teaching, I had parents die and had to deal with the child in the aftermath of this.  We didn't have the emotional support for our kids in those times, so I just did the best I could do.

After I became a principal, I dealt with so many deaths--from children, to staff, and teachers.  One week, we had a child die of cancer and lost a staff member's child in an auto accident all in the same week.   I remember raising money for a funeral of a child one time.  I always said that as an administrator, I had to be the strong one while everyone else fell apart.  And even though I think I did a good job of it, I was hit hard.   And then being asked to do eulogies was an honor and at the same time so difficult.

Death is a part of life and I have no control of any of it.  When I taught for NAU, I always had my sister, Judy, come and do a presentation for teachers on how to deal with a death in their classroom or school.  Judy had worked at Hospice and her presentation was incredible.  Even though it was extremely emotional, I got so many positive comments about this in my evaluations.   I always told the students that I felt this is the one  area that we don't prepare educators for and it will happen.

Fast forward to 2020 and the pandemic.  Our schools have been closed since March.  The virus has killed almost 100,000 Americans since March. States are starting to reopen, some more slowly than others.

Tonight we are going to discuss a slow reopening of summer programs and sports.  We are also going to discuss different options for the start of the school year at the end of July.

I am so torn by this.  I totally understand that we need to get back to our lives, but there are so many conflicting opinions out there as to how and when this will happen.  Many scientists believe that there will be another waive in the fall. I personally think it will happen sooner than that based on the behaviors I have seen over this past weekend.  I truly hope that I am wrong.

I am agonizing over this.  Never did I ever think that I might have to make a decision that could lead to the death of anyone.  I know that we have guidelines to follow, but I feel that the state and federal governments have let us down on many of these guidelines.  Districts are being left to make decisions that could lead to more deaths or not.  I am not sure I could live with myself if I made a decision that would lead to even one death.   However, I see both sides of this issue.  

My only thought on this as that I don't know if I can be a part of making such a decision.  I hope that in the next few weeks, our leaders at levels much higher than me can help us with this.  I am hoping that our scientists can come up with a vaccination or that there will be some kind of miracle that happens.  

I can only say I will do my best and pray that my best doesn't cause anyone to lose a life.   

And as I am writing this blog post, I just got a text from our wonderful superintendent about the death of one of our principals.  I have known her for many years and she was so supportive of me running for the Board. She had cancer so it wasn't unexpected.   She was loved by her community and will be missed.  She was a wonderful human and a wonderful principal.