Will Vermont schools face a staff shortage when they reopen for in-person learning? It’s too early to tell, school administrators say, although they continue to worry about a surge in leave requests, early retirements or resignations sparked by fear of the coronavirus.
But even as teachers begin heading back to school, many feel the needs of the economy and of parents are being elevated above their own families, health and safety. And they complain that they haven’t had much of a voice in discussions about how and whether to reopen in the fall.
Mike Leonard, a paraeducator at Burlington High, says that message came in loud and clear when the Scott administration refused to form a statewide school reopening commission, as requested by the Vermont teachers union.
“The actual employees of the school district are like the furniture, and I think that’s particularly true for support staff,” he said.
Still, like many of his colleagues — and despite his reservations — Leonard said he’ll probably go back.
“I need a job like everyone else. Health benefits. And I don’t want to just walk away,” he said.
The Agency of Education does collect information on staffing in Vermont’s schools, but not in real-time, and the data available now cannot provide insight into what the picture will look like come Sept. 8, especially in a rapidly changing landscape.
But the treasurer’s office, which administers the state pension plan for teachers, did record a spike in retirements this summer. Last year, it processed 275 retirements in July, usually its busiest month. This year, there were 379 in the same period. (An official with the treasurer’s office noted this could be due partially to one block of teachers hitting the 10-year mark to qualify for a spousal health insurance subsidy.)
One national union has called for “safety strikes” if schools reopen without adequate safeguards, and in Detroit, the teachers union this week authorized a strike over safety concerns.
The Vermont chapter of the National Education Association, which represents the vast majority of the state’s teachers and support staff, has not threatened a work stoppage, although it has grown increasingly critical of the Scott administration’s local-control approach to reopening in recent weeks.
The state has put out general health and safety guidelines for reopening schools — which require, for example, that all staff and students wear a mask — but it has left key decisions about whether, and how, to reopen for in-person learning up to local districts. Local superintendents are also responsible for making the call about shutting down their schools, although they’ll do so in concert with the Health Department.
At a press conference Tuesday, Gov. Phil Scott defended the state’s approach, arguing educators on the ground know best.
“There are more than 50 superintendents, 300 principals and around 18,000 teachers, administrators and staff who have more insight into the operations of their schools, and the needs of the children in their communities, than folks do in Montpelier,” the governor said.
The union has countered that the lack of a unified strategy, shifting state guidance and poor coordination at the state level could all translate to a chaotic fall.
‘No magic shield’
Union spokesperson Darren Allen was appalled the state was willing to set rules for the opening of places for consumers, but not kids and teachers.
“If we have a statewide standard for opening restaurants and a statewide standard for opening retail and a statewide standard for grocery stores, we sure as heck need a statewide set of safety requirements for our children and our school employees,” Allen said.
The Vermont-NEA has recommended its own phased-in approach to reopening schools. The proposal envisions individual check-ins between students and teachers, and would require new health and safety measures, including HVAC updates, adequate custodial staff and a nurse in every school, before buildings reopen.
At the state level, the NEA’s proposals have barely registered.
Locally, Allen said some school boards have refused to engage while others have worked collaboratively to hash out memorandums on how to reopen.
“It’s a mixed bag. All of which points to the overarching theme that there needs to be a set of statewide requirements to reopen schools safely, effectively, and fairly,” he said.
Vermont has one of the lowest Covid-positive test rates in the nation, a fact that state public health and education officials frequently tout as they urge schools to reopen for in-person instruction.
But headlines from states with rampant community transmission, where schools are reopening only to shut down days later amidst virus outbreaks, alarm local educators, as does the fact that thousands of out-of-state college students are returning this month.
“Vermont doesn’t have a magic shield around it. Our school districts don’t have magic shields around them,” Allen said.
Administrators have been saying for weeks that a widespread shortage of staff might materialize as the first day of school rolls around — or not.
‘Still trying to figure things out’
Jeff Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association, said Wednesday he’s actually heard fewer superintendents worry about labor this week than they had earlier in the reopening process. Staff shortages could still very well manifest as a crisis in some districts, he said, but it could also be that administrators are finding ways to accommodate faculty.
“People are just constantly still trying to figure things out,” he said.
Vermont schools have historically relied heavily on retired teachers — who are likely to be high-risk for the virus because of age — to substitute when regular educators are out sick, and there is a widespread expectation that these, in particular, could be in very short supply.
“We already had a shortage of substitutes before the pandemic. So while there might be enough folks to open, I’m not sure what’s going to happen as cold and flu season comes,” Don Tinney, president of the Vermont-NEA, recently told David Goodman on the Vermont Conversation podcast.
Rep. Peter Conlon, D-Cornwall, a ranking member of the House Education Committee and a school board member in the Addison Central School District, said his district is trying to recruit two full-time substitutes to keep on call. As for whether the district is facing a general staffing shortage as it heads into the fall, Conlon said educators may make their decisions at the very last minute.
“I think it’s probably going to be right up until teachers report for their first days,” Conlon said.
In the Rutland City School District, school board chair Alison Notte said that “as of right now,” the city’s schools are fully staffed.
“The whole key to this year is — yes, it can change,” she said.
In the Maple Run Unified School District, which serves St. Albans and nearby towns, superintendent Kevin Dirth offered a similar caveat. For the time being, he said, the district is dealing with an entirely manageable number of leave requests and early retirements.
“I’m hoping I don’t say this and then a week later we have this waterfall of people,” he said late last week.
‘Nobody is sharing the load with us’
The controversy over reopening has been framed around the competing needs of families who need child care in order to work — particularly now that the extra $600 a week in federal unemployment assistance has expired — and school employees who are reluctant to return to campus. But teachers point out that Vermont educators, the majority of whom are women, also struggled to juggle work and child care when school buildings shut down in the spring.
“I often hear conversations about reopening schools as one about ‘educators’ OR ‘families,’” Christie Nold, a middle school teacher in South Burlington, wrote on Twitter. “Not only does this fail to grapple with the fact that many educators ARE parents, but also leaves out the complexity of family at this time (those caring for older relatives, fostering & engaging in community care).”
The pandemic has turned a spotlight on all of the non-academic but vital services that society relies on schools to provide — food, child care, social and emotional support, to name a few. But schools don’t have the cleaning supplies or nursing and custodial staffing they need to reopen safely, said Beverly Taft, a counselor at Randolph Union High.
“Everything has been put on us,” she said. “But nobody is sharing the load with us.”
Taft is a member of the Vermont School Workers Action Committee, a coalition of about 50 teachers and staff from across the state that was formed in the wake of the pandemic. The group wants job security for all school employees, a broadband buildout to support remote learning, statewide protocols for weekly testing and school closure, and expanded safety net benefits for all Vermonters for the duration of the pandemic.
“I just want families to know we’re not the enemy. We’re all in this together. And we’ve been failed by our leadership,” Taft said.
No consensus among Vermonters or teachers
A recent VPR poll found that Vermonters are split down the middle about whether to reopen schools. And educators, too, are not unified.
In July, the Vermont chapter of the National Education Association asked its 13,000 members if schools would be able to reopen safely at the end of the summer. About 3,000 responded to the survey, and only a small fraction — about 10% — said yes. About 38% said no.
The greatest share, just a hair over 50%, said they simply didn’t know enough to answer.
Some, like Jami Sherwood, a special educator who will be teaching in person five days a week at the Fair Haven Grade School, are eager to return to the classroom.
“This is our job. This is what we do,” said Sherwood, who has been teaching in Rutland County for nearly two decades.
Sherwood emphasized that teachers who are at high risk for severe illness from Covid-19 should be accommodated, and that solutions are needed to help educators who teach in-person while their own children are learning at home. But she personally feels comfortable going back, and isn’t too worried about whether her students follow the proper precautions.
“I’m not going to make a big deal out of it. So therefore, they won’t make a big deal out of it,” she said. “My feeling is teachers lead by example. And we need to show them how to get through this.”
At one of his bi-weekly press conferences earlier this month, Gov. Phil Scott appeared to suggest that teachers were being given flexibility about whether they would teach in person. “We’re not forcing anyone to do anything they don’t want to do,” the governor said.
Scott’s statement immediately drew blowback from educators, who say many teachers were in fact returning to classrooms under duress. Asked again about the subject last week, Scott seemed to walk back his earlier comments.
“I don’t think I said that they could choose. But it’s up to the districts to work with the teachers in order to accommodate that. And I think it’s reasonable, in some respects, when you have a compromised health risk either in your household or yourself,” he said.
The state’s guidance on reopening encourages staff members to check with their health care providers to assess their risk for working in-person, but it’s ultimately up to individual districts to decide how to handle requests from faculty and staff who want to take a leave of absence or work remotely. And schools aren’t necessarily handling those requests in a uniform way.
“Folks with close to identical conditions are being treated differently, district by district,” Tinney said.
‘A dire, dire economic situation’
Mary Carleton, a fourth-grade teacher in Winooski, has several compounding health conditions, and the medication she takes to manage them severely inhibits her immune system. Though she’s at high risk for Covid-19, her district, which has adopted a hybrid learning model, denied her request to work remotely. A letter from the human resources department said her “essential function” as a classroom teacher made it “unreasonable” to grant her request.
“That slogan ‘Winooski has heart,’ I’m wondering about that right now. Because I’m not feeling that compassion. It feels pretty cruel, the way we are being treated,” Carleton said.
According to Sean McMannon, the Winooski school superintendent, teachers like Carleton who were denied distance teaching requests may ultimately be allowed to work from home if the district can match them with enough families who opt for all-remote learning. But McMannon said superintendents must balance the competing needs of staff and parents, many of whom are desperate to send their children back to school so that they can return to work.
“This is a dire, dire economic situation for a lot of our families. And many of our families have been frontline workers working in the hospitals, working in emergency services throughout this pandemic,” he said. “The sentiment that I have heard from several is they need public education.”
Carleton understands all too well how important child care is: She has a 5-year-old and a 9-month-old. A family member will watch them while she’s back in the classroom, she said, but that person is also high-risk. If she is ultimately forced to choose between teaching in person again next year or forgoing her salary, Carleton said she will go back.
“My family relies on our health care and my pay to survive. So I have to work. But at what cost?” she asked.
