COVID-19 and school: Here’s what Hamilton teachers are worried about ahead of a new year

In just three weeks time, school - like we've never known it before - will be back in session.

Teachers will grade work, prepare assignments and see students occupy desks that have sat empty since mid-March due to COVID-19.

Hamilton school boards have released portions of their back-to-school plans ahead of the year. But, according to educators across the city, questions still remain.

The Hamilton Spectator spoke with teachers about their concerns for September. Their interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Joe Cappadocia

Cappadocia is an English teacher at Cathedral High School in Hamilton.

What are your concerns for this year?

I don't really know what I'm walking into in three weeks. There are so many questions and procedures, like what happens if someone tests positive, the number of students I have. I'm not even sure about the classes I'm teaching.

I know my schedule in September, if it were a regular school year. But, I don't know exactly how that will play into what we go back to.

I really have no idea how to prepare for this. I'm going to want to be as prepared as possible ... but part of it will be doing it on the fly because that will be my first experience.

We've had six months to really think about how we're going to do this. I don't know how to feel and that makes me anxious and nervous. I don't have confidence going back into it.

Personally, I'm convinced that we're going to start September and by October, we're going to be completely online ... you're going to see a spike in the cases. I wouldn't be surprised.

What about your students?

The things that students are looking for in returning to school: the being with their friends, the social aspects of school, the communal lunchtimes. Those are a lot of the things that aren't going to be in place.

It's going to be a very different experience for kids, which I think in many ways will be as isolating as being at home.

Just putting them back in the building is not going to address a lot of the mental health concerns. It also creates a lot of new anxieties, as well.

What happens if someone tests positive in the school? What happens to the students who don't? There will be anxieties and worries around that.

It's going to be a very different experience and I don't think it will be the experience that many of them are hoping for.

What are you hoping for this September?

We want to be back in the classroom and back with the kids. We know that is the environment in which we can do our jobs best and that the kids will learn best in. But health and safety have to be paramount.

With these plans, there is just so much uncertainty and so many unanswered questions.

Cindy Gangaram

Gangaram is a teacher at Ryerson Elementary School in Hamilton. She teaches a combined Grade 6-7-8 split Sage Quest class, which is an innovative specialized learning program."

What are your concerns for this year?

I'm supposed to be meeting 28 Grade 6-7-8 students in September, but I don't really know what to anticipate.

One of the things I'm really anxious about going into September is the way I normally teach. That kid that needs a little message or giving that little nod of encouragement to somebody when they are close to you.

I might sit down and help a student fill out a paper or I might scribe for a child. I might sit down and have a conference with a kid where I help them edit their work. A lot of those things are going to be very, very challenging at a physical distance.

I would imagine I'm (also) going to have to rely on standing in front of the classroom and delivering instruction and I'm not entirely sure how to imagine combined teaching with that construct.

There is the uncertainty of what you might be teaching, who you're going to be teaching and how you're going to be teaching.

What about your class size?

I have a very large classroom and I've stood in there and tried to imagine how I could possibly situate the kids and give everybody their two metres. And even in my very large classroom, that's not possible.

Maybe (with) a number like 15, I can see that it's possible for everybody to be socially distanced, but not if they have to move.

Also, my class is actually six, six-person desks, with five people at each group. The way I would normally set up my classroom isn't possible with physical distancing.

How will returning to school affect your home life?

With my partner being an occasional teacher ... and having unique exposures day after day after day, and then having even more public contact than I'm having going into the classroom every day, I don't know what that will look like.

But certainly me going into the school alone already makes me more cautious. My mom is severely immunocompromised and has been told that she likely wouldn't survive a bout of COVID-19. That's too high of a risk for me.

When I'm back in school, I won't be able to see her at all.

What are you hoping for this September?

What we all want is a safe September. We don't want to deny kids an education. We want to have the tools and the structures to empower us to be effective in delivering them a good program.

Right now, what's sitting on the table has too many unknowns and too many gaps to feel like it can really meet their needs and keep them safe.

Christopher Powles

Powles is a teacher at Ancaster High Secondary School. He teaches social sciences, history and philosophy.

What are your concerns for this year?

I want to be able to do my job well. Even with the HWDSB secondary plan, I think they've done a good job of coming up with a plan that shows a lot of consideration for teacher and student safety alike.

But I feel as though it makes it difficult for me to understand how I'm going to do my job. The plan seems to work only on the assumption that, as a teacher, I will be standing at the front of the room delivering lessons or sitting at my desk, watching students work.

I don't know how we can maintain distance if I'm doing the regular job of a teacher, which involves a lot of close contact and conversations, monitoring the class and circulating the room.

There is also a part of me (that feels), because of the nature of the courses I teach, I don't have to be in the school to teach my courses. Given the nature of what we're being sent back to do, I feel that I could do a job that is about as good from the safety of my own home.

I know that distance learning isn't optimal. I fully accept that. But I don't think that we're being sent back to an optimal situation, either.

What about your students?

One of the concerns that gets brought up a lot has to do with students' mental well-being and the fact that it's important for kids to be around their friends, which I'm wholly on-board with.

But I feel as though part of my push back against that is, what about the student's well-being if one of their friends gets sick with COVID? What if their favourite teacher dies from it?

That is something that factors into the consideration of (whether) we are doing the right thing.

How will returning to school affect your home life?

My mother and mother-in-law are both in their 70s and in all likelihood, I will probably not be seeing them for a while.

But I also have a blended family. I have two teenage kids, so between all of us each day, we're all going to different schools, which just means that the exposure that comes into the house is wider and vaster.

What are you hoping for this September?

If it was up to me, we should still do full-distance learning everywhere and put whatever available funds there are into finding solutions for students who are most negatively affected by that choice. Or find ways to support families who can't afford to keep their kids at home.

Most people seem to think that sometime in October we'll see a full shutdown again.

Again, it's not what we want. If I could snap my fingers and say, What would be optimal?' it would be a full return, no masks and everything else but somehow it's safe.

But we're not there and until we are, I don't think half measures are going to be a solution that works.

Tiffany Shields

Shields is a careers teacher and guidance counsellor at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School.

What are your concerns for this year?

I'm relieved to be at a school that has been designated for students to come back for 15-person cohorts. I think I would be a nervous wreck and I am very concerned for those teachers that are not at designated schools.

But my main concern is how we are going to be able to teach the hybrid model, (which means) having students in the class Monday and Wednesday, different students on Tuesday and Thursday, and then also teaching online.

I think that we have to remember what happened in the spring wasn't online learning; it was emergency learning. We were all just trying to survive it. I just can't wrap my head around how this is going to happen.

Also, we don't know any safety measures ... or precautions. My board is going to be having an optional study hall. We don't know what that is going to look like. We don't know who is going to supervise it.

The not knowing (and) the anxiety of that is overwhelming for my co-workers. Nothing has changed in the world of this virus since May or June.

Yet, we're two weeks out of school and there are still so many questions.

Your husband is a teacher at another board. What worries does that bring?

Between my three kids, there are two other schools. So, there are four different schools in my house.

So for two of my kids, they will have full classes of 27 to 28 kids, but we don't even know. So there will be 60 exposures from my younger ones on a daily basis. My husband will have 60 or more. My oldest son is starting high school, so he'll be less than 20. I'll (also) be less than 20, hopefully.

But what happens if a student in my class tests positive? Do I have to quarantine for 14 days? If I do, does my whole class have to? Do all three of my children? What about my husband? What about the classes he teaches because he has exposed those students?

Right now, my mind reels with all the different possibilities.

How will returning to school affect your home life?

We won't be seeing my mom anymore because my mom has a compromised immune system. My in-laws normally do before and after care for our little ones but they're at an age that is considered high-risk.

Up to this point, there have been no hugs or kisses. No drives with grandparents.

But we have no choice but to expose our grandparents because of bell schedules and where we live.

What are you hoping for this September?

We all want to go back. We want our kids to go back. We want them to go back safely and that doesn't just mean physically, that means mentally, as well.

This lack of information and the constant changing of the goalposts from the ministry is creating so much anxiety. I have friends that aren't sleeping.

We've been told since March that two metres (distance), masks, staying outside and limiting the time you're exposed are essential for safety. And in every other area, those four rules are continuing.

But somehow they don't matter anymore on the school bus and in the physical building.

None of us are saying we don't want to go back. It's that we want to make sure we're safe.

Fallon Hewitt is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: fhewitt@thespec.com