Omicron Couldn’t Keep This School Down

Upon learning that his colleague had tested positive for Covid-19, Matt Tremper did double duty: He taught history to his seventh-graders on one side of the library while overseeing a science experiment for another class assembled across the stacks.

Learning continued — even though the Omicron variant was doing its best all week to render schools inoperable.

With pandemic-related staff shortages putting pressure on administrators, teachers, and specialists to find ways to keep school running — and, in some cases, canceling classes for days — Tremper is one of countless teachers around the state who has been working overtime to make sure every child is cared for while Covid cases surge.

Since returning to work after the winter break, school staff have sunk into survival mode. Hamden teachers and administrators made it through the first week back in person with relatively few school closures by asking themselves: ​“Without us, where would the kids be?” 

Hamden Middle School social worker Glenn Xavier specifically posed that question Thursday morning while reflecting on a rollercoaster year of pandemic related behavioral concerns, multifaceted public safety dilemmas, and mounting responsibilities on the part of staff. He, along with teachers Matt Tremper, Trish Morello, and Principal Michelle Coogan, said that while the last 18 months have been stressful and uncertain, they have only deepened school staffs’ ​“unwavering commitment to be here,” — that is, physically in classrooms.

1/4 Of Middle School Teachers Call Out

Following the holiday vacation, Hamden Middle School was the first in the district to call off school due to staff shortages that Monday. Everyday since, they have been down by approximately the same number: Between 15 and 17, or one quarter, of their 68 teachers are out.

It’s not just missing teachers. Only four of 14 paraprofessionals have consistently made it into work this week, and two more certified staff on top of the 17 (out of 68) missing teachers were absent as of Thursday.

It’s unclear how many of the staff absences are specifically due to exposure to or contraction of Covid-19. But about 20 percent of middle schoolers, or roughly 175 out of a body of 847 kids, have also stayed home each day this week. 

Another new challenge is ensuring both parents and kids, and, perhaps, some teachers, as well, that school is ​“a safe environment,” Xavier said. ​“The threats didn’t help the situation,” he noted, recalling non-credible inferences of gun violence made over Snapchat throughout December. ​“This is a tough year, this is a wrought time… academically and emotionally.”

On both Tuesday and Thursday, Hamden High — which last month had already canceled classes three days in a row due to those gun violence threats — also called off school due to lack of staff. Eli Whitney Technical High School, a state owned school based in Hamden, dismissed early Monday morning and closed through Wednesday. 

But, with the exception of a second canceled day because of Friday’s snow storm, the middle school managed to stay open despite an extraordinarily high proportion of absent teachers throughout the rest of the week. 

"We Want To Be Here"

Coogan said she and her staff used Monday to plan ahead. That meant identifying teachers who would be willing and able to sub for missing colleagues in the coming days and having a conversation regarding the importance of honesty, boundaries, and clear communication.

The ongoing unavailability of substitute teachers has meant that paraprofessionals and other certified staff have been entirely responsible for supervising kids all semester when teachers call out.

Nobody is required to directly take on that extra labor. Many teachers are worried about being overexposed to students, and Coogan said she doesn’t want to force anyone who is nervous or who may be immunocompromised and/or have comorbidities in such positions. 

Other staff are simply too overwhelmed with work to cover for others. As a social worker, for instance, Xavier said he has more kids than ever coming to meet with him every period about everything from generalized anxiety to confusion over how to process the grief tied to losing loved ones.

So, Coogan sends teachers an email every night asking: How are you feeling? Please contact me if you think you’re going to be absent, please contact me if you’re willing to sub. She tells them: ​“This is gonna be hard. Anytime you’re feeling like it’s too hard, we can do what needs to be done.”

Teachers who feel well enough to take on the extra responsibility to keep school running volunteer themselves. 

“Teachers are feeling tired and burned out,” Trish Morello said. The eighth grade social studies teacher, like Tremper, is one of the teachers who has been spending every period of the day not only teaching her own classes but covering for others. ​“But I haven’t heard complaining,” she added.

That’s because ​“teachers want to be here,” Tremper reflected. ​“We’re taking care of our colleagues and taking care of our students.

“When we hear that some of our students are on the quarantine list… it kind of hurts your heart to know that some of our students are sick or some of their family is sick.”

“Mutual respect and care. That’s what’s getting us through,” Coogan agreed.

“We’re frontline workers and this is essential work,” Xavier added. Knowing the essential nature of public education, childcare, and youth mental health support, Xavier said, ​“Motivates me to come in everyday.” 

Essential Work

Despite the hardships teachers have gone through during the pandemic as frontline workers, they have also gotten to see proof of how vital their jobs are. ​“We’ve seen the results of having kids home for a long period — it’s not good,” Tremper stated.

Without consistent access to in-person schooling and care, the middle school staff said that kids across the district have fallen behind academically, economic and racial disparities among student populations have grown larger, and addiction to big tech has heightened, disrupting youth’s social realities and behavioral norms.

Plus, Coogan pointed out, typical ​“bridges” that staff once relied on to build relationships and trust with parents went out the window. School conferences were paused; art shows and community events canceled; and tensions were heightened. 

With vaccination rates rising and cases dwindling earlier this year, kids were able to approach a ​“new normal,” complete with socially-distanced concerts, daily conversations and lunches with friends and peers, and physical access to the people grading their homework assignments — all things that were impossible just months earlier.

Though school fights, prank gun violence threats, and bus driver shortages at the middle and high schools have made news throughout the fall months, Coogan said that she and her teachers still saw ​“tremendous improvement” between September and January. 

“There were some kids that hadn’t stepped inside a classroom since March 2020,” Morello remembered. ​“There were kids that didn’t know how to open a locker,” and she found herself as an eighth grade teacher having to show kids around the building and orient them to the space they would spend just one year before moving on to high school with students five years older than themselves.

The district embraced new social emotional learning strategies, holding full days of lessons and activities related to mental health, community building, and self expression once per month. Students went to yoga class instead of science, were taught the definition of a ​“growth mindset,” and instructed on how to ​“advocate for yourself.”

“I think that’s radically different from pre-Covid,” Coogan said. ​“Our teachers have been fabulous, open-minded to teaching new things… and have been empowered to have more autonomy in the classroom.”

The new wave of Covid cases places everyone in an awkward middle ground. The only thing that has changed from two weeks ago, Coogan said, is ​“the volume” of pre-existing problems. More teachers are sick, there are even fewer bus drivers, zero substitutes, and kids are still struggling with the impact of the ever evolving traumas of the pandemic on their lives. 

Remote learning does not count as official schools days in Connecticut without an executive order by the Governor or legislative action. And professionals who have witnessed the negative effects of remote learning don’t want to continue to inhibit kids’ growth.

“It weighs on our minds,” Morello said. ​“We’ve come a long way and we don’t want to regress.”

Student Council Prez: We All Step Up

“I don’t learn when I’m at home. I don’t like to do work when I’m at home,” 14-year-old Student Council President GG Pittman, whose last normal year of in-person classes was spent at Dunbar Elementary, said. ​“I fall asleep! Not on purpose but it just happens.” At school, the lights and bustling crowds wake her up.

Many of GG’s friends have struggled academically since 2020 while drowning in remote and/or online work. GG, on the other hand, has gotten used to looking up her daily assignments on Google Classroom and going through the motions to complete them.

Whether or not the work is appropriately challenging, Pittman said she’s just relieved that more classes weren’t canceled this week. The possibility of quarantining at home is always there — and reminds her of how ​“I wasn’t really happy… there was nothing for me to do. I was just mad at home.”

The staff shortages pose some overlapping issues to remote learning: Teachers are unavailable for questions and personalized instruction. ​“When a teacher gets back, you’re gonna be the one that’s wrong,” Pittman said.

Ultimately, however, ​“I’m just here to make the school a better place and to improve on myself,” Pittman said. 

The typical duties of council president are off the table: In the Covid era, she can’t plan trips or dances. 

But she still takes her student leadership position seriously. A lot of her peers, she said, are really shy after having spent so much time at home. ​“When I see people walking by themselves the whole day, I go up to them and say, ​‘Hi, I’m GG.’ Then they’ll loosen up.”

And, on the other hand, when she sees kids whose masks are falling down, ​“I’m like, will you pull your mask up?” she said.

Just like her teachers are supporting their other colleagues, GG said by returning to school and running for the role of president, she is learning how to garner respect and give it out. Everyone’s used to ​“being solo,” she said, but ​“I’m gonna be a friend.”

Survival mode

The only solution — one which Coogan and her teachers described as unsustainable — to avoid returning to remote or simply racking up more school days owed at the start of summer has been to pack more supervisory work into staffs’ schedules. 

Hamden Middle School has seven periods in a day, and teachers usually work with students during five of those sections. The rest of the time is reserved for planning and other school duties.

Since September, teachers have tagged on ​“period eight,” which is the 45 to 60 minutes they spend at the end of the day waiting with students for buses — which have been chronically delayed every day. 

With a minimum of 15 teachers unable to teach their regular five classes, there’s at least 75 classrooms on a given day that require coverage by less than 60 remaining teachers. But, if ​“Three of their regular five regular teachers are out… that’s still better than being at home,” Tremper figured.

Office Manager Amita Singla is now in charge of working with Coogan to establish which teachers are healthy, at school, and willing to cover for others. 

She starts the day by texting Coogan around 5 a.m. with an ​“Are you up yet?” Once she’s got more information, she makes a ​“matrix” showing who’s absent and examining remaining teachers’ schedules to see which volunteers also have that period free and could run over to supervise. ​“I look at who’s out, who’s willing to cover it, and I start making matches,” she said.

“She’s the real hero,” Morello said. When Singla walked by Coogan and the staff, they hailed her by bowing down.

Now, teachers are also sacrificing the time they usually spend planning lessons, grading, holding meetings with other staff, and contacting parents. Instead, they rush to other classrooms to set up Google Classroom and guide students through prepared course work. Or, in rare cases, they’ll do ​“double duty” like Tremper, moving two classes into a larger, shared space and overseeing both at once.

Even as teachers stretch themselves thin to take care of their students and sick colleagues, they’re able to conceptualize the experience as a learning opportunity.

Lessons

“You do learn stuff covering other peoples’ classes,” Tremper mentioned with a smile. ​“Lesson plan ideas, you see how they have the room set up, different routines.”

“And I’m meeting students that I might not otherwise have had a chance to interact with,” Morello said.

Plus, the moment measures how much staff have grown since March 2020.

“We’re definitely more knowledgeable right now,” than a year ago, Xavier said. ​“The unknown was frightening for everyone.”

Tremper recalled the whole school collectively thinking ​“anxiety driven” thoughts — ​“Where are we gonna eat lunch; what are we gonna do; don’t touch me; we can’t use paper; don’t touch this pencil.”

Now, staff have finally mastered new digital platforms that seemed impossible to navigate months back. They’re vaccinated and boosted. They know more basics about how the virus spreads and how to control transmission.

Those variables mean that people like Tremper aren’t so nervous about contracting the virus themselves. ​“I’m not stressed about it for my own sense… but I feel bad and have anxiety for staff members who are older… for kids and teachers who have comorbidities.”

But, he said, most ​“Kids don’t wanna go remote… they wanna see their friends, have some structure.”

“It’s a hard time. It’s how you choose to manage the hard time,” Coogan concluded. ​“We are choosing to focus on the importance of our work. We’re choosing to focus on taking care of each other and our families and students.”

So, the situation remains: Teachers will continue to work from 5 a.m. into the night until Covid cases die down and more staff return — or, until some sort of unknown breaking point is crossed. And then, once the number of available teachers rises, educators will continue to ​“work beyond the hours that the public probably understands,” as Coogan put it.

“I’m fortunate I love my job,” she added.