ESUMS's Aron Meyer.
Aron Meyer received the text Tuesday at 9:54 a.m. In 11 minutes, students would return to his classroom.
He decided to move fast.
It was third period, a prep period for Meyer. So he was alone in his eighth-grade language arts classroom at ESUMS (Engineering and Science University Magnet School), working on the next day’s lesson plan for August Wilson’s play Fences.
Meyer, a ten-year veteran teacher, had dreaded a moment like this. He obtained a Covid test the weekend before school resumed from Christmas break; it came back negative. He wasn’t feeling sick. So he showed up to teach his classes. But like the city’s other teachers, he worried about whether everyone would be safe.
His phone didn’t beep at 9:54. It did vibrate. Meyer heard it, and saw the message. It was from his wife, Cassi Meyerhoffer. She, too, had tested negative at the end of break. Meyerhoffer, a sociology professor at Southern Connecticut State University, went for another test because she had begun feeling tired; her throat felt sore. This time, she informed Meyer, she had tested positive for the coronavirus.
I probably have it, as well, Meyer thought. He had to find out, before coming into contact with more kids.
Husband and wife made a plan: Meyerhoffer would pick up their two kids from L.W. Beecher and King Robinson schools, since they might have the virus, too. Meyer “went to the [ESUMS] main office and was told that I should take a test to see if I was negative or positive.”
Where to get the test?
“Apparently we have free tests available. But I must have missed that line in the email.” he said. But he did see an email from a fellow ESUMS teacher who had purchased some extra rapid tests, offering them to colleagues at cost.
Meyer headed to the teacher’s classroom, summoned her out, exchanged $22 for a test.
Then he returned to his classroom. Inserted the swab into his nostril.
He’d have a result in 15 minutes. But the next period would begin at 10:05.
“I thought that someone was finding a place for my students to go,” he recalled. Meyer was in the back of the room when the first student walked in. Meyer waved his arms, told the student he might have Covid. The student left. A security guard in the hall, alerted to the situation, found another spot in the building for the students to gather.
At 10:10, Meyer received the result. Though he felt fine, two lines materialized. He had tested positive.
“It was terrifying,” he said, “realizing that you’ve unknowingly put students and coworkers at risk.
“I just started going through my head: How many students I had been in contact with? I’m always masked. I wear my N95. I enforce mask regulations in my classroom all the time. I have kids do regular mask checks to make sure they’re covering their mouths and nose. But nothing’s 100 percent. I walk around my classroom; I have to look over students’ shoulders from time to time. You’re teaching — you’ve got to interact with your students. The mentality that you can teach safely with social distancing doesn’t take into consideration that teaching is interactive. Teachers don’t sit in one place; people are moving around.”
At 10:24, Meyer messaged a lesson plan for the day. He gathered materials for the coming days, and left. “I headed out, and poked my head into the main office to let them know about test, and that I was going to head home.” He joined the 585 or so other New Haven Public Schools employees out of work amid the Omicron surge, leaving stretched remaining staffers to try to keep kids learning in person.
During the pandemic, Meyer has been preparing independently driven, self-directed lessons in advance so that he could pivot to remote plans. Now he would indeed be home; under the rules he would have to take them as sick days.
Meyer still felt fine on Wednesday. Physically, at least.
He questioned whether the schools should continue trying to avoid a shift to remote learning during this surge, however suboptimal that may be.
“Teaching remotely sucks. It’s real hard,” he said. “The best part about the job is being with students and being able to facilitate that learning and understanding. Teaching remotely, you don’t get that. It’s real hard to get any kind of engagement. But for the safety for students and staff, I would make that move, if it were up to me.”
“It’s terrifying. I know there’s no good answer for it. You have to prioritize the safety of all these kids. Adolescents probably don’t realize the full scope of what this is and probably don’t understand the full impact. It’s hard: You’re expected to deliver instruction and assessment and also keep in mind safety regulations. You don’t know what it’s going to look like on any day. Nothing is predictable.”
New Haven’s schools are closed Thursday for Three Kings Day. If predicted snow cancels classes Friday, NHPS brass will have a reprieve to regroup and figure out how to provide, if not predictability, an updated strategy for how to keep kids learning and everyone safe during a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Wow.Look what this teacher did.
A Long Island teacher is accused of giving a teenager a Covid shot without permission.
A 54-year-old public-school science teacher on Long Island was arrested on New Year’s Eve after being accused of giving a teenager an injection of what appeared to be Covid-19 vaccine without his parents’ consent, the Nassau County police said.
The police said that the teacher, Laura Parker Russo, administered a shot of what appeared to be a coronavirus vaccine to 17-year-old boy in her house in Sea Cliff, N.Y. The youth later went home and told his mother, who called the police and said she had not authorized the vaccination.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/nyregion/teacher-injects-student-covid-vaccine.html