Are Our Children Just Butts in Seats?

With so much confusion and lack of leadership coming from the Texas Education Agency, it is no wonder that parents, teachers and students are feeling whiplash. The Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, have both said that in person schooling isn’t safe until we achieve 5% positivity or less, but the TEA says that they will not adopting that standard.

Teachers are being forced to make life decisions about working in classrooms with little or no consideration for their health and safety. Parents are being forced to choose between becoming home schooling parents or sending their children into situations that could potentially cost them their lives. Children are certainly feeling like whirlygigs, spinning one way or the other depending on the wind, having no control over themselves. All of these choices being viewed through the lens of a pandemic that no one thought would last this long.

Funding for Texas public schools is tied to how many students there are in attendance daily. Without funding, school districts will struggle with how to pay for salaries and educational programs. Parents surely want to send their children back to school, so that they can have school experiences, make great memories and learn at the feet of people that have trained to do teach.

Parents, teachers and school districts need to make informed decisions, based in fact, not fear. They take their cues from educational leaders and the Texas Education Agency is failing them.