Great article. Amazingly enough, I already do the majority of things on the list...during the pandemic and summer. It is when I'm going to school every day that I neglect my self-care needs. The pandemic has forced me to slow down and take better care of myself. That is one of the good things that has come out of this truly challenging time.
Right now, I am concerned that I may have a hard time this fall. The state has us opening with full classes every day. My union is protesting, but it may get bad enough for us to do a work stoppage. Nobody wants that. The state needs to consider everyone's health needs first. HR isn't being cooperative. The form I need to teach remotely is an Adult 504. It is not on the website, and HR isn't providing me with it. I'm concerned that that option is no longer an option because all there is only an FMLA form. Nobody at HR is getting back to me and answering questions. Teaching remotely from home is my best choice, and FMLA is my last resort. I don't even know if FMLA will be an option because the way the doctor wrote my note, although it says that my safest option is to teach remotely at home, it also says that I could be in the classroom wearing a mask as long as my students and colleagues stay more than 6 feet from me and I can take mask breaks. Now, you know that I have been teaching 3 and 4 year olds for 18 years. I have experience that Governors, Superintendents, and Principals can't pretend to have. My new students cry for the first few weeks and need lots of hugs. If you don't give them a hug, they will cling to your legs or climb right up on your lap. They flat out refuse to socially distance. How do I change them when they wet or soil themselves? The nurse won't do it. How do I clean their wound and put a bandaid on them when they inevitably get hurt? How do I clean their faces? It isn't normal to teach littles in large groups separated from them. We meet closely in small groups. The powers-that-be actually believe that if they remove all of my furniture and put desks (not tables which we normally use) in my room 6 feet apart, those littles will stay in their seats for 7 hours. Yeah, right. Preschoolers are constantly on the move like butterflies going from activity to activity. They fling themselves at you and each other. Their masks will be wet from tears and boogers. They will wear them wrong...put them on their head...twirl them around...try them on a doll...trade them with each other...throw them away...flush them down the toilet. If you think that I will be able to keep 18 little 3 & 4 year olds wearing masks properly and socially distancing from each other and me for 7 hours every single day, you are dead wrong. Those making the decisions have no clue what goes on in early childhood classrooms. If they make me go back in the classroom because they can supposedly guarantee that I will be able to socially distance myself from my students and colleagues, I will be in danger. I'm truly scared for my life and the lives of my family, not to mention my students, their families, my Assistant, and her family.
So, tomorrow, I'm going to email my principal who is on the reopening committee and see if she can help me. If nothing else, she may have more information for me as to what my realistic options are now so that I can temper my expectations. I only have a month before we return to school, and I need this resolved. The unknown is so stressful. I prefer to have all of the information...good or bad...so that I can be proactive and deal with this problem head-on.
Then I can have some peace.
