Dog Days
It’s August. In Pataskala, Ohio it’s the time for heat, humidity, thunderstorms and dust: the dog days of summer. Speaking of dogs, ours want to stay in the air conditioning, except for KeeLie, the new addition. She has to go out and patrol the backyard, bark at the unseen neighbor on the other side of the fence, and peer through the gate at the dog next door.
For thirty-six years August was a time of excitement for me. After a summer of relaxation and coaching, August meant it was time to go back to work. August meant going back to school: planning, and preparing, and writing on the now obsolete chalkboard, “this is as good as it gets”. On the first day, kids thought that meant “Dahlman’s” government class, but what it really meant was that this was “as good” as my handwriting would get. It would deteriorate as the school year went on.
Those first days of school were always exciting. It’s not many careers that let you have a clean slate every year, a chance to fix the mistakes of the previous year, and have the challenge of being better than you were before.
Southwest Licking
I had the privilege of teaching in the same school system throughout my entire career. It was a district on the far edge of Columbus, Ohio’s growth. What started out in 1978 as a rural school, with “tractor day” in the parking lot and blue corduroy Future Farmers of America jackets in the hallway, changed over the years. Now it’s a suburban district, where the few farmers left are hassled for driving slow combines on the roads, or fertilizing their fields.
As a growing district in Ohio, the Southwest Licking Local School District was often strapped for money. There were several years when we started school in August under a financial cloud. Tax levies failed, cuts were threatened, and young teachers were unsure whether they would have a job come April. The school district used the only leverage the really had by threatening to cut sports and bussing: an empty stadium on football Friday night hung in the air.
Hope Springs
Kids are eternally optimistic. And for thirty-six years they were absolutely right. Even when sports were actually cut, back in 1980, the coaches ended up volunteering to do the jobs they should have been paid for. The crisp, new dollar bill we “earned” that year is still framed on a bookshelf. And in 2003 when the Administration decided to keep spring sports but only allow one coach for each, sending me out to supervise sixty boys in track and field alone, my staff jumped in and we split the one paycheck four ways.
The kids haven’t changed. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, football players have run sprints in the heat, and the Cross Country runners have covered hundreds of miles on the roads. They believe that somehow, the virus will not stop them from their chance to compete. And their coaches believe: my friends have spent the summer preparing the woods for the thousands of runners, even though they cannot visualize how it would be possible for three hundred to line up for the gun and maintain social distance.
It’s August. Here in Ohio many of the “big” school districts have already made the call to avoid contagion. They are going to start school “online” rather than in person. But even though they are keeping kids out of the hallways, they still are out on the fields, getting ready for a season they may not have.
Going to School
Teachers at Southwest Licking report to school on Wednesday. They will prepare their classrooms, already overcrowded from school growth, to keep “social distance” between students. The national “norm” of six feet has already been shrunk to three. There isn’t enough Plexiglas in the world, and there’s a reason that a new school is rising in the fields nearby. The Governor has ordered all students, kindergarten through twelve wear masks. After decades with teenagers, I’m skeptical. The halls will still be packed, and the adolescent “declaration of independence” will be made with full oral nudity!
Who is at risk? The disease that proves over and over that it will spread, regardless of politics or religion, is still growing here in Ohio. The chart for Licking County, our county, looks like the final approaches to Mt. Everest (Ohio). We know that kids aren’t immune, despite the President’s assertions, but we also know they are at lower risk of serious illness. Their parents and grandparents are not so lucky. And neither is the school staff.
Into the Soup
There are few job positions that require adults to drop themselves into such a viral soup. Medical folks certainly are at greatest risk. It’s why we made a national emergency over getting them protective gear. And prison guards are in “the soup”. They have suffered along with the inmates in the enclosed cells and tight spaces of confinement. In Ohio, 940 prison staff have been diagnosed with COVID, and more than 5000 prisoners (Marshall Project).
So teachers are torn. They want to teach. Most got into education because they love the profession. Money helps, but they want to do their job. And teachers know full well, that in person education is qualitatively so much better than online education. But teachers also know that there often isn’t even enough money for the basics, dry erase makers and copies on the Xerox machine. PPE might be on the list today, but will soon be too much to afford. And teachers and kids both are doomed to fail to socially distance. Ultimately, that kid that needs a hug will overwhelm the “rules” of COVID.
It is an oddity of our COVID world: the kid on the football field or in the woods running is at less risk of viral infection there, than in the classroom. And so are their coaches.
The energy this August isn’t about excitement, it’s trepidation. I don’t envy my friends this year, those coaching and teaching, and those making the decision about whether they go to school in person or in front of a computer. It’s not just about the big race, or the football game, or the hallways.
It’s a life and death call.
