Teachers want to go back to school — if it’s safe. But they worry it won’t be. – NJ.com

As school districts prepare to release their reopening plans to parents, some New Jersey teachers are reeling at the thought of reentering classrooms and expressing serious concern for their wellbeing and that of their families and students.

A national survey by the country’s second largest teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers, indicates that 3 in 4 teachers said they are comfortable returning to schools if certain safety precautions are met. But whether safety and health precautions can be guaranteed is another question.

“I think almost all educators want to go back, if it can be done safely,” Steve Baker, New Jersey Education Association Director of Communications, told NJ Advance Media. “But that’s the big if.”

Of the nearly 1,200 educators interviewed for the AFT survey, 76 percent agreed they would be comfortable returning if schools committed to deep-cleaning school facilities daily, providing additional protections for at-risk staff and students, supplying PPE and training for staff and students, and mandating social distancing in hallways, classrooms and buses.

Echoing the concerns of teachers surveyed, Patricia Paradiso, president of the Perth Amboy Teachers Federation and teacher at Robert N. Wilentz Elementary School, worries about districts putting teachers in harm’s way.

“Everybody wants to see their kids, and we want to go back, but we want to go back safely,” Paradiso told NJ Advance Media.

Though the state’s reopening guidelines require many of the steps identified in the AFT survey, educators are skeptical of districts’ enforcement abilities, especially with strapped budgets. Teachers are anxious to see their districts’ reopening plans, which are due to the state at least four weeks before the start of classes.

Doubtful that cleaning standards will be up to par, Chad Montague, an English teacher at Alonzo “Tambua” Moody Academy for Social Change, says his “anxiety level is through the roof.”

“I teach in Paterson now, I’ve taught in Newark, I’ve taught at a charter school before I did that, I’ve been adjunct at Rutgers, I’ve been adjunct at Essex County, I went to a choir school, an elementary school and to a private boarding school,” Montague told NJ Advance Media. “I have literally been to every educational environment this state has to offer and not in any of them is there space to do this the way the CDC is recommending.”

A number of teachers complained about the lack of ventilation in schools, with many classrooms having one or no windows, limiting needed airflow to protect against airborne transmission of the virus. Susan Butterfield, Passaic County Education Association President, described the poor ventilation and possibility of overcrowding in hallways as a “recipe for disaster.”

Others asked how the health of students would be monitored, as the state’s reopening guidelines only strongly encourages students to wear masks and suggest temperature checks but doesn’t require them.

And some teachers are nervous that their teaching abilities will be inhibited, still shaken from the spring’s rapid and chaotic transition to virtual learning. The state guidelines require teachers to wear masks all day and call for social distancing in the classroom to the maximum extent possible, making common practices like collecting papers, leaning over students’ desks to offer help, giving high fives or walking through the classroom to monitor student progress problematic.

“I’m extremely anxious, and I wonder how the way I’m feeling is going to impact my ability to teach,” Montague said.

At the same time, many feel that they lack respect from the public and that their concerns will go unheard.

“My nervousness is that I will be sent back as a babysitter, as just a warm body to occupy children and not as a respected educational professional,” Sarah Cardillo Reichenbecher, President of the Freehold Regional Education Association and English teacher at Colts Neck High School, told NJ Advance Media.

For teachers who are elderly, immunocompromised or have family members at risk, they are forced to make weighty decisions about whether or not to go back. Though the numbers have yet to materialize, school officials are anticipating an uptick in retirements come the fall, predicting that older teachers will decide to protect their health.

Teachers with at-risk families are presented with a similar dilemma. Kathryn Striffolino, a history teacher at Freehold Township High School, has parents at higher risk for the coronavirus and worries about being able to visit them once she goes back to school.

“I love my students to the ends of the earth, but how much am I willing to sacrifice?” Striffolino said. “Am I willing to sacrifice the last year… with my mom to keep her safe because I have to go back to work?”

Some school districts have already begun releasing their plans which include options to alternate days or weeks that students come in, shorten the school day and eliminate busing.

But whether teachers’ myriad concerns can be remedied before school starts up in September remains a concern at the front of many educators’ minds.

“It has to be safe,” Rob Barbier, AFTNJ Executive Vice President, Prekindergarten to 12, told NJ Advance Media. “People can’t feel there’s a threat, because that interferes with all the other good stuff that’s going to go on.”

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Josh Axelrod may be reached at jaxelrod@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.