More students and less social distancing are coming in new semester (msn.com)
According to the Sun Sentinel, "'Due to more students returning to campus, many classrooms will have relaxed physical distancing protocols,'" said a newsletter from Eagle Ridge Elementary in Coral Springs.
"Students and employees must continue to wear masks, but Eagle Ridge and other schools may no longer keep kids 6 feet apart, which is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
Anne Skurnick is a computer science teacher at Pines Middle School. She said her school provides PPE for teachers, cleans rooms regularly and gives teachers masks and hand sanitizer. But Skurnick is concerned that many schools, including Pines Middle School, may bring desks closer together, thus reducing social distancing from 6 feet to 3-to-4 feet.
She is one of the approximately 600 Broward teachers who can still teach her students from her computer in her house.
Skurnick got a medical accommodation because she takes Simponi Aria, a potent infusion prescription for rheumatoid arthritis. Her insurance company, Aetna, pays $9,500 for the medicine every two months. The warning label states that people taking the medicine can die if they get a virus, says Skurnick, who worked in the tech industry for 15 years. She went back to school to earn her Bachelor's degree in education from FAU, fulfilling a dream she had since she was nine-years-old.
A second teacher at Pines Middle School did not meet the same ultimate fate as the computer science teacher from the school.
Jagpal Tung, 70, also earned a medical accommodation last fall. He suffers from asthma and his age makes him more vulnerable to getting very ill or dying if he contracts Covid-19.
However, Tung, a science teacher, was told to report to school for in-class instruction on Jan. 11. He didn't want to risk his health, so he filed his paperwork for a leave on Friday.
"I love teaching," he said. "I haven't missed a day in about 15 years," Tung says.
What will you do now that you are not teaching your students?
"I love to read," he says, noting he reads The Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel and Time magazine regularly.
The effort to bring teachers back into the classroom is being joined by a lobbying campaign to convince the state to identify teachers as essential workers who ought to receive their Covid-19 vaccines soon.
Marie Woodson, a Florida House member who had Covid-19, along with her husband, son and daughter during the recent holidays, backs this push.
"We need to protect our teachers," she says.
Woodson also plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks to provide tutoring for some students who fall behind as a consequence of the impact Covid-19 is having on the education system.
"Families are being evicted, or losing their homes, some are food insecure and children are falling behind in their studies," she says. "We need to make an investment to help students catch up."
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