On January 20, 2021, Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County, Indiana Coalition for Public Education, Northwest Indiana Coalition for Public Education, and Northeast Indiana  Friends of Public Education collectively sent a letter to Governor Holcomb and Dr. Box. There are  a number of benefits to prioritizing teachers in the vaccine schedule. One of the most important is that it would show that the State of Indiana values teachers and their safety. 

You can read the full letter below. If you click on the letter, it will allow you to download a PDF that is more legible. 

The following is a guest post from Jessica Calarco, Associate Professor of Sociology, Indiana University​

​The COVID-19 pandemic is putting public education at risk. It has pushed some families out of public schooling and prompted others to opt out, as well.
 
As Emily Cox of the Herald-Times reported last week, MCCSC enrollment appears to be down 7% from last year. My own calculations (comparing numbers recently released by MCCSC to last year’s enrollment numbers) suggest that those declines are hitting the younger grades especially hard, with elementary enrollment down 12%. 
 
And MCCSC is not alone. A recent EdWeek survey found that more than half of educators in the U.S. are seeing enrollment declines in their districts' elementary schools, and especially in the lower grades, with nearly half reporting enrollment declines at the middle and high school level, as well. 
 
Some of these missing students have been pushed out of public schooling. When schools opened online this fall, some of these students didn’t have access to internet or a safe, quiet space to learn at home. Some needed more support than their family can provide at home, either because of disabilities, or because they are English language learners, or because their parents are essential workers. Some are staying home alone all day, and some may have siblings to care for, as well. These are the students for whom participating in online learning would be difficult or even impossible. Some of these students—especially if their families have more resources and more connections—have found alternative school options, and some just aren’t learning at all. 
 
Meanwhile, and even if they could participate in online public schooling, other missing students have opted out, instead. Some are being homeschooled by a family member, neighbor, or private tutor. Others in enrolling in online charter schools. And still others have opted to enroll in private schools or other nearby districts where schools opened in-person on time. 
 
These families are opting out for a wide range of reasons. My research with families here in Southern Indiana suggests that some families were dissatisfied with the online instruction their children received last spring, and they are confident that they (or a paid tutor) can better meet their children’s needs. Some families have found it difficult to juggle online school schedules with their work schedules, even if they are working from home, so they found an in-person option or created a homeschool schedule that doesn’t conflict with their own. Still other families have been frustrated by the uncertainty around public schooling plans, so they found an option that would give them a more consistent experience this year.
 
And of course, it’s understandable why families are opting out. The pandemic is still raging, and the risks of in-person instruction are high. Meanwhile,  public schools haven’t been given the money they need to reopen while keeping students, families, and educators safe—with enough teachers and space for small in-person classes, proper ventilation in every classroom, or enough bathrooms to not have to share. Furthermore, online learning is difficult or impossible for many students and families. And educators haven’t been given the time, training, or tech support to smoothly transition online. 
 
The problem, however, is that regardless of why students leave public schooling, the money follows them out. As the Herald-Times reported, a 7% decline in MCCSC enrollment will mean a loss of $5.2 million in funding from the state. And because this year’s enrollment determines funding for next year, MCCSC will lose that money regardless of how many students reenroll. Those funding cuts will almost certainly mean job losses for local teachers and local district staff. They will also mean bigger class sizes and fewer resources and opportunities for the students and families relying on public schools. Students and families who may need those resources the most. 
 
But lost resources aren’t the only problem here. As I argued recently in the New York Times, when families pull their children out of public schooling, those opt-outs “undermine the public’s confidence in the quality of public education and the necessity of funding it as a public good.” Essentially, the more families that opt out of public schooling, the more policymakers will feel justified in defunding public education and shifting school resources to private and for-profit options, instead. 
 
At the same time, however, it’s important not to blame the families who’ve opted out. The real blame belongs to the politicians who’ve refused to take the steps necessary to stop the virus. To the policymakers who, even more despicably, have treated this pandemic as a political and financial opportunity and not as a serious threat. They're the ones who have the most to gain from families opting out. And they're the ones making the situation worse.

—Jessica Calarco

COVID-19 cases in Indiana are climbing, coinciding with the planned beginning of our school year. Across our state, local school boards are faced with difficult decisions about how to educate children and serve their communities during a pandemic. Meanwhile, the Trump administration wants our schools to move into full-bore reopening and has reframed guidance from the CDC to downplay safety protocols. 

So far, Indiana has not issued specific metrics that could guide decisions about opening schools in person. Parents, teachers, and others are scrambling to read news reports and check coronavirus dashboards as they attempt to balance their desire to have children in school with the need to keep students, teachers, and staff safe.

In this ongoing emergency, we affirm:
 

1. Safely returning to in-person education should be the goal of our school systems. Children need relationships with their teachers and peers for their social and emotional health, just as they need the academic structure and inquiry of their classrooms. But children also need their families and their teachers. The benefits of in-person learning need to be weighed against the potential for spreading illness among children, their caregivers, and school personnel.
2. Online interaction is a weak substitute for in-person education. Because of differences in families’ access to wi-fi, technology, and space at home to work and play, online education tends to amplify inequities.
3. Teachers must feel safe in their schools. They must be participants in the development of plans for school buildings, and those plans should be required by the state to meet specifications laid out by public health experts and/or the state of Indiana. Teacher safety also means that teachers who fall into high-risk categories, or who are caregivers for others at high risk, should be given the option to teach virtually.
4. The prevalence of COVID-19 in a community is out of schools’ control and has a direct impact on whether schools can open in a way that supports community health.  

THEREFORE:

1. We call on Governor Holcomb, the State Department of Health, and the Indiana Department of Education to issue clear guidance developed with epidemiologists and public health experts on:
   
   a. The metrics that would show when it is safe to open schools according to local conditions. Is it a certain raw number of cases, or a rate per 100,000? Is it declining cases over a period of several weeks? Is it a certain positivity rate or lower? (New York has specified an average rate of 5% over two weeks before schools may open.) Similarly, we need to know the metrics that would indicate that schools should be closed.
   
   b. The procedures to be implemented in schools if a child or a member of a child’s family is found to be infected, including testing and contact tracing, disinfecting of the space, who requires isolation, and what impact HIPAA will have on communications to families. 
   
   c. Gradual, phased reopening for cohorts of students.
   
   
2. We call on the Indiana Department of Education to identify categories of children who should receive priority to be offered in-person education. For example, even if we are again in lockdown as a state, it might be that schools could offer in-person education to children of essential workers and children with high special needs. Among other countries, France and the UK have done this.
3. We call on our governor and on the federal government to provide the funding that will allow our schools to open safely, with more certified teachers, social workers, and counselors; with small class sizes; with adequate space, safety equipment, and cleaning supplies; and with healthy ventilation and outdoor education space.
4. We call on our governor and State Board of Education to cancel standardized testing and to spend the money saved on urgent school needs. Nothing will be standard about testing conditions this year.
5. We call on our government to make sure that workers are supported so that they can maintain employment while balancing their roles as caregivers and employees.
6. We call on local political leaders and community authorities in both public and private health to collaborate and support our schools as we navigate this reopening.

School is crucial to our children’s development as citizens, seekers of knowledge, and people who care for others and for their world. Childhood is brief and matters exponentially. Our state must do what is necessary to constrain this virus and bring infections steadily down so that our children, teachers, and staff can safely go back to school.


Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County
Indiana Coalition for Public Education
Washington Township Parent Council Network
Northwest Indiana Coalition for Public Education

Please contact us at contact@keepeducationpublic.org or message our Facebook page if you are a group or organization that supports schools and would like to sign on to this statement.