Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1449741
Surviving a COVID surge, staffing shortages and trauma at the start of the year By Sherry Posnick-Goodwin Tales From the Trenches S C H O O L S T A F F typically return from winter break feeling refreshed. But this January, educators found themselves amid the biggest COVID-19 surge yet. At some sites, the virus was rampant and staff shortages were widespread. In our continuing series, we conducted interviews in mid-January to capture various experiences of teachers around the state — snapshots of educators surviving the chaos with help from their colleagues, friends, families and unions. Mara Harvey S O C IA L S T U D I E S T E AC H E R, Discovery High School Natomas Teachers Association president I am at home with COVID. I caught it at school. My husband and our two children — a ninth and fourth grader — also have COVID. We are all fully vaccinated. We have been terri- bly lucky; our family has handled it well. The best way to describe the return from winter break is surreal. The speed at which the spike hit was frightening. We were way over the numbers that closed down the schools at the start of the pandemic. In some classes, half of my students were missing. Some were home due to COVID, others because they may have been exposed or their parents may have just been keeping them home. Some of my students were really sick and were still expected to keep up. I used Google Classroom and the Go Guardian program, which allowed us to have direct contact with students quarantining. I made myself available to students on Zoom independently if students needed it. I kept watching the news and seeing COVID numbers go up. I kept thinking, "When is any- body going to step in and do something?" And 18 cta.org Feature