Peter Langella: School, pandemic politics, and the poison of personal responsibility - VTDigger

This comment is by Peter Langella, a school librarian in Moretown.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott decided to veto the school bill, which includes other public employees, on the first day of Teacher Assessment Week, May 1.

This might be funny if it weren't part of yet another decades-long attack on public education through multiple veto "choice" coupon decisions, աբար it probably wouldn't have been a stupid blow if it wasn't for the country. t was caught. Unfounded hysteria about inclusive school programs. Perhaps it would not have been so painful if we had not found ourselves in a global epidemic that the heads of state decided.

Because we are still in a very global epidemic. In fact, in one of the epicenters. As of this writing, seven of Vermont's 14 counties are in the 1.74% of counties categorized as high risk by the National CDP.

The Grafton neighborhood of New Hampshire, home to West Lebanon Shopping Center and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, is also in the area. The CDC recommends that everyone in these states wear a mask in public, regardless of vaccination status, but Gov. Scott and Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Lynn have repeatedly made their policies "personal responsibility."

If Covid has disproportionately infected the elderly, vaccinated young children, blacksmiths, service workers and people living in rural poverty, among others, there is no collective approach to public health.

We've lost the "country spirit of fighting the virus," as Ann Sosin, a public health expert at Dartmouth College, often recalls.

In schools, students and staff whose immunity is at risk or who live with one of the staff տանը տանը at home, ուսան students և staff who are still seeking collective social responsibility (! Or all of the above :), they remain the only option for one-sided disguise.

Cases և Hospitalization is too high for everything to be “normal”, no matter how much people want it to be.

It doesn't make sense to me that the Vermont School District couldn't choose remote options for students this year. Imagine that you are an immunocompromised student - you are told that the only way out is isolation or infection.

It makes no sense to me that Education Secretary Dan French reprimanded a school inspector last month for following the CDC's guidelines to restore the mask while his area is at high risk.

And it doesn't make sense to me that Democratic lawmakers like Senate President Becca Balint and House Speaker Jill Krowinski can't or won't convince the commission to even hold a remote vote on the date of wearing the state mask in January, when schools and hospitals. closed. In severe crisis due to omicron waves. They used the removed options to disguise the rules for the State House while the school community was under the "disappearance" of blankets, prefabricated boards, crowded canteens and again under "personal responsibility".

With all due respect, I would never have believed that Congressman Balint would face a serious platform challenge against a powerful Washington DC mediator such as the Medicare for All նոր Green New Deal given the above.

Working in public schools is very difficult. I'm in high school և Many teenagers, as I'm sure you know from experience or titles, struggle with mental health. The epidemic has only exacerbated these problems.

This is due to the fact that the toxic social norms of social networks are closely related to “personal responsibility”, as well as the fact that many of them want mutual justice to replace the abundance of systemic injustice in this state - the country, as it was yesterday.

They want to come to terms with the truth and build a better future. The founding of the United States was based on the economic interests of a people enslaved by stolen land, the Armenian Genocide. The slavery of property is enshrined in our Constitution. Women could not vote for almost 150 years. We still had a race-based legal system when my boomer parents were young. We are the only country that uses nuclear weapons, including the massacre of over 200,000 Japanese civilians.

Humans have caused potentially irreversible changes in our planet's climate. Presidents of the 21st century are jailing Hispanic children and deporting them from Muslim-majority countries. Girls, women and others in the womb are in constant danger of being deprived of their reproductive freedom.

Black neurodiversity students were expelled from Vermont schools two to three times more often than their white neurotypical peers. Data from the annual Adolescent Risk Behavior Survey shows that our LGBTQI+ students are more likely to report sexually explicit “violent stalking, drug use, or suicidal thoughts” to their classmates.

I'm not being arrogant here. This is what my students want to learn, to prevent և change. Promise. The public school curriculum must continue to function, must continue to change, to represent, respect, affirm all races, nationalities, genders, sexualities, abilities, languages, religions, classes, immigration status, and so on. All children in all schools in Vermont deserve the same opportunity and experience. All students have the right to learn, grow, develop on the path to self-realization. Equality must be directed towards the path of equality.

I know there is something more important than this.

What brings me to retirement in the face of an epidemic? School staff must be supported to maintain.

As you read this, the veto is likely to be lifted. However, there is more to be said. This is a very unpopular opinion, but the bill itself did not even win. I was very confused by the political message received from the spring of 2021.

While elected officials know the state will be flooded with unprecedented federal aid, Democratic Treasurer Beth Pierce is adamant that the idea is that school staff and other public employees should be paid more for less. While we have always paid politician to politician, ever since former Democratic governor Howard Dean chose to underfund, undermine the future health of collective money.

Then, despite his current talk of school staff becoming a great protector of government officials, Senator. Balint and President Krovinsky did not support us (again, this used to happen in chronological order). They said the situation is very difficult. You need to write invoices. The commission must hold hearings. Chambers must cross-pollinate ideas and come to a great deal of compromise.

They have to say no, retirement is a promise, և we will know how to keep that promise. They might say, Governor, if you really care about developing the workforce, we need to hire young skilled professionals from Vermont. solid salary, quality benefits, decent pension.

They don't say such things. Then a lot of people do a lot of work just to get school staff, government officials to agree to invest more for the same benefit. Governor Scott has not yet vetoed it. He wants to make politics a "personal responsibility" here.

I understand that all of this (epidemic, training options, retirement) is very difficult, և I tried to acknowledge the complexities, instead of immediately reacting to every news cycle before digging into the facts, trying to test my bias և course. Consequences, especially for those who are most affected by a particular problem.

I keep coming back to the same question. Do you believe in public schools?

If your answer is yes (I hope so), I encourage you to actively redirect your advocacy energy towards a truly inclusive public education vision that is firmly և fair to all students with a strong workforce. : . healthy և supported. Help.

And if you are someone who is already doing the hard work required to protect, expand and reimagine this powerful social foundation, I thank you.