Kurt Steinhaus
From: Sabrina Parks Bent <spark...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 4:48 PM
Subject: parent input (or maybe lack thereof!)
To: <e.ben...@laschools.net>, Kurt Steinhaus <k.ste...@laschools.net>, Suzanne Lynne <s.l...@laschools.net>, Craig Washnok <c.wa...@laschools.net>, <j....@laschools.net>
Dr Steinhaus, Mrs Guy, Principals Lynne and Washnok, Members of the School Board,
I’m writing today to thank you all for your tireless and frankly, thankless, work throughout the past six months. The calendar year of 2020 has been a challenge for everyone, something we just weren’t prepared for, and I think that given these circumstances, everyone has really done the best they can.
A bit of personal and professional background that I hope will help you understand my perspective as a parent in the Los Alamos district. I am a nurse practitioner at UNM hospital in Albuquerque. My background is in trauma and surgical critical care. At work I have been dealing with the COVID pandemic since the onset. I have witnessed the COVID panic by some employees, saw some protest on the street (unnecessarily and with misinformation, in my opinion) demanding “more PPE” from our administration. I heard that 16 of our medical ICU nurses quit early on. I saw seasoned professionals retire. I also saw a number of people step up and pick up the COVID work. I watched my surgical ICU turn into a COVID ICU. I watched my hospital evict the pediatrics departments out of their operating rooms, recovery rooms and rehab units so that we could house our non-COVID adult ICU patients there. I took a redeployment from my job on the trauma service to go back to the ICU from May through August. I did a week on service in the COVID ICU, and I’ve had COVID inpatients on the trauma service. I’ve had a couple of coworkers test positive, and I’ve had two COVID tests and one occupational health required quarantine because of those coworkers. I also had a physician-uncle (out of state) on a ventilator with COVID for 3 weeks in March.
As a parent, I have two children in the LAPS system. Zoe is in 8th grade at LAMS. Gavin is 6th grade at Chamisa. Both kids started as out of district students when we lived in Santa Fe. We moved into the district at the end of their 6th/4th grade years, so we see things from both the perspective of in and out of district parents. I don’t have a regular work schedule at all. I leave for work at 4am and come home a few days later fairly late. My husband is a “labbie” with a regular schedule, and has been working from our basement since March. Our kids seem to have adapted fine to the change in schooling. I designed a schedule for them in the spring that incorporated the online lessons from their schools, combined with a physical activity goal to meet daily (10K Fitbit steps), some Khan academy math, the Duolingo app, and an afternoon documentary in science or social studies of their choice. My kids are academic achievers. They’re going to be fine whatever model of school they’re in. They could stay home and watch Netflix for a full year and still probably be fine, because they’re just blessed that academics aren’t their struggle in life. My husband and I don’t oversee any of this “homeschooling” other than to give them a schedule and set expectations.
I registered my students for hybrid school for the fall, fully expecting that it would start online and then transition to hybrid and ultimately full time when the science dictated. I felt comfortable registering for hybrid trusting that PED and LAPS would would with the DOH and only put students into schools when data suggested it was safe to do so. As a medical professional, I understand that when a novel disease emerges, you have to start with maximum precautions and then you scale back as the data presents itself. This means that we started with housing our COVID inpatients in sealed off sections of units and we told everyone in March to stay in their homes. As data became available about transmission rates both in and outside of hospitals, we were able to scale back on these precautions. Our units are no longer sealed. We no longer have to wear N95s for every COVID patient encounter (though we usually do, and are blessed to now have adequate PPE supplies to do this). Unfortunately, constantly changing guidance does tend to breed mistrust in people because they feel that this is somehow bad information or that the leadership doesn’t know what they’re talking about, when in reality it’s how science works.
Los Alamos county has been blessed. Our population has followed the rules. Cases have been low. People have been invested in doing this correctly. LANL has committed to keeping employees working remotely as long as possible, because clearly they recognize that opening schools before the lab is a priority. Keeping as many lab employees working from home as long as possible reduces the number of contacts each household has, which in turn keeps our students and teachers safer. Yet somehow this seems to be twisted into a “how is it safe to go back to school but not safe for the lab to go back?” question from some.
As a board and an administration, you gave each family in this district a choice- hybrid (as data allows) or online, and I applaud you for this decision to let each family decide what is right for them. It seems now that many families are either uncomfortable with their decision from a health and safety perspective, or they feel that their child’s education is going to suffer and have fewer hours of education in hybrid. I also suspect that some families wanted to be online but didn't want to let go of their existing school communities. I also understand that these concerns are different based on the needs of the family, the needs of the student, and what level of education the student is at. Clearly a high school student in multiple AP courses has a curriculum that has to be finished by the end of this year. The material in most of those courses is beyond what most parents are able to help with at home. The needs of a pre-reader who can’t yet use a computer independently are likewise different.
I can’t in a letter even begin to propose solutions to all of this. Nor should I. I’m a medical professional. I’m good at what I do and while I hope none of you ever need my help, I promise you that I care for every patient as if they were my own family. Likewise, I trust all of you as educational experts. Any teacher that has had one of my kids can attest that you won’t hear from me. My kids will have near perfect attendance, they’ll be fed and they’ll be to school on time every day. I won’t pull them from school for a vacation. If I hear a teacher is upset or has a complaint, I will always be on the side of the teacher and assume my child was in the wrong unless proven otherwise. My commitment to educators is that I will bring my children to you, as optimized as I can have them, and then I will stay out of your way and allow you to do what you are an expert in doing.
In turn, from the people that educate my children, I need them to have faith in experts. I need them to understand that the school “supply of PPE” is not a question of a 1-5 opinion. In fact, the day that an educator doesn’t have a mask or cleaning supplies to do their job, I expect them to walk out of the workplace and send my children home, as I would have done if I’d been asked to take care of your hospitalized family member without what I needed. I expect an understanding that all of us have had to “make do” this year, and that those of us in the hospital also have a hard time getting wipes, but Virex and a dry rag is just the same as a Virex wipe. This is an inconvenience, not a cause for panic. I understand that teaching all day in a mask isn’t fun, but again, isn’t something that should change your teaching. Masking is just a new reality. I’m uninterested in hearing from school employees (as I have) that they “don’t have the training” I have as a medical professional to wear a mask. Our non-English speaking housekeepers mask. Our chaplins mask. Our security guards mask. I lip read and wear hearing aids and I haven’t encountered a single patient, done a single procedural consent or talked to a single coworker unmasked in six months. Teachers can teach in them and students can learn in them. Masking isn’t a matter of 1-5 opinion.
I’m not advocating for the district to start hybrid on the proposed dates. As I’ve said, my kids are fine online, they’ll be fine in hybrid, and they’d love to be in person too. What I’m hoping is that the board and the administration can somehow address the level of anxiety I’m seeing from these staff surveys. I’m hoping that you can somehow convey that I trust you to make the best educational decision for my children. If you think their education is going to suffer in hybrid, I’ll trust you. Likewise, I need educators to trust the department of health. I need them to focus on teaching my child and not worrying about what happens when someone tests positive. When my co-workers were positive, I called occupational health and did whatever they told me to do. When a staff member at the Sombrillo nursing home in Los Alamos tested positive, the director there called the Department of Health and did what they told him to do. Not a single staff member or resident there was positive. Masking works. Any vaccine will probably only be 80% effective and will only be taken by 65% of the population. This means that there isn’t going to be a COVID-free world for a long time. We have to move past a “when this is over” future and onto a future of “this is how we’re going to live with this.”
At the elementary level, I propose this: my child’s 6th grade apparently has 18 students per homeroom this year. Break those kids into four groups. Bring each of those groups onto campus, one afternoon a week from 120-320 and start meeting with them outside. Ease everyone into this “hybrid” thing before we get rid of online totally. Get them used to the masks and the spacing. Buy a million carpet squares for the elementary schools for the kids to sit on/be spaced. We are blessed to live in the most beautiful place ever to learn outside. For the parents that aren’t comfortable, put these kids into one group and have them meet online during their time. Give elementary school principals the authority to make decisions that work for their community. I trust my principal!
For middle and high school, keep these kids fully online if this is what the teachers think will help them keep up on academics. Then bring those kids back on the hybrid schedule for a limited time, once we know a return to five days a week is imminent. If hybrid really is going to mean a slow down of academics, certainly we can all tolerate that for 2-4 weeks for kids to get used to the new routines, knowing that it’s time limited. Surely a time-limited slow down would be more palatable than thinking about an entire school year at half speed? Or, can we meet the AV/IT needs to let the teachers do the curriculum once and stream it to those not in the room? Can Mr Finn do band in the 5 elementary school parking lots in the afternoons and let him meet with the kids outside, in the district they live in? There's so much outside the box I know we can come up with!
Lastly, don’t do what I saw the hospital administrators do wrong. I actually felt that their pandemic decision making was excellent but it was the communication that was lacking. School administration has got to find the balance between being decisive, but also understanding that people hearing things through the rumor mill is the worst possible means of communication. Send daily emails with updates. Have daily check ins at the school level and weekly check ins at the district level. Make sure employees hear everything from you first. Give them access to health experts to ask questions of. Show them data. Some employees are going to have anxiety despite all of this and they’re going to quit. You can’t make everyone happy and that just is what it is. Just know that out here, there does exist a less-vocal cohort of parents that trust you to do the right thing for our students, whatever you decide that is. If and when my kids go back to in-person school, I want to know that their teachers want to be there and that they want my kids there. I'm not currently convinced that's the case.
Thank you for all that you do. I appreciate all of you more than you can ever know and my family will support whatever you decide.
Sabrina Parks Bent
120 Sherwood Blvd, White Rock
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