Educational Triage

by Kathryn LeBuis-Hartman, 2020 Olympic ESD 114 Regional Teacher of the Year

Editor’s Note: This is part of a series of articles written by 2020 Washington Regional Teachers of the Year about their strategies and reflections on teaching during COVID-19 school facility closures. See the rest of the series.

Education is one of the most team-oriented professions out there. We collaborate with each other and are constantly looking for ways to support both our students and our colleagues as well. If we have a good idea or something that works, we share our findings so we don’t need to “reinvent the wheel.” We create solutions out of dollar store finds, ideas “borrowed” from our neighbor, and sweat equity. We use our money and time to enhance our craft and often feel underappreciated and unrecognized. But because we are “in it for the kids” we let the reward of lightbulb moments — where we can physically watch student ownership and motivation increase — sustain us. During the last four months we have put the work into making the transition from a brick and mortar setting to a purely digital format with literally hours’ notice. We lost the sustenance of those lightbulb moments, and we were forced into educational triage.

At the end of the previous school year, we provided educational services in a triage format. As instructors we were trying to mitigate the loss of learning by balancing between the impact of what we presented to students, the needs of our individual children and families, and the resources we had available. Before March 13, we did not know what was coming and did not prepare our students for this type of learning. Many of us had to learn the tools for remote teaching on the fly. What would have taken us hours to prepare and present to students during in person instruction now took us days. The amount of material we were able to present was a fraction of what we were used to, and the level of engagement of students was minimal at best. This was not learning using the best practices we knew. It was finding a stop gap for the educational loss and preserving our relationships with our students.

Now we are in recovery mode. We are trying to reset ourselves physically and emotionally through self-care and prepare for what’s to come. During a typical summer, educators often spend days or weeks getting ready for the upcoming school year with professional development, lesson planning, school supply shopping (both for our classrooms and the kids we know will arrive in the fall with no school supplies), and classroom preparations.

But this year is different. We don’t know exactly how we are going to begin the new school year, but we do know it won’t look or feel like any other year in the past.

Educators are caught in the middle. Our government leaders are at odds with what safely reopening our school looks like. We miss our students and know being in the classroom is where many of our students find the education and stability they so desperately need. However, we are also thinking about student safety, the safety of our families, and our own personal safety. Schools have become a politicized hot button issue because schools are the catalyst for our nation’s ability to get the economy on track. We know that personal protective equipment, new and expensive protocols, and intense cleaning measures will be needed to protect our school families, but we don’t know where the funding and support will come from. When students need things as simple as pencils, papers, and books they are all too often provided by educators themselves. Pencils and books are one thing, but now we are talking about safety measures to keep our students and ourselves healthy.

Many families count on us to provide two meals a day, childcare for 30 hours a week, and the fundamentals of learning. Without us there how will the community meet these vital needs? Our salaries are paid by families through taxes. If schools are no longer providing all these services, many people wonder why pay teachers at all? What they don’t understand is the time and effort we have made to meet the needs of our students in these new and unusual circumstances, and what we are risking to go back into the classroom with students — even if in a hybrid model. Educators are researching how to write a will, how to increase their life insurance, and even asking if going back to a job they love is worth the risks involved.

There are so many more questions than answers. What are the new best practices? How can we move past the educational triage we have been performing and meet the new needs of our students while still addressing the traditional educational needs as we have done in the past? How do we teach in person and online at the same time? How can we keep our students safe? We have practiced every drill they have thrown our way to protect our kids, but we can’t even agree about what safe looks like during this pandemic so how can we practice this with our kids? How will we keep ourselves and our own families safe?

One thing we can be certain of is our passion for our vocation. During this difficult time, we can sharpen our skills around trauma informed practices that will build resiliency in our students to help them develop the skills to overcome the challenges they face in and out of the classroom. We can collaborate with our peers to support one another in our unique journey. We can be leaders and advocate for the resources our communities need to get through this crisis. We can prioritize our own personal need for health and safety without feeling guilty. What we do not want to do is transition from an educational triage situation to a medical triage situation. We will come through this, and we will be stronger for it if we believe in the power of “yet.” We have the ability to get where we need to be, we’re just not there — yet.