I work for a K-12 District. It's a clusterfuck. We've been doing distance learning since March, but may reopen in Fall. We have parents who have no plans of sending their children back to school in August because they're worried about the virus, and parents who are clamoring for reopening because they need to go back to work. The admins are planning to try a hybrid method to appease both... but there's very little direction on how this is going to be implemented.

I'm concerned about what's going to happen if teachers and support staff start getting Covid and need to be out of work for weeks on end. We do not receive health benefits in my district, and our salaries are what you'd expect for public school employees - few of us can afford to get sick.

There's also the issue of how we're going to handle staffing shortages. Our substitutes are typically former employees who retired - i.e. older people (60+). We've already had many of our regular subs announce that they are not planning to come back next year. For those that are still planning to work, I doubt many of them would be jumping to fill in for a teacher or staff member who is known to be out sick.

I'd strongly prefer that our district continue with a distance learning format. But that would require benefits (unemployment income, eviction moratoriums, etc.) to be continued so families don't have to choose between going back to work and caring for their children, and that's not going to happen.