As a physician, former teacher, LAUSD graduate, and ally of public school communities, I'm deeply disturbed by this piece from @TheAtlantic telling teachers to go back to work. Here's a thread outlining my concerns. 1/n https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/im-nurse-teachers-should-do-their-jobs-like-i-did/614902/

The author makes several comparisons between nurses and teachers, but fails to adequately acknowledge the structural limitations faced by teachers in the premature reopening of schools. First, teachers, on average, have lower incomes 2/n

compared to healthcare workers. Given that illness, including from COVID-19, can be financially catastrophic, this difference between nurses and teachers cannot be overlooked. In certain parts of the country, such as the Bay Area, it has been documented that 3/n

teachers have been forced to take additional jobs or to move farther away from the schools they teach in just to make ends meet. Couple this with the fact that teachers often must pay out-of-pocket for school supplies and you begin 4/n

to see why the comparison between nurses and other essential workers, such as teachers and grocery store workers, are unfair comparisons. 5/n

Second, healthcare settings are better equipped to deal with biologic pandemics. From functioning ventilation systems, higher ratios of fully stocked restrooms, trained healthcare professionals, caps in number of patients and beds, and caps in 6/n

nurse/physician to patient ratios, hospitals are far better equipped to deal with pandemics than schools, especially under-resourced schools. As a former teacher and public school graduate, I can attest to the frequent lack of soap and paper 7/n

towels in schools, even before the pandemic. The author alludes to this when quoting her husband's concern about lack of soap in schools, but does nothing to address this issue other than to say she hopes this will change. 8/n

Third, the amount of space allocated to teachers makes safe physical distancing near impossible, even with reduced class sizes. Consider the average public school with class sizes around 30 students (it's important to note that some classrooms exceed 40 students), 9/n

even if class sizes are reduced by 50% and students rotate from day-to-day in terms of who comes to school, there is not enough space to accommodate 6 feet of physical distancing between students. From a mathematical standpoint, the amount of square footage required to 10/n

accommodate physical distancing grows exponentially with the addition of students considering movement. For large public schools, entire football fields and basketball courts would still be inadequate for physical distancing, even at reduced student capacity. 11/n

Fourth, the author contradicts herself by stating that she supports "teacher led" safety campaigns but goes on to justify not supporting "pre-emptive" "safety strikes" because school districts are already "fine-tuning" "social distancing" and "mask-wearing." Not only are 12/n

these two safety mechanisms inadequate for the reasons I've laid out above and the potential airborne nature of COVID-19 according to the WHO, but the author fails to acknowledge the expertise of teachers and teacher's unions behind these "safety strikes" and the positive 13/n

public health benefits of this advocacy. There is no reference to the demands being made by teacher's unions in order to ensure safer returns to school or co-authorship of this piece from a teacher or teacher’s union. Some school districts have recently reversed their 14/n

decision to mandate that teachers virtually teach from school, which I consider an unnecessary COVID-19 risk when teachers can continue to teach virtually from home. These types of decisions would not be corrected if it wasn't for "safety strikes." 15/n

Healthcare workers have also had to strike for safer workplace conditions. Lack of focus on prevention is partly how we got here in the first place. 16/n

Fifth, schools are vibrant communities, and teachers are not the only essential workers that work there. Schools also employ custodians, maintenance workers, cafeteria workers, security guards, nurses, counselors, therapists, administrators, teaching assistants, 17/n

IT personnel, gardeners, office staff, librarians, bus drivers, reading, coaches, math coaches, social workers, etc. On average, these positions pay less than nursing and other healthcare professions in more traditional clinical settings. Further, we must consider the 18/n

overrepresentation of certain racial/ethnic and sociodemographic populations in these positions compared to healthcare and 19/n

the disproportionate risk of serious COVID-19 infection present in certain marginalized populations due to systemic racism’s direct link to chronic non-communicable disease. 20/n

Sixth, the author states early on that schools in cities with spiking numbers should remain closed. While I agree with this in principle, there must be acknowledgment of super-spreader events that have led to the infection of dozens, if not, hundreds of people, 21/n

including young people. On a larger scale, we have seen how quickly COVID-19 can spread with reopening of the economy, even in cities and states that were previously performing very well in terms of managing the spread of COVID-19 infection. 22/n

Both the need to reopen schools and the challenges to doing so are extremely complicated and nuanced. We do ourselves, our communities, students, parents, teachers, 23/n

and school communities a major disservice by oversimplifying these challenges, passing the buck of a failed federal response to school communities, and pressuring school communities to prematurely return to school with no guarantee of safe working conditions. END