[ad_1]
By Elizabeth Shockman
The day before school started, DeeDee Sivanich received her first report of a positive COVID-19 case in a schoolgirl. By the third week of class, Sivanich, a registered nurse at Osseo Senior High School, was so overwhelmed with sick children and emergency calls that she requested replacement rooms to accommodate symptomatic children.
In addition, Sivanich sees that only about half of the students in their building are wearing masks correctly. She is concerned about the spread of the virus and parents sending their children to school with symptoms of COVID-19.
“We cannot go back to normal. We can’t pretend COVID is nothing. And a lot of people in society do that, ”said Sivanich.
Most Minnesota schools are in their third full week of classes, but some staff are already worried about how long they will be able to work with scarce staff.
Sivanich conducts contact tracing for positive COVID-19 cases and keeps track of who has been vaccinated and quarantined. This leaves her with little, if any, time to address the chronic health problems and medications of the students in her care. A licensed practical nurse helps Sivanich look after more than 2,000 children in her home.
According to the School Nurse Organization of Minnesota, just over a quarter of schools in Minnesota have a licensed nurse position. Those with positions have a hard time filling them. In the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district, where organization president Deb Mehr works, five nurses quit last year. They already lost one this year.
“You just can’t get the job done,” Mehr said. “We had sister meetings where people often cried. It’s hard when you do your best. “
It’s not just nurses. Schools need more bus drivers and canteen workers. Even school boards are stepping down in unusually high numbers.
In Osseo, Sivanich said she made a teacher cry in her office on the second day of school because the workload was so overwhelming. On the same day, she saw another teacher who was having an anxiety attack.
“When the school is broken, when the staff is broken, we cannot look after our children,” said Sivanich.
In Willmar, Annette Derouin directs food and nutrition programs for four different western Minnesota counties. In one, she started the year with 11 vacancies. In addition, supply chains are so unreliable that she never knows exactly what food she will be getting for lunch and has had to make a lot of last-minute menu changes. It’s something she’s never had to do.
“Especially in the Willmar district, where a high percentage of us are a free and reduced district, we know that these children and their families are counting on getting high-quality and nutritious food at school,” said Derouin. “It keeps me up at night when I know we’ll struggle with it.”
“I can see the exhaustion”
Teachers are also feeling the strain of returning to classroom school with anxious children and rising COVID-19 cases.
Alexei Moon Casselle, a language teacher at Battle Creek Elementary in St. Paul, said the return to personal learning is a big transition for both students and the school staff.
“A lot of things are affecting their community right now – communities that are utterly devastated by COVID-19,” Casselle said.
Even three weeks into the school year, according to Casselle, students are learning how to behave in the classroom again. “It just cannot be emphasized enough how much was lost when we were not in the school building.”
And it’s not just the class teachers in his house that are under pressure earlier in the school year than usual. Casselle said he sees the stress everywhere.
“Even though I can only see the top half of people’s faces, I can see the exhaustion,” Casselle said.
It is a victory to have students and teachers back in the classroom, added Casselle. But he wants people to remember that the pandemic is not over yet.
Moriah Stephens, who works as a special education teacher at the Ann Bremer Education Center in Brooklyn Park, said that having fewer staff means she can’t spend as much time teaching as she wants and has to make more support calls than usual.
“The way this year is going, a day or two of mental health won’t be enough. There has to be a significant change or I know I won’t finish the school year here, ”said Stephens.
[ad_2]
