General Discussion

Tanuki

(14,914 posts) Sun Aug 29, 2021, 11:59 AM Aug 2021

GA school official responds to covid crisis with tone deaf blue jeans proposal

https://www.thedailybeast.com/georgia-school-official-responds-to-covid-crisis-with-tone-deaf-blue-jeans-proposal

"By the fourth week of the new school year this month, COVID had exploded across Georgia’s Bulloch County School District. As of Monday, 900 students in the district of just 11,000 had tested positive for coronavirus in the first three weeks of school.

For weeks, teachers and many parents had called for a mask mandate. But superintendent Charles Wilson refused to issue one. Instead, on Thursday night, he sent an email blast with the subject line “word of encouragement” to all the teachers in the district. After thanking them “for all that you are doing for our students and for each other,” the email, which has been seen by The Daily Beast, continued:

“I talked with principals today and we all agreed that, though it is a small gesture, you would enjoy the liberty of wearing jeans for the next month. So, by all means, please enjoy your jeans throughout the month of September (and the rest of August).”

If Wilson had meant his email to quiet the growing anger among his employees, it did just the opposite.

“It was super offensive,” one teacher at a school in the district, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of professional reprisal, told The Daily Beast. She said she has written to Wilson and the school board several times this year to beg for mask mandates but has never gotten a response.

“Every day we march into school is like going to war, and the only weapons that we have are masks and vaccines if we’ve chosen to get it,” a second elementary school teacher in the district, who also asked to remain anonymous for fear of professional reprisal, said. “And our administrators sit in their offices sending out condescending little emails, as if jeans are going to help protect us or our families from getting sick.”...(more)