I’m a special education teacher at Whaley School. Our students are the only middle and high school students in the Anchorage School District who had been cleared to return to the building on Nov. 16, about seven weeks earlier than the rest of the district’s older students on Jan. 4, if it’s safe enough then.
Why now? Why us?
“Our kids need us!” is all we hear as an answer. But it’s not a complete answer, let alone a correct one. It’s only a fragment.
First, Our kids need us — to tell you who they are. All have severe emotional and behavioral disorders: FASD, ASD, PTSD, to name a few. Our kids are the district’s most vulnerable when it comes to emotional stress and trauma. They require a learning environment built on routine, consistency ands predictability. Normally, hey, we got this! We are Whaley! Not so much with these early return plans — and right up against their most stressful time of the year, the holidays.
Our kids need us … to protect them from this misguided if not reckless plan to whisk them from their safe, online learning environment — which is working fine, if not better in many cases! — and drop them in the middle of a storm.
Our kids need us… to wait and see.
— Tony Bickert
Anchorage
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