Safety and Learning: Two Priorities Above All

School needs to be a safe place for learning, and if it's not safe or if learning is not taking place, people are out.

Teachers are going to quit, other staff are going to quit, and students are not going to come to school if we cannot guarantee safety and learning.

And that sounds obvious, that sounds like it doesn't even need to be said, but in so many cases we allow safety and learning to be subordinated to other goals.

Goals like making our numbers look good, or goals like putting students back in the classroom even if they're not being safe, even if they are not learning.

And I'm really grateful that as a teacher, I had administrators who understood that, who understood that the purpose of being in school is to learn, and the condition for that needs to be safety, right?

That if students are not safe, they can't be in school.

And that means...

tragically, honestly, that some kids do miss out on their education because they're not there to learn and they're not being safe.

And we want to reach those kids.

We want to help them and we can, but we have to have safety and learning as non-negotiables, right?

If we don't, then what ends up happening is the process gets derailed for everybody, right?

One way that the process gets derailed this time of year as we approach the holidays is through turnover, right?

Staff decide whether they're going to come back for the rest of the year in the last couple of weeks before the winter holidays, between Thanksgiving and Christmas break.

And people decide for their own well-being, for their own safety, if the job that they're in currently is one that they're going to continue when school resumes in January.

And frankly, a lot of people don't come back in January.

Far too many people do not come back in January.

And safety and learning are the big reasons why.

So if you're in that boat right now, I want to encourage you to think about talking with your principal and saying, hey, look, I am here to teach and I need my students to be safe and I need myself to be safe.

If we can make those things happen, I will make the rest of the year happen.

I can stick this out.

But a lot of people are not willing to have that conversation on both sides, right?

People don't want to have the conversation because it's difficult, it's awkward, it requires everybody to do things that may be challenging.

But I want to encourage us as a profession to have that conversation and to not be afraid to really advocate for safety and learning.

Like one thing that I saw a video on the other day, I'll tag it in the comments if I can find it again.

is this idea that we have students who are just hall walkers, right?

Students who come to school every day and like skip class and hide out from adults and just don't go to class.

Like they're there for who knows what purpose, right?

Because their parents, I guess, make them go, but nobody in the school is making them go to class and learn.

And we have to ask ourselves, not only is that a huge safety issue, but why are those students in school?

We have got to do something when things like that occur.

It's not enough to say, well, the student is present, so we get to count them for funding, and we'll do the best we can to get them to class, but if they don't go, it's not a real big deal.

No, it is a big deal.

Learning is a big deal.

Having students in class so we know where they are is a big deal.

If we want our students to come to school every day, if we want our teachers to come back in January, we've got to prioritize safety.

And we've got to make sure that every condition of the school is supportive of learning and not undermining it.

Let me know what you think.