Boston Public Schools continues to work out a reopening plan for the fall, and parents, teachers and students have differing opinions on what reopening should look like. WGBH Morning Edition Host Joe Mathieu spoke with Boston City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George, chair of the Council's education committee, about last night's hearing on the issue and the city's plans. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Joe Mathieu: You're also a parent. Is this making you as anxious as everyone else?
Councilor Annissa Essaibi George: I am also a parent. I've got four boys in the Boston Public Schools and as you mentioned, taught for 13 years at East Boston High. Of course I'm anxious, and every parent, every teacher, anyone involved in this conversation and this discussion should be anxious. We are dealing with uncertain times and there will remain very many unknowns as we work through this process and try to do what's best for our kids in this district. And we also want to work to make sure that we keep our teachers and staff safe.
Mathieu: Some of your colleagues think we should not even be talking about classrooms, that remote learning is the only real safe option. Do you disagree with that as a business owner? There's an economic element to this where they say if kids can't go back to school, parents can't go back to work.
Essaibi George: Yeah, there's certainly an economic argument to be made. But for me, especially as a former teacher, especially as a parent, there is such an important role that in-person, in-classroom education, academics, social, emotional support that happens. It's so important to do that in person, and so many of our kids have lost such a tremendous amount of time in the classroom already. We really should be working towards this hybrid model. And there are some challenges with the hybrid model because we need to make sure that our students have an opportunity to be in the classroom and be in the classroom safely. The safety is most important and is paramount, but there are so many other considerations to be made when we think about how our kids best learn and best thrive academically and again, socially and emotionally.
Mathieu: [Is] your phone ringing? Have you been hearing from a lot of parents?
Essaibi George: The phone's been ringing, and we had a very robust and, I think, emotional hearing last night. As you mentioned, it was six hours long. But we're all on the same page when we want to do what's best for our kids. The question is, how do we get there, how do we get there safely, and how do we make sure that we don't lose our students? We have seen over the last five, six months the learning loss that's occurred, the kids that we have lost touch with and the real disconnect between our students and the work that they need to be doing. It's a critically important time to make sure that all those voices are heard, to make sure that we're able to have a plan in place that is going to be responsive to the academic need, but also the public health crisis that we find ourselves in.
Mathieu: One of the big concerns is, I'm sure you've heard this articulated — it was last night — is that we're going to potentially create a new layer of economic inequality, right? That more kids of privilege will have the opportunity to learn at home. Those lower income kids will be forced to go back to school and potentially be in danger. What do you think about that?
Essaibi George: Well, we also see that many of our private, Catholic and charter schools are going back to school.
Mathieu: That is true.
Essaibi George: And we know that our students, when they're doing school remotely from home, that they are missing some significant component of that academic experience. Especially when we think about our special education students, especially when we think about our youngest learners who are building that foundation for their academic future. When we think about our kids who are experiencing homelessness, our kids who are disconnected from community and support services, our English language learners. Our kids who are hungry, our kids or who are most poor. When they're not in our classrooms, when they're not in our school buildings, when they're not connected to adults who care for them and want to support them in those ways, they miss out and they miss out a great deal.
And when we think about months and potentially a year of learning loss, the long-term impact on that child is tremendous. And those are months and years that we'll never be able to get back. So this work is more important than ever. The thoughtfulness of this plan in making sure that we have pieces in place to support those kids, especially those that are most at risk, we've got so much work to do. And it is a trying time, it's a challenging time. This is a difficult effort that we all find ourselves a part of, and we also have to make sure that we've got flexibility, because things can change and things can change quickly.
Mathieu: I'm trying to imagine what it's like inside of, say, a kindergarten class — a first, a second grade class. You're a mom. You're a teacher. How the heck do you keep masks on little kids?
Essaibi George: It's hard work. It's such hard work. We've gotten to a place already where our general public and our kids in particular are more and more comfortable wearing masks. My boys play baseball right now. It's been an adjustment to get on the field with these rules of physical distancing when you're on the bench, wearing a mask when you're not at the plate or on the field. There is certainly a learning curve when it comes to our kids and the masks. It's a learning curve when it comes to adults in masks. They aren't comfortable. It is an adjustment.
We're going through these changes and I don't think anyone has denied that this is going to be hard work, but it's something that we need to do together. One of the parents that testified last night referenced the plan really needing to be part of like a long-term recovery plan. That we're not just making decisions for the next couple of weeks, that this is going to be a very long process. And we're all learning through this process, whether we're the kindergartener that's learning how to read or the high school student who's preparing for college applications and work after graduation.
