AIBU or are the lives of school staff worthless?

[Witchcraftandhokum]

I fully appreciate that the education and mental well-being of children is important but why does it trump the physical and mental health of school staff? The facts are simple, people are being told to stay at home because it is unsafe to do otherwise, unless you work in education or the NHS who are provided with effective PPE.

On a daily basis I am expected to supervise the diner where 150 students eat lunch (obviously mask free) if I wish to eat I am also mask free. I have to supervise the same 150 children in narrow corridors. For this pupils are supposed to wear masks but there are a number who refuse (not the students who are exempt) and we cannot enforce it. We hand out hundreds of masks per week to students whose parents don't ensure they have one with them.

We are not allowed to wear masks in classrooms but are given visors which aren't as effective. The children are not allowed to wear masks in classrooms. None of this are rules imposed by the school but are in-line with the government guidance.

We have students who say they have developed a cough knowing we have to send them home, we cannot make the decision as to whether they are lying or not, but I've been verbally abused by parents calling me "fucking stupid" for not knowing when a child is lying.

Before half-term we had 25% of staff off sick as they had tested positive (including myself). There are many experts stating schools should be shut but Boris has done a fantastic job of insinuating that school staff are lazy and don't want to work, and the early response to the unions concerns shows that this is working. I've never suffered with stress or anxiety but the thought of a return to school tomorrow is making me feel sick.

Talking to colleagues who work in other schools it appears my experience is not unusual. So AIBU to think that this government doesn't give a shiny shit about school staff.

Surely HCP's and Carers wear masks to protect their clients. Yes but we have one mask per 7hrs whereas the staff in our hospital have one of the same masks per 30 minutes. So nowhere near as effective.

@WaterOffADucksCrack

Surely HCP's and Carers wear masks to protect their clients. Yes but we have one mask per 7hrs whereas the staff in our hospital have one of the same masks per 30 minutes. So nowhere near as effective.

My daughter is a hospital nurse, and she too only has one mask per shift. Her shifts are 12.5-13 hours.

Check out the OP's update.

I am sorry you have resigned OP.

I am also sorry for the arseholes on this thread.

OP Good Luck with Job Hunting... it's carnage out there!

DH and I have lost our jobs... there are 100's of applicants to every job and the majority of wages are NMW.

The grass is definitely not greener on the unemployment side. Hopefully you have a DH that will support you financially.

So sorry you had to face that difficult choice.

Wishing you all the best for the future 💐

@year5teacher

It says they should be avoided due to various reasons but the language “not permitted” says to me that it’s banned, which it isn’t. We have had an email stating that we are allowed to wear masks “on school premises” which I presume means in class. Of course - some schools will be saying no, which is totally unacceptable. But it’s not that we are “categorically and emphatically not allowed”.

Perhaps PPs don’t mean it is banned and I’ve misunderstood. I don’t want to seem like I’m saying there’s no issues with schools, of course there are, I experience it every day.

In my school, where I work, we are indeed “categorically and emphatically not allowed” to wear masks. The only exception is for BAME staff. I believe this is true for most primary schools.

I'm surprised you mention working in retail. My DS works in a supermarket. He wears a mask but he encounters many customers who don't and will barge in front of him to grab something with no care to him. His mask doesn't protect him they can cough straight in his eyes.

He is at much at risk than a teacher whose pupils are sitting at their desk when talking and therefore 1m away. At least the teacher can tell the kids off.

I don't think it's about this at all. I think it's about you not wanting to teach in difficult conditions who was hoping she'd have more time off.

I am not trying to do a 'battle of the risks' as it wouldn't be fair on anyone, but teachers are in front of a class in an enclosed space for up to 6 hours a day.

The transmission is much more likely to happen if close contact occur for a period of over 10 minutes.

YABU, and I also work in a school.

I'm not prepared to trash the future the life chances of DC who won't get any home learning if schools close again. I also don't want the economy to go any further down the tubes, and if DC are sent home, esp the younger ones, someone is going to have to look after them.

‘The transmission is much more likely to happen if close contact occur for a period of over 10 minutes.’

But that is per person. If a teacher comes into contact with 30-150 pupils a day for 1-6hours and I come into contact with 2,000 people in retail a day, the teacher risks more in duration of contact while I risk more in number of contacts.

Hi everyone. Just to say, that my primary reason for resigning is the current attitude towards school staff by the government, pupils and their families and the general public (as shown in this thread). I decided I was no longer prepared to put myself at risk anymore.

I'm still happy with my decision. I really feel like a weight has been lifted. I have some savings, a good chance of some consultancy work and If need be I'll pursue retail jobs as I have experience in this field. I feel heartedly sorry for school staff who are unable to do the same.

You’re in a very fortunate position OP to be able to jack in your job like that, not everyone is that fortunate and probably a good thing to as there would be no key workers during a pandemic.

stairway I absolutely do appreciate that. I can do it because I've worked bloody hard for years, but I absolutely would have stayed in education had I not felt like I had been treated like absolute shit over the past few months. Speaking to other teachers the number of resignations before the December dealldline is going to be huge, so maybe in the new year we'll be saying saying if the school staff had been treated better there wouldn't be a shortage now.

I doubt there will be many resignations unless taking early retirement. Most people work because they need the money and with covid and mass unemployment looming I doubt many would take the risk.

My mate who quit maths teaching is now absolutely overwhelmed with tutoring requests, keeps trying to rope me in.

OP sorry you felt so poorly treated, hope things improve for you now.

The very best of luck with everything, OP! I'm keeping everything crossed for you. I'm not a teacher but support staff in a secondary school and know EXACTLY how things are, and how the ignoramuses on this thread have made you feel.

Someone upthread mentioned the "mosh pit" of corridors and staircases. That's a perfect description. Yet we are told that PHE (or whatever the hell they're paying someone to rebrand it as) deem that contact in corridors is not classed as "close contact". Makes me laugh (in a gallows humour type of way).

Our latest low is pupils spitting in the hand sanitiser containers. I mean, I really don't think non-school staff actually understand what some of the little darlings get up to.

@Stripesnomore "I come into contact with 2,000 people in retail a day"

This is seriously not a dig, or sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested in your work processes. What constitutes "contact" in your workplace? I know that different retail places have different types of contact. Is it touching things that others touch?

School corridors are where you get to touch non-family members.

I’m not sure what you mean, curly haired.

I have 2,000 people shop in my area of the store each day.

They are coming into contact in the same way a teacher comes into contact with teens - we’re sharing the same space and breathing in the same air. We are not physically touching.

Yes I touch many items that customers touch, but I wouldn’t consider that to be what people mean by contact.

Covid risk is based on the amount of virus you come into contact with. The higher the amount you breathe in is based on number of people in the same space with Covid, how long they are in there and how long you are in there.

From what I understand from the Lancet, the risk to customers is low because they are only in a store for a short period. The risk to staff is higher because longer exposure means you get a larger ‘dose’ of the virus.

OP I also think major staffing cuts a few years back have made things so much more difficult. In my own school there are just fewer staff generally around the place. Fewer TAs, fewer office staff, fewer site staff. Teachers have less PPA, are expected to cover Isolation/behaviour support rooms etc: the bare bones of staffing, with the result that sometimes the atmosphere already borders on chaotic, and general staff stress levels are already sky high.

Throw in this pandemic and the need to do so much extra COVID-secure stuff on top of their already stressful workload and it's a recipe for disaster, on all fronts. I have close relatives who work frontline NHS with COVID patients. They often give an impression that things are veering between "only just coping" to "out of control". That's what schools are often feeling like at the moment. The pupils know this, and behaviour is slowly worsening. Maybe not in the best schools, but in your average comp, with all the extra external problems that pupils come to school with, it's a recipe for disaster.

I'm not saying that schools should close. I don''t think it would be for the best for many pupils. I would just like there to be some acknowledgement of the permanent stresses that school staff are under now. Instead of a slagging off on here about being lazy whingers.

In fact, perhaps some furloughed staff could volunteer in schools to be corridor & behaviour staff? So that they could at least supervise things to ensure social distancing and a controlled exit from buildings etc. Supervise at breaktime and lunchtime so that staff can go to the toilet or have a cup of tea or you know, eat? Instead of having a go on social media platforms.

Yes, there are other occupations which are also at risk, not just healthcare and police. But it's the old thing of EVERYONE having an opinion about schools, as we all went to one, most of us on here have kids and so our kids go to them, so OF COURSE there are going to be a lot of posts about schools and COVID at the moment.

They are coming into contact in the same way a teacher comes into contact with teens

For an hour at a time?

They are coming into contact in the same way a teacher comes into contact with teens - we’re sharing the same space and breathing in the same air. We are not physically touching.

It's not quite the same, or at least I don't THINK it is, in shops. It IS mosh pit level in a lot of secondary corridors and staircases, for example. But I haven't been in any shops which are like the Boxing Day sales (the school equivalent in corridors). I was in Ikea at the weekend, now that does get busy. But the queues were socially distanced, and people didn't go near each other in the store. Everyone wore masks. I personally didn't touch the hand rail of the escalator etc. The staff on the tills were behind screens and well away from customers. For me, the handling of items was probably the most noticeable thing. There were regular tannoy reminders asking people to minimise touching and they'd taken off all the "Look inside" labels [grin[. But you do have to pick things up in there, so as a customer, this appeared to be the most obvious risk of transmission of the virus between customers and also staff who then have to rearrange.

It's an assumption I had, and maybe it's wrong. In the same way that people think that school staff don't have much contact with children in schools.

No, noble giraffe, that was the original point of you read back.

More people increase the risk. 2000 people are riskier than 150.

More time increases the risk. An hour with someone with Covid is riskier than 10 mins.

Being in a location longer increases the risk. 8 hours in a room in which various people have been shedding the virus is riskier than 30 mins in a room.

They are all different ways of increasing risk.

Curly, most staff are not on the tills. They are mixing with customers on the shop floor.

My brother works in one of the smaller IKEA stores. They employ 600 people. About a tenth in customer services, which includes tills.