This month, the school year comes to a close without the usual rites of passage that mark meaningful endings and beginnings. Senior proms, graduations, field days, promotion ceremonies, and end-of-year class trips have been shelved. Colleagues can’t gather to celebrate friends who are retiring or moving on. Students left campuses hastily, without fanfare or last bits of wisdom from mentors who have known them since freshman year.
This academic year has been like no other, and it will affect us in ways we can’t predict or foresee. Through the uncertainty of COVID-19, educators have risen to every challenge, and our union has brought us closer together than ever.
I’m entering my final months as NEA’s president, and I never contemplated such a “memorable” last act. But what gets me through the sorrow and anger of this time is your beauty. NEA members have confronted this crisis with the love, pragmatism, selflessness, and creativity you bring to every challenge.
This has been your finest hour.
Educators had to build the plane while it was racing down the runway. They have caravanned through neighborhoods to visit students safely from their cars. They have navigated the intricacies of distance learning, coached parents who became homeschoolers, and delivered grab-and-go meals and work packets, putting their own health at risk. They cleaned and maintained school buildings, often without appropriate safety equipment. And NEA-Retired members have sewn lifesaving masks for health care workers.
And now, after months that have felt like years, educators are not taking a break. Instead, they’re planning for what should be in place when students return to school—even as students and educators alike come to terms with the trauma they have experienced. Educators are also planning for the possibility that not all schools will reopen in the fall. NEA is focusing on how our schools and campuses will move ahead as well.
During the pandemic, NEA has lobbied for laws to secure students’ and educators’ health. We’ve pushed to ensure food security and learning opportunities for students as well as financial security for educators.
Through tele-town halls, webinars, and phone banks, NEA has checked on members, shared information, and offered best practices on topics like online classroom management.
We are demanding the resources that students and educators need to weather this storm and set sail going forward. That means we’re not interested in going back to what we had. What we had wasn’t good enough in good times; it was a tragedy in a crisis. We’re focused on ending disparities in education, health care, and access to healthy foods in rural areas, communities of color, and districts with high poverty—inequities underscored by the pandemic.
This academic year will go down in history. But so will educators’ commitment to meeting the needs of students and supporting each other. Even now, the light is shining. And it will continue to guide us through.
