Elementary School Pandemic Hothouse

I don't know how to talk about the month (only one month) that I spent teaching art in an elementary school during the pandemic. I started, and I left, out of necessity. The first, being willing to work physically in the schools, I volunteered to do because I love to teach, and, as a recently divorced single mother, I needed a job. The reason I left is more complicated. 

image copyright Julia Gandrud 2020

How to explain the hothouse of love and fear in that literally brick and mortar building? The red alertness on the faces of staff, the fatigue so deep that many adults ran on electricity only? The grief, joy, love, gratitude, rage, abandonment in the words and actions of the beautiful kids? They were the sun, even at their worst. And there was some astoundingly bad behavior... even then, those children were beautiful. My heart breaks, thinking of them, as individuals and as a group, knowing that I abandoned them, in the end. 

As I said, I'm a single mother and have my own kids most of the school year. After only a few weeks of teaching, I was sent home because of close contact exposure (a student who regularly ran around the room, joking and laughing during lunches, mask down, unable to absorb the weirdness of not being able to be a normal kid). 

Wouldn't you know it? During that week, I got a rash. It was so bad that my eyes swelled nearly shut. It was so bad that I couldn't sit still for the itching. I called in for a telehealth session. That nurse wanted me to go to urgent care. Urgent care wouldn't see me because I was on close contact quarantine. They sent me to the emergency room... which was overflowing. Again, I had two kids at home, alone, during this. I couldn't risk wading past the COVID tents (yes, there were those) to wait in the emergency room, then get treated, for the rest of the day.

I went home. I did not get treated. Luckily for me, I have a friend eleven hours away who is a dermatologist. She could do trial and error treatment with me via text and photos, calling in prescriptions. A few weeks later, I still have itches – it was likely poison ivy, not impetigo or the other horrible disease the nurse first thought.

I have had cancer twice – well, three times if you count the minor skin cancer – and can't play around. I chose to quit. 

I cried as I wrote the letter to the principal. I felt depressed for days after. My heart breaks, hoping those kids are happy with whoever replaced me. I hope that person is brilliant and strong.