Franklin Matters: Tracy Novick: "The pit in my stomach"

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Tracy Novick: "The pit in my stomach"

Tracy Novick is a member of the Worcester (MA) School Committee, and a field director for the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC). While she has a bunch of disclaimers as she opens her article, from her observations she asks some questions on how to re-open schools:

"Please make no mistake: having our kids out of school is absolutely catastrophic to their education, and, in many cases, to their physical and mental health. In some cases, this has been exponentially increased by the lack of timely response, or mismanagement, or other leadership lacks.

I'm not under any illusions on how destructive this time is to many.

I also spend a good bit of time in and around schools, and schools of different types. I know what it's like in a suburban high school at lunchtime, and what it's like at an urban elementary school at recess. I've been in the closets that pass for offices for speech therapists and myriad of other support staff, the auto bays and shops of a vocational school at work, the flood of students running for buses at the end of the day.
I've also been in a lot of bathrooms.
I don't of course know it all, but know what a lot of that looks like in schools in Massachusetts right now.

I don't know how we do it without kids touching each other and breathing on each other and their teachers. I mean that, genuinely. I have tried and tried to figure out how you'd do it."