Tell Dr. Shotwell: We need more nurses and PPE!
Dr. Rodney Shotwell
Dear Dr. Shotwell:
Today, we write to ask for your assistance with vaccinations, screening/testing, and learning/enrichment opportunities.
We have made tremendous progress over the past year, but we still have work to do to ensure that every student has the opportunity and confidence to return to the classroom and start making up for lost instructional and extracurricular time. We need your help more than ever to make in-person learning five days a week a continuous process, and what you do over the coming days and weeks will truly make a difference.
We urge you to do all you can to help students, their families, and all school staff with feeling safe in school. Having access to testing kits, testing support, and additional school nursing staff for testing is critical right now. COVID-19 vaccines are the most effective strategy we have to protect people from getting sick and to reduce the risk of people spreading COVID-19. It is up to all of us to protect the members of our school communities from the harms of COVID-19, and early detection/testing and proper facial covering are only some of the most important safety measures we can take.
Just this week, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services announced that they are offering all school districts masks, testing kits, testing support, and even the opportunity to request funding to hire additional school nursing staff for testing.
School districts can request testing kits and other testing support from NCDHHS as part of the StrongSchoolsNC K-12 COVID-19 Testing Program.
Additionally, public schools can request funding to hire additional school nursing support staff for school testing and other school-based health services. Please reach out to K12COVIDTesting@dhhs.nc.gov for more information.
N95 masks are available for your teachers and adult staff at no cost. Schools can request for N95 masks online at https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/RequestMasks. Please use the “Critical Infrastructure PPE Request Form” to ensure your request is prioritized for shipment.
We respectfully ask that you swiftly take advantage of all of these opportunities if you have not done so already, to ensure our students can continue learning safely. If you have requested this already, please clearly outline for staff your plan for the distribution of these resources, including how additional nurses will be distributed across the district.
We look forward to hearing your response and continuing to work in partnership to keep our students safely in school.
Respectfully,
RCS Employees, students, and supporters
Sponsored by
To:
Dr. Rodney Shotwell
From:
[Your Name]
There is a devastating shortage of teachers, staff, and substitute teachers in Rockingham County.
Educators who are present are being asked to cover extra classes or duties, sometimes daily, without additional compensation. Educators are not getting the breaks or planning periods they need to do their jobs, sometimes working without a single bathroom break from before 8 AM to after 3 PM. Because of these grueling conditions, educators are leaving the profession in staggering numbers as they are forced to choose between their own wellbeing and that of our students.
Students continue to experience instability and inconsistency daily, as they have a rotating roster of educators who are spread too thin teaching their classes, and their learning and safety is suffering. TA’s are often being moved from classroom to classroom, going above and beyond to fill in the gaps, unable to assist in the class they were originally assigned. No one is receiving fair compensation for the extra work they are doing.
We are calling on the Rockingham County Schools Board of Education to prioritize hiring and retention so that our students' education can also be the priority. We need skilled educators in our schools now more than ever to keep our students safe and learning.
To retain our educators and incentivize substitute teachers to work in our schools, it is imperative that we allocate Rockingham’s federal COVID relief grants (federal ESSER funds) to fairly compensate our educators for their work.
Increase pay for substitute teachers to $135/$105 to be competitive with nearby districts so that there is support for teachers who are spread. too thin in the classroom.
We need smaller class sizes NOW. Adjust allotments so that we can be given the personnel to reach all of our students.
Supplement staff pay with a supplement of 5% to be competitive with neighboring districts.
Teachers and staff are retiring or leaving the profession in numbers too large to ignore. It's URGENT that we use these COVID-relief federal dollars in a way that doesn't pay for things that should already be included in the school's budget, and instead prioritize saving our schools and our students' classroom experience.