Teachers: Trust them to do their job from home

Re: “Teachers: Be in class, even if students are not,” (TNT letter, 9/17).

This stance is short-sighted in the sense that many teachers have school-aged children who are participating in distance learning at home.

These are students who would ordinarily be at school while their parents are teaching, but due to COVID-19, it is not yet safe to do so.

The letter writer speaks as a retired teacher, taxpayer and grandparent. I, too, am all of those things. I believe requiring teachers to teach from empty classrooms rather than from their homes shows lack of trust in teachers to do their jobs and utter disregard for teachers’ school-age children.

Should teachers teach other’s children from empty classrooms and not be able to support their own children’s learning?

Seeing and interacting with their teachers is what is encouraging and important for student learning, not seeing their empty classrooms.

Teachers work hard adapting to a new way of teaching. We, the public, need to support them, rather than make it more difficult. Many parents are working from home these days, why not teachers?

This story was originally published September 22, 2020 at 5:58 PM with the headline "Teachers: Trust them to do their job from home."