Opinion: In this time of crisis, I’m letting my students know they matter

Within days of the order requiring restaurants to move to carry out and delivery only, Carlos texted me asking for help. Carlos is a former student who had been working as a lobby attendant at a fast food restaurant for three years. He was now out of a job and scared.

I teach in a unique program that provides career and technical education courses to high school students receiving special education services. Carlos and other students in my program have mild to moderate disabilities; they can work independently, but they benefit from extra training and support to realize that goal. Carlos was so proud to have a job that he got on his own. Now, he was worried about his ability to help his family pay bills, about their safety, and about his own health.

My district has done a commendable job of responding to this crisis in a timely and compassionate way. We moved quickly to meet our students’ basic needs: ensuring that meals were still provided to students and families and that mental health services were not disrupted. Our leaders made the right decision to close school facilities in order to keep everyone in our community safe from the spread of coronavirus.

Now, the worries and fears for my students that kept me sleepless on a good night before this pandemic have my stomach in knots trying to solve a problem that is bigger than all of us. The crisis exacerbates systemic inequities in our community such as poverty, racism, and access to safety more generally. The effects of this pandemic are disproportionately borne by the people who were already marginalized before the coronavirus hit.

This is why, instead of planning remote learning opportunities this week, I am pouring through the few student records to which I have access from home, in the hope of contacting students who I know were already vulnerable: Students who are struggling with mental illness and other difficult life circumstances and students who have a hard time accessing adequate nutrition and safety under the best conditions. These are the students who are most in need of our collective attention in this crisis.

The concept that instruction must continue remotely became the raison d'etre for districts seemingly overnight. However, as educators, we provide other equally important functions beyond content learning. For some of our students, their school is the only place where they are seen as individuals. Their teachers know them at a personal level and understand their struggle and work with them to face it daily.

The solutions Carlos and I are thinking of are imperfect and inadequate, but we’re working toward them nonetheless: We updated his resume and share promising leads. He is now connected with the state agency that can help with unemployment insurance and training. And perhaps most importantly, Carlos knows that even during a global pandemic that forces everyone indoors and forces the economy to all but shut down, we’re here working with him because we care.

I urge every education stakeholder to let compassion and mutual aid be your guiding principles. or college and career readiness outcomes. The most important thing we can do for our students right now is to seek them out, make sure they know that their struggles are still important to us, that what happens to them matters a great deal to those in their community. If we listen to their needs, we can find solutions together.

Carroll teaches career and technical education for high school seniors with disabilities at Clifton Career Development School in Austin. He is a 2019-20 Teach Plus Texas Policy Fellow.