Teachers are essential. Teachers are not essential workers.

As schools across the country begin the process of reopening, many parents are deciding whether or not to send their children to class or to stay virtual - many teachers are not being given an option.

In the US, education has always been at the bottom of the list when it comes to funding and public policy. Teachers, by default, are often undervalued, underpaid, and underappreciated. Now, in the midst of a global pandemic, many are also being gaslit into returning to class and teaching in person.

Somehow teachers are now the enemy because they're advocating for safety for themselves and their students, as they always have. The same parents who are publicly professing their love and admiration for teachers a year ago, with performative grand gestures about how teachers are heroes are now the ones demonizing them.

If you want your kids to go back to school, send them back to school. If you want to keep your kids home, keep them home. Do not, however, fall into the trap of blaming the teachers for demanding safety in their jobs, and further concerns that they don't have the resources to keep our kids safe. If you argue that families must have the right to choose to go back or not, then you must also extend the same opportunity to teachers. No questions asked.

More on the new normal in education, children's mental health, and the gaslighting of America's teachers in this week's episode.

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