My first child, my son, was born at the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester. I spent the first part of the pandemic learning how to teach online, while being pregnant and isolating in our small apartment from my husband who caught Covid in the early days of NYC’s lockdown. Unsure as everyone was about what each day would bring, I sent reassuring emails to my panicked students through my tears of uncertainty. I was relieved that remote teaching continued for the subsequent semesters as I needed my job and needed to be at home with my child, who I was not comfortable sending to daycare. I remain unready to send him because he cannot be vaccinated against Covid, and neither can the children he will be interacting with daily.

Returning to in-person teaching would mean risking exposure on my commute and again on campus, where I will undoubtedly be more preoccupied with worry than any feeling of finally seeing students in person could quell. If I have the misfortune of becoming ill with Covid, I have no family in NY that can care for my son. It would mean ignoring my intuition and comfort levels to send him to daycare so that I can keep my job. If he becomes ill at daycare and my household is required to quarantine, what then will happen to my in-person class?

I have yet to see any practical justification for 70% of classes being held in person. In each semester since the pandemic, my students have expressed how remote learning alleviated a partial burden of this pandemic, because many of them are also primary care givers for their children, siblings, and parents. Why, if many staff, faculty, and students are expressing their preference for continued remote learning,
are we being forced to appease an arbitrary decision that does not consider the circumstances of those whose lives are at stake?