Should teachers be considered essential workers?

As the coronavirus pandemic began to hit the United States, schools shut down and moved online for the remainder of spring for the safety of their teachers and students. Now, with a new academic year on the horizon, schools are trying to decide whether to send teachers and students back to classrooms in person, continue online instruction or use a hybrid model.

Federal guidelines for what’s considered an essential worker — those whose jobs are necessary to keep society functioning even when much of the economy has been closed — include professions such as health care workers, media and grocery store employees. But while the guidelines say child care workers are considered essential, it does not include teachers. In the United States, teachers have not been treated as frontline workers in the fight against the virus. Although they have worked, it’s been mostly online and remote — far from the frontlines.

President Trump has made reopening schools a focus of his coronavirus response plan, though school decisions are made at a state and local level. There’s no question that the coronavirus still poses a health risk, but other places have shown it is possible for students and educators to be in the classroom: In more than 20 countries, students and teachers have already returned to (or never left) the physical classroom.