Local Opinion: Teachers deserve awards for valor

Teachers, the president didn’t call you today. But he should have.

I would have.

If you put your school uniform on, pressed your pants and curled your hair, ate your off-brand Cheerios, and headed to the very place where you could die today, you certainly deserved a call.

If you sucked on hard candy at the Faculty Meeting rather than the bottle of hard liquor you might have preferred once you returned home to find out if your own children were OK today, you deserved a call, if only from your congressman.

If you had to pull “Hello, God, It’s Me Margaret” off your classroom shelf because some legislator was more worried about the mention of menstrual blood than the blood of your students from a semi-automatic, I think the least someone could do is give you a quick ring.

If a state senator wants to ban dangerous fantasy books like Harry Potter, then maybe they should consider banning guns as well. Perhaps they could come to your classroom to experience why your children want to escape reality in the first place. Kids like them are being killed — yet again.

The very least they could do is come experience the now-required, unannounced, monthly lockdown practice that you and your 6-year-olds are required to do. Let them feel how uncomfortable it gets hiding under a desk or huddling together away from the windows or around a single cell phone in a closet today.

Let them see you quickly sneak out to make sure the wastepaper baskets are lined with plastic bags because your students will need to go to the restroom there if the lockdown goes on too long and they can no longer “hold it.” Let them hear you say, “No drinks yet,” because getting up to have a sip of water can mean the choice between life or death.

Let them answer the questions of a 10-year-old asking why people need access to “such big guns.” Compared to the NRA advocates holding semi-automatic weapons in their camouflage, drag queens in costume with silver bangles and beads never looked so good.

Perhaps when monthly unannounced lockdowns are required in the nation’s Rotunda, or the West Wing, and state capitols, all our elected leaders will start to appreciate the adrenaline that is generated even if they are pretty sure it is not for real “this time.”

Let them crouch under the very seats where they dismissed a vote for gun control. Let them feel their muscles grow tight and knees begin to ache as they kneel behind the desk. And then let them imagine keeping 28 little ones calm at the same time they’re wondering how their own families are faring. Because that is what you teachers do. All the time. Every year, day after day, week after week, month after month.

Maybe then school counselors will not be considered “extras” and will be a part of the state budget, willingly funded by taxpayers in towns where a shooting has occurred.

Only when teachers are truly both seen and heard will there be a consideration of higher pay for entering a classroom in any state without background checks. A mandatory year of paid time off through workman’s compensation isn’t even enough for any educator who suffered through such an event.

At some point, school administrators, teachers and staff should be awarded the Silver Star for bravery, risking their lives to save their students when their legislators would not.

Both students and staff should be given Purple Hearts for being injured both physically and forever psychologically for having witnessed the slaughters our school children did recently, once again.

Only then will every teacher get what they deserve — battle pay.

And every teacher will be awarded the Medal of Honor just for entering their classrooms each day.