School board member regrets telling teacher to ‘think about changing professions’
Amid the controversy around a school shutdown because of staff shortages in the Midlands, a school board member is under fire for how she handled one teacher’s complaints about the district’s COVID-19 re-entry plan.
Lexington-Richland 5 board member Nikki Gardner said she regrets the email she fired off after a contentious school board meeting Monday.
The teacher had written to members of the board to express concerns after enough teachers called out Tuesday to close three high schools. The night before, the board had declined to scale back its re-entry plan.
“Is your job or need to take care of your family better than mine? Should you continue to receive paychecks and full benefits (to help cover you when you are sick) while I do not if I decide I cannot work because I might get sick?” Gardner wrote in reply.
“We all have jobs to do and the confirmation bias you have as a teacher is staggering. Think about changing professions and tell me would you feel safer and would it be worth it? Shouldn’t you go to work like the rest of us even with the risks?”
Speaking to The State on Wednesday, Gardner said she’s already gotten “blowback” from the email’s publication. She should have phrased her point better, she said.
“I said that not because I thought he shouldn’t be a teacher, but because I wanted him to consider how it would be different if he wasn’t able to stay home, with full benefits, if they don’t come into work,” Gardner said.
Parents in Lexington-Richland 5 who don’t have the ability to take off work still need essential services like schools to be open despite the pandemic, Gardner said, adding she has received emails from parents “pleading” to get their children back in school. Gardner said she still works with customers face-to-face as a self-employed insurance agent.
“He’s able to go to the store and the DMV, and we need to be able to send our kids to school,” Gardner said. “That’s what I meant to say, but it backfired.”
The State has reached out to the recipient of the email for a response.
In her email, Gardner went on to call for teachers and parents to find common ground.
“The divide is too great for our little school board to take!!!!” she wrote. “Hold the administration accountable, don’t blame the school board! We are trying to hold the administration accountable and the teacher walkout only PROVES that the administration is failing our school district. Teacher morale is important.”
Superintendent Christina Melton had requested the school board revert to a two-day-a-week hybrid learning model for the rest of the semester, with high school and middle school students going back to learning online for the majority of the week. Students currently are in classrooms four days a week. The school board declined to take any action Monday, but Tuesday’s walkout led the board chair to call for another special meeting on Wednesday.
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 2:35 PM.
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