This is the time of year when teachers ordinarily would be getting their class rosters and making their Staples runs, excitedly planning for the start of school.

"It's full of possibilities and opportunities, but because of what's going on, because of the global (COVID-19) pandemic, because there's so much unknown ... it has been really difficult to feel that excitement that we always feel, and it's almost like a sense of loss for teachers," said Jackie Tolkin, who is starting in New Haven Public Schools this year after eight years in Meriden.

Educators throughout Connecticut are using words like "overwhelmed," "terrified" or "livid" to describe their current state of mind.

And many feel their voices haven't been heard.

The Day interviewed 31 teachers this past week over the phone, via Zoom and at a rally Wednesday in Hartford demanding "a safe, equitable and fully funded school reopening." More than half spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fears of retribution from administration or backlash from a public they say has grown vitriolic toward teachers online.

A common theme was concern over inequities that put students in urban schools disproportionately at risk, with Tolkin noting that districts like New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport are too overcrowded and underfunded to reduce class sizes.

Compared to nearby Windham, one Mansfield teacher commented, "My district has money, my district has resources, my district has tiny, tiny classroom sizes. I know my kids are going to be safer, and that's fair?"

Across the economic spectrum, many school buildings are old and deteriorating, and teachers are concerned about poor ventilation. They're also worried about funding for adequate personal protective equipment, or PPE.

"Schools that have lower budgets have a harder time with basic supplies, so how are they going to do this?" asked Marisa Copley, a Windham High School art teacher who helped design an art installation communicating budgetary inequities at the Hartford rally. One middle school teacher in Hartford pointed out that teachers are creating GoFundMe pages to raise money for classroom supplies.

Gov. Ned Lamont announced earlier this month the state is allocating $266 million for schools to reopen, mostly through federal funding.

Teachers also raised concerns about students taking "mask breaks" in the classroom, the difficulty of doing their job effectively while social distancing, and a lack of information on what will happen if or when a student or teacher tests positive for COVID-19.

During Lamont's briefing Thursday, Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona said there "are plans being developed to further provide guidance on how to close, whether it's a classroom or a school building or wing of a building, based on the spread." His department is working on that with superintendents and the Department of Public Health, and Cardona said he's hoping to get that information out as soon as next week.

"Connecticut's been at a very low rate of death, but that's going to change when we open the doors of schools again," a Portland teacher said, "and then what's going to happen to their social-emotional growth when their teachers are dying and their family members are sick?"

A Connecticut Education Association survey of 15,882 union members conducted July 13-20 found that if given a choice, 46% of teachers would prefer full distance learning this fall, 39% a hybrid of virtual and in-person classes, and 16% full reopening. On Monday, the CEA recommended the reopening of public schools be delayed until mid-September, a call that Lamont and Cardona rejected.

Lamont spokesperson Rob Blanchard noted that after schools closed in the spring, 176,000 Connecticut students didn't log on for a single day of distance learning.

Parents vs. teachers

Teachers feel they're often pitted against parents, but many are parents themselves and feel like they're now choosing between their job and their family.

"Teachers will adapt to whatever we need to, because that's our job. That's what we signed up for," New London High School teacher Josh Brown said.

Others want to quit but are financially unable or they rely on their job for health insurance.

Citing health and safety fears, Celeste Forst took the rare step of resigning. The art teacher will rely on teaching "pods" of up to six kids in people's homes and teaching online art classes to kids around the world.

"Simply put, I am not going into a school to teach in a poorly ventilated building, with no (COVID-19) testing for staff and students prior to opening," she wrote in her resignation letter. "Hybrid helps students stay more socially distanced but does nothing to minimize teachers' exposure."

Forst said she requested an Americans with Disabilities Act accommodation to teach remotely because of her anxiety but was denied.

A high school teacher in Norwich said she knows of at least 10 teachers with pre-existing conditions who tried to get ADA accommodations but were denied. A high school teacher in Region 4 — Chester, Deep River and Essex — has heard that quite a few with high-risk pregnancies have been denied.

The Region 4 teacher said there's also an element of misogyny in the female-dominated profession, with people assuming that teachers are married and have a husband to help with finances.

Many districts opt for hybrid return

Many districts in Connecticut are doing a hybrid model with cohorts, where half the students go to school Monday and Tuesday and half do distance learning, schools are closed for cleaning on Wednesday, and the cohorts swap for Thursday and Friday.

Some districts set a goal of returning to full in-person classes by mid-October, though some teachers think the hybrid model will fail and schools will revert to online only.

"There really is no perfect scenario, because what's going to work with one school in one grade with one teacher's course isn't going to apply elsewhere," said Waterford resident Baird Welch-Collins, a middle school teacher in Lebanon and candidate for the 38th District state House seat.

He would have preferred all remote or all in-person classes, commenting that "if we do not feel we should be back fully in the classroom, we should not be back in the classroom at all." He thinks if the state is at a safe level and has testing ready, districts should go all in-person.

Does he think we're at that level yet? No. But he thinks compared to most districts in Connecticut, Lebanon is better prepared and has been more communicative with teachers.

At the state level, Welch-Collins thinks the summer could have been better spent coming up with a child care plan. One middle-school Norwich teacher questioned where teachers would find child care and feels we're "opening the network way too much."

In New London, Brown feels teacher feedback is being heard and has confidence in his administration, but he would have preferred to see districts fully remote for now. He noted that while the state is "doing better" than others, "we have to take into account that there are spikes, things are going back up."

Rose Reyes, a town councilwoman and teacher in Windham, said Lamont is banking on the state's low case numbers. But keeping children home is what saved them and has kept those numbers low, she said, and now we want to "poke the bear." She wishes districts could have used recent months to better organize remote learning.

"People are trying to put the square peg in the round hole, thinking if we act normal and pretend that this isn't as big as it really is, that it'll all balance out," Reyes said. "And I'm like, no. It's OK to stop and say, 'This is a pandemic; how should we respond accordingly?'"

One Norwich high school teacher said she's troubled by the frequency in plans of words such as "when possible" and "when feasible." A Norwich middle school teacher questioned, "What's the point of cohorting if they're going to take the regular bus and they're going to do sports?"

East Hampton elementary school teacher Carolanne Vining said her district has done a great job of listening to and accommodating teachers, but as an art teacher who has 650 students a week, she's worried about the potential of spreading COVID-19 across the building.

Vining said parents are under the impression that kids are safe under the cohort model because they will be exposed to only 10 kids all the time, but she is "going to be going in and popping all these bubbles."

Adrian Durlester, a substitute teacher in Simsbury Public Schools, might find himself in a chemistry or physics lab, band or choir rehearsal, or auto mechanics class, and with the pandemic, he'd feel more comfortable in some settings than others.

"If I weren't 65 years old and worried about my health, I think I would still be concerned," Durlester said.

But he commended Simsbury school administration for reaching out to substitutes and thinking about how they will be implemented, whereas he read opening plans from across the country and "very few of them take into account the substitutes at all."

Another issue is that substitute shortages persist even when there isn't a pandemic.

A high school teacher in Windsor Locks questioned how districts will find subs when teachers have a sore throat or cough or low-grade fever — symptoms that could be COVID-19 or just a head cold.

"Either we're wrong for staying home, because we're causing problems, there isn't coverage," she said, or they're wrong for coming in, "because maybe we do have (COVID-19)."

Rally pushes for remote return to school

The New Haven Board of Education voted to provide remote-only education for the first 10 weeks of school.

Tolkin would love to be able to teach outdoors, with tents and electricity. But without the resources for that, she thinks the best option is distance learning where every student has proper Wi-Fi access. She thinks providing students with laptops and Wi-Fi is a lot less expensive than providing masks every day.

"You can't educate a student who's dead," she added.

Multiple groups organized the Hartford rally in part to encourage other districts to follow New Haven's lead.

Organizer Leslie Blatteau, a teacher in New Haven, is asking the state to "put the brakes on in-person learning" and instead invest in high-quality remote education. She said she's frustrated by the comparisons to March when it comes to distance learning.

"That was an emergency transition in a global pandemic," she said, noting that "right now we have the opportunity to plan, so we are not doing another emergency situation."

Blatteau is pushing for the state to use its rainy day fund to invest in child care subsidies and economic relief for families, as is Reyes.

"We are not lazy. We are not looking for an easy way out," Blatteau said. "We want to do what's best for the community."

The rally in Hartford featured a temporary art installation with a three-dimensional image of the coronavirus in the center, surrounded by more than 170 cardboard heads stuck on posts in the ground. Each had a price tag representing per-pupil spending, with the lower figures closer to the "virus." Teachers, parents and kids who showed up at the rally connected string from the virus to heads, and from head to head, to show how the virus spreads.

The rally also included a speaking portion on the Capitol steps. People held up signs reading, "School is not daycare," "Kids ≠ lab rats," "Classes online until cases benign," "Make the grade not the grave," and "I can teach from a distance but not from a casket."

Some districts opt for full return to classroom

Unlike many teachers, Sterling middle school teacher Andrea McKenzie is happy with both the opportunities for teacher input and her district's reopening plan.

Her superintendent at the end of last school year started a focus group of about 40 teachers, parents, students and other community members, which has met about 10 times on Zoom, she said. A survey of families showed that about 30% of them wanted to do remote learning.

Teachers who can't return in person due to health concerns are being put in charge of those kids, and the remaining students are returning in person five days a week with classes no larger than 15, McKenzie said. She added that Sterling is able to do this because it's such a tiny district.

McKenzie and her kids are all on different schedules: Her daughter will be going to school Thursdays and Fridays through Ledyard High School's hybrid model, and her son at Grasso Tech will be alternating between 10 days at school and 10 days at home.

McKenzie said Sterling also has a plan for going hybrid and a plan for going full-remote, "and we can do it (the switch) on a dime."

Windsor Locks is allowing parents to choose fully in-person or fully remote classes for their kids. One teacher questioned how she would deal with the normal issues of elementary school students — they have to go to the bathroom, they can't zip something, they're having behavioral issues — while also logging in to Google Meet to help students who are staying home.

East Hartford also is returning fully in person. One of many concerns Elizabeth Trojanowski has is the emotional burden of enforcing social distancing among her students. "How can I honestly look at a middle-schooler who wants to hold hands with their first girlfriend or share a locker or hug their friend they haven't seen in six months, how can I look at them and say, 'No, you can't do that?'"

What she is most focused on now is reinventing education. She doesn't want to go back to an "antiquated, inequitable system" that wasn't meeting the needs of 100% of students on its best days.

e.moser@theday.com