Teaching During a Pandemic: A Harvey teacher faces burnout in keeping family, students safe
Sydney Aponte, a special education teacher in Jefferson Parish, is “constantly afraid” of bringing illness home to her vulnerable daughter.
By Nikka Troy
This profile is part of The Lost Year, a series documenting the stories of local K-12 students and educators as they return to in-person classes amid a pandemic. The series was written and recorded by fellows in our Spring 2021 Community Reporting Fellowship.
Sydney Aponte, a former special education teacher in Harvey, never thought she’d be uprooted by a pandemic. Aponte had always loved her career in education. She had been teased or overlooked in school growing up on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish. She wanted to be the kind of teacher students could turn to when in need.
“I wanted to be there for the kids who would be misunderstood. You know, the kids like me, who look different or maybe act differently,” Aponte said. “I made sure that if I was really going to do this and become a teacher, that I was going to be a great one, a reliable one.”
But by late 2020, Aponte realized that her desire to teach had waned and she would need to take a step back to make time for her family.
Aponte’s time in the classroom was filled with obstacles as new COVID-19 cases surged in and around New Orleans in March 2020. Like most teachers, Aponte’s work shifted online when schools closed last spring. She created Google Classrooms to keep her special education students engaged virtually and held live online sessions. But getting students to log in much less engage in learning was nearly impossible in a virtual setting, she said.
Out of more than a dozen students, “I only had one student who would show up faithfully with her parents. Just one student,” Aponte said.
Still, Aponte had concerns when her school district made the decision to return to in-person classes at the start of the 2020–2021 school year. The pandemic was still raging. New cases in and around New Orleans would spike that August and again in January after the winter holidays.
Aponte noted her school offered families the option to pick up at-home workbooks and materials, and continue virtual learning. However, all of the parents of students in Aponte’s class chose to return to the building, she said. (Aponte asked that we not name the school where she worked for the privacy of her coworkers and students.)
In-person classes were restructured to limit physical contact between teachers and students, but it unintentionally led to an educational disconnect, Aponte said. Her students wanted to hug her when they arrived back at school, just like they had done most mornings before the pandemic. They didn’t understand why she was keeping her distance, Aponte said. Before the pandemic, Aponte walked around the classroom and stood close to students who were struggling. Now, she taught from behind her desk at the front of the classroom to make sure she and students were safe, she said.
“I know a lot of teachers, including myself, felt like there was not enough concern for our safety,” she said. “My students cannot comprehend that you cannot hug me anymore or you can’t hug your classmates.”
Aponte said she also felt less connected to other teachers. Her school used to have Monday morning huddles where teachers would catch-up, talk about the week-ahead and recognize team members who were going above-and-beyond in their work. Those stopped during the pandemic, she said. There were also fewer and smaller planning meetings for teachers in the same grade level, she added.
On top of this, Aponte was worried about how returning to school would affect her family. Aponte’s daughter, Ashton, was born in August 2018, and was just over a year old when the pandemic shutdowns occurred. As an infant, Ashton underwent more than 30 procedures to address health complications, including two open-heart surgeries, brain shunts and spinal surgery.
“My child is the most important thing to me,” Aponte said, adding that nurturing her daughter through that difficult period motivated her to return to the classroom and support her family.
Ashton had grown into a healthy and vibrant toddler when cases of the novel coronavirus started to appear in New Orleans. Aponte knew stepping into a classroom meant putting her daughter’s health at risk, she said. That was hard, she said.
“I’m constantly afraid of bringing things home,” Aponte said.
As the spring semester came to a close, her worst nightmare was realized. Aponte had made up her mind to leave education in December 2020, but she chose to teach through the remainder of the 2020–2021 school year. In April 2021, both Aponte and her husband were diagnosed with COVID-19. Aponte experienced serious complications, including pneumonia. Fortunately, her daughter avoided the virus, and Aponte and her husband have since recovered. But Aponte knew she couldn’t continue teaching.
While her illness pushed her over the edge, Aponte said it wasn’t the sole reason for her exit. She realized that she no longer felt like a source of help for her students. She began questioning her role as a teacher.
“I want to be able to go home at the end of the day and feel like I did good work for the children and for our future,” she said. “And I believe that what I’m doing as a teacher right now, it’s not that.”
Aponte isn’t closing the door on education completely. She and her family have decided to relocate from New Orleans to Seattle. They were in the process of moving in October 2021. Aponte is now looking into higher education to obtain a provisional license and master’s degree in child counseling.
Nikka Troy is a Lede New Orleans Senior Fellow. Troy is a filmmaker and writer working in New Orleans, her hometown.
This story is available to republish under a Creative Commons license. Read Lede New Orleans’ publishing guidelines here.
Support Lede New Orleans and its community-centered reporting by becoming a supporting donor.
To get weekly emails with New Orleans stories and events, sign up for Lede New Orleans’ newsletter.
