“Attention, All Staff”

When I’m teaching, I have to keep a two-way radio on in my classroom. My kids think it’s kind of cool, and I suppose it is, except that the squawks are hard to tune out without tuning out the occasional calls I should be hearing. It’s a kind of ‘listening dance’ to keep my train of thought on track while picking up the gist of the radio traffic so that I don’t miss anything important but dismiss the nonsense.

On Thursday, August 20th, I was with my WorkReady class. They were wrapping up their group discussions of the “Survivor Scenario,” in which they each had to select ten items from a list of 20 or so that could be chosen to help them survive a plane crash in subzero temperatures on a forested mountain, 3-foot deep snow, 100 miles from the nearest town, etc. Then they had to meet in groups to compare lists and decide on what their groups would choose before reporting to the referee (me) what they’d chosen (and why). Finally, if any differences remained between the two groups’ lists, we’d see if they could compromise for the final tally.

As I was saying, it was approaching 9:00 a.m. and the group wranglings were almost done. I had written the group names on the dry erase board and put the word “SURVIVOR” in between the names in anticipation of the lists each group’s reporter was going to give me. Just as we were about to begin the reports, my radio squawked, “Attention, All Staff. Attention All Staff.“

I reached for my radio and cranked up the volume. “Return all residents to their housing units to lock in for emergency count. Repeat. Return all residents to their housing units to lock in for emergency count.”

Little did we know at the time what that would mean for us, but I’d had some idea of what could be happening, and I told them to put their binders away or take them with them, because I was fairly certain that we wouldn’t be having class again for a few days. In reality, we didn’t meet again for WorkReady until August 31st.

What happened? COVID 19 had returned to our facility. As of August 20th, seven staff were out with positive diagnoses. All of us were tested over the next two days. Miraculously, none of us were infected, but we’re still back to wearing N-95 masks all the time. As of this week, we are back to regular programming, though the education department is short-staffed, so my classes are regularly pre-empted for college class supervision. I’m not completely against that, but it does play havoc with my schedule on a regular basis, which becomes a bit tiring. Still, we do good work where we are, and I’m glad to be part of this team. It’s been ten years on this job now, and I hope to be here still ten years from now, still making a difference, still changing lives.