*this article was first published in the Charlotte Observer

As COVID rates skyrocket in North Carolina and more educators lose their lives to the virus, an unmistakable trend is starting to emerge:  school districts falling all over themselves to claim the infected employee didn’t get coronavirus at work.

When Stanly County teacher Julie Davis died last month, superintendent Vicki Calvert quickly issued a statement saying, “there is no information from the local health department indicating Mrs. Davis contracted the COVID-19 virus from any staff member or student on campus.”  

Davis’s family spoke of her extreme vigilance in avoiding situations where infections could occur, wearing a mask whenever out of the house and doing all of her shopping by curbside and drive-through.  She was apprehensive about returning to school because of the increased risk but did so anyway.  

Julie Davis got sick at the end of September and passed away on October 4.  Her brother said Davis was convinced she got the virus at school.  A student who attended the school (not one of hers) had tested positive, and she was unaware of any other time she would have been in the same space with someone who had COVID.

Just a week after Davis passed away, Stanly County Schools was forced to close to in-person instruction due to out-of-control COVID infections in the community and in the schools.

Last Friday a 51 year-old elementary art teacher at a Fayetteville charter school died of COVID.  Her name was Mary Ward.

The school’s superintendent said school officials didn’t believe Ward contracted the virus at work.  However, her daughter said, “We don’t really know [where she got the virus] because she never really went out. She definitely wore her mask, she definitely hand sanitized. She did everything the CDC told us to.”

On Monday, Winston-Salem teacher assistant Teresa Gaither passed away after serving students at Easton Elementary for 23 years.  A school spokesman wouldn’t confirm the cause but was eager to explain that she didn’t get it at work, saying, “At this time, the Forsyth County Department of Public Health has given WS/FCS no indication that Ms. Gaither’s cause of death was related to her employment.”  Her colleagues confirmed that Gaither died of COVID.

In Charlotte-Mecklenburg, where the district has just begun reporting COVID infections by school, a WBTV report this week said school officials “do not believe students and staff are testing positive because they are back inside the classroom.  They say students are staff and getting sick from circumstances outside of the school.” (typos not mine)

Here’s what public relations-minded school districts are implying when they claim that a COVID infection had nothing to do with school:  Somewhere, somehow that individual made a careless error which led to their illness.  It had nothing to do with insufficient safety protocols, asymptomatic carriers, or a lack of resources.  

There’s nothing to see here, folks.  Mask up and wash your hands, everyone.  Just lean in and we’ll be fine.

Could we please have the decency to admit that, in many of these cases, we have no idea where they got it?  While it is possible these educators contracted the virus outside of school, it’s just as likely that they didn’t.  We simply don’t know.

What we do know about this virus is that the only way to truly stay safe from it is to avoid crowded public places, perform regular disinfection and ensure proper ventilation and clean air flow when we must share space with others.  Those conditions are hard to come by in a public school.

These educators who have lost their lives during the pandemic have been forced to choose between increasing their risk of infection by returning to in-person instruction and not being able to feed their kids or pay their mortgage.

Many of our educators have been vocal in calling for a return to school only when we can be reasonably certain it’s safe, with maximum social distancing, effective contact tracing, safe HVAC systems and sufficient staff.  In far too many cases they’ve been forced back to the classrooms they love with none of those things.

In light of their dedication to serving our children despite a raging pandemic, it’s the least we can do to stop blaming our educators for getting COVID