Public schools need Covid-19 Administrators

Two weeks ago, my company went back into business, albeit it partially for what are essential products.

At that time, I reassigned a young man who previously managed one of our distribution centers to assume a new role – Covid-19 Administrator. For the next 12 to 24 months – however long it takes the world to overcome the virus - his sole focus will be on the coronavirus. He will, in conjunction with me, frontline managers and everyone on the plant floor develop, redevelop, train, audit and track our countless protocols and procedures while also building a network for testing, tracing, cleaning and communication if someone does become ill.

That may seem to some businessfolk to be a big investment in Covid-19. It is, but it’s a necessary investment and like any investment it has a return: What would the cost be to our countless families, let alone the company, if we had an outbreak? My coworkers, customers, contractors and community deserve protections and his new role helps me ensure that everyone and our supply chain are healthy. You can’t put a cost on that.

Such a position isn’t for every business, especially smaller ones, to make a full-time role (in many cases, a proprietor or human resources person can do this among their duties). Having a Covid-19 Administrator should be based on thresholds and exposures at the consideration of the business owner. For us, with 165 coworkers from wide-ranging and diverse WNY communities and customers who visit from across the United States and Canada, it made sense. There are a lot of people to protect in our workplace and in the workers’ homes.

While I don’t encourage all businesses to bring on such a person I encourage all school districts to.

I’m in charge of essential products but our schools are in charge of essential people – sons, daughters and grandchildren, our world’s most precious gems. They need to be protected, as do the teachers and the parents and babysitters who live with and watch the children.

You know what it’s like with kids and something “simple” like the cold or flu – despite contagious illness policies and considerations, feverish, snot-nosed and coughing kids fill the schools because their parents have to work. These sickly children wipe their mucus on wrists and sleeves, rub their hands along stair rails and door handles, and cough and sneeze on the lunchtable. That causes these common ailments to spread like wildfire in schools and then at homes, which then spread to workplaces. It’s a vicious cycle.

Now, take those behaviors, add a bug that’s a few notches worse, a virus that spreads easily, is difficult to kick, and puts so many with preexisting conditions had by parents and grandparents alike (common maladies like diabetes, heart and lung disease, and old age) at risk of hospitalization and death and you’ve got the perfect formula for a horrid community outbreak.

That’s why a Covid-19 Administrator is so important in each district. You need someone full-time to: Develop social distancing protocols; manage facility layouts; strategize athletic events, plays, and graduations; train students, families, staff and teachers; procure and manage inventories of personal protective equipment; create a testing network; and much more.

It’s necessary to protect the kids and also because this is -- as they keep saying -- the “new normal.” Coronavirus considerations will be with us for a few years until society has developed something close to herd immunity or scientists create a successful vaccine. We certainly can’t shut down the economy and society for years. And, as I mentioned in this page last week, students need their classrooms and teachers --- technology cannot replace the love, care and abilities of our educators. Plus, the kids – and heck, even we moms and dads – need sports, arts and clubs and the lessons and memories they create.

To make that happen schools have to adapt their facilities, operations and behaviors accordingly. With so many moving parts, it will take full-time attention.  

Regular readers of this column are likely scratching their heads and thinking “I thought Confer was a small government guy. Now he wants another unfunded mandate?”

No, I don’t.

The State has identified Covid-19 as a public health risk and has instituted so many – even too many – means to keep it at bay. That admission puts the onus on the State to be deeply involved in it at the most important of public institutions, our schools.  

In a proposal to the State, I will be asking them to consider investing in a Covid-19 Administrator for each district. The schools would hire their own admin (someone who is an excellent project manager) and maintain employment for only two academic years, a temporary position to handle the virus as it develops and to create a playbook that can be rolled out at any time after those two years. That position would be fully-funded by a state grant. The state would also provide a week of training and regular retraining, remotely, to ensure the administrator is up on the latest issues.

With September just 3.5 months away, time is of the essence to make such an essential person an asset for each district and its families. But, we do have a little time to make this a reality and get people hired. Planning and preparation for 2020-2021’s new world has already begun, but amidst the struggles with remote education underway now, it’s not getting the fullest attention until this school year ends.   

A Covid-19 Administrator is an extreme idea, but desperate times calls for desperate measures. We have to give schools the tools they need to protect their precious cargo – my kids and yours.      

From the 18 May 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News  

Governor Cuomo badly reimagines education

Back in 2016, I had the honor of being commencement speaker for my alma mater, Royalton-Hartland. My speech was mostly on point, celebrating our school and community and the great students that came from them.

But, I’m a newspaper columnist, I peddle opinions. So, I briefly went off message and threw a shot at Common Core, the monster of scholastic control that was forced upon educators by non-educators.

I’ll never forget the cheers and vast sea of fist pumps, nodding heads and smiles when I said, “Common Core is rotten to the core.” That universal acknowledgement by the crowd of hundreds spoke to the frustration that teachers, parents and students harbor towards mandates in the classroom.

It didn’t begin and it certainly won’t end with Common Core. The laundry list of educational failures from higher bodies is endless. Think “No Child Left Behind” and “Regents Exams”.

Such programs haven’t worked and will never work as well as powerbrokers would hope because the people who best know the subjects and students (the teachers), have their finger on the pulse of the community (the administrators and school boards), and understand what’s best for their kids (the parents) are all left out of the equation. Under the rules from above, they must do as they are told and cannot do as they should. Elected officials and powerful agencies in the state capitol and Washington, DC, -- and profiteers on Wall Street -- dictate what must be taught and how it should be taught. Education has been standardized by individuals who truly don’t know how to work with children.

That tragic situation is about to get worse in New York if Governor Cuomo has his way.

The Governor’s daily Covid-19 press conferences are a study in political foreplay. He attempts to warm you up to ideas gradually. It’s like reading the tea leaves – he’ll throw some hints your way then days later he hits you with what he wanted to say all along.

In recent weeks, he was repeatedly fond of saying that the distance learning that has been an outcome of New York’s shutdown has been great. I kept wondering why he would say that. It was the furthest thing from the truth. I don't know a single teacher, parent, or student who believes that remote learning has been a winner. It’s been frustrating and heartbreaking for everyone. Sure, we’re all trying, and we all have to under the circumstances, but nothing beats the classroom and the magical abilities of our teachers in the presence of children. 

So, why did he keep championing distance learning?

It was his attempt to make an easy sell out of last week’s announcement – a sale that blew up in his face, by the way, when you gauge the responses by New York’s teachers, principals and superintendents on social media – that the state will be working with the Gates Foundation to “re-imagine” education in the Empire State with a focus on non-classroom learning.

It just so happens the Gates Foundation was the driving force behind Common Core.

We don’t need Common Core 2.0. The first version is bad enough. An impersonal one would be worse.

But, that’s what Cuomo is trying to sell us.

Re-imagining wouldn’t be a bandage to cover the wounds of Covid-19 temporarily as our nation heals. Instead, it would be the scar that’s left once the bandage is removed.

There was an air of permanency in Cuomo’s slideshow and talking points and, given Gates’ investment, you’d expect as much. As Cuomo said, "…the old model of our education system where everyone sits in a classroom is not going to work in the new normal. When we do reopen our schools let's reimagine them for the future.”

The future.

This is, undoubtedly, one of those “never let a good crisis go to waste” moments that politicians crave. Cuomo said as much with less controversial phrasing: "We have a moment in history where we can incorporate and advance ideas. I think this is one of those moments. Let's think about revolutionizing education."

A revolution.

As would be expected from someone totally removed from education, the Governor’s revolution is all about technology and using it to replace, not necessarily augment, the classroom experience.

Nary was a mention given to people.

I don’t care if you have a high-tech classroom or a factory with the very best machinery: Your greatest assets are your people. The folks in the trenches are what get the job done.

The state and federal government have lost sight of that through the years. They think they, statistics and computers – not teachers -- are better suited for managing how our kids learn, what they should learn, and what they can become.

We have to stop that immediately. We can’t go further down this path. We have to make sure Cuomo doesn’t open the gates to the Gates again.

You want to re-imagine education?

Let’s imagine it the way it used to be, when the loving souls who actually know education were allowed to educate.

If we go back to that then we are guaranteed success for our schools, students and society.

From the 11 May 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

Stimulate the economy: Buy American

The American Experience has been defined by our unprecedented combination of brain and brawn.

Our predecessors, dreaming dreams of Manifest Destiny, tamed a wild land, giving up blood, sweat and lives to make a better world for their children and their children’s children. From those seeds of the American Dream, great metropolises sprung up like forests of concrete and steel, fitted with impressive architecture and ever-evolving factories that gave housing and goods to our burgeoning population. Those modern marvels and what they wrought have continued to develop over the years and helped make America the most powerful economic engine that the world has ever seen.

The path that got us to that level, one that took our nation from nothing to everything, was paved by ingenuity and work ethic that was without peer. The infrastructure, technology, science and products that provided the riches of the past and present were once but thoughts, then fully developed and ultimately realized by some of the keenest minds ever, made real by some of the hardest-working hands and backs ever.

Historically, it is important that we never forget that.

But, today, tomorrow and next year, it is important that we re-emphasize that foundation.

Our economy is in tatters with consumer and entrepreneur confidence at record lows and the stock markets a daily roller coaster of misery. Literally tens of millions of workers have lost their jobs in the past two months. Many more live in fear that they, too, might become jobless this year or next.

How do we stave off this monster and the economic and mental depression that comes with it?

How do we reignite the fire within our markets?

How do we keep people employed and give them the confidence to buy?

Those questions have been asked time and time again amidst every recession we’ve faced. Businessmen, civic leaders and regular folk alike, all deeply affect by this tragedy, want answers, answers that will pan out in the end and put America on the fast-track to recovery. They’ve all thrown around ideas in this latest crisis, imposing some while debating many, from bailouts to rebates to nationalization to stimulus packages to public service programs.

Despite all those fanciful expenditures, realize that our economy doesn’t start with Uncle Sam. It begins at home. It’s we as consumers in a free marketplace who save, invest and spend our money on products and services.

Realize, though, that it begins at home in more ways than one. The very best stimulus that our economy could ever have is from our consumers focusing on buying American and buying local. That is what made our country great and that’s what will bring us out of this significant mess. Americans building and selling things to Americans creates prosperity and the quality of life we previously appreciated. History proves that.

We’ve lost sight of that importance. In decades gone by we did not fully rely on foreign production as we do now. We did not toss away American workers and decent products for inferior, foreign-made goods to save a few dollars here and there. We did not buy all of our products from cold, calculating multinational online retailers. We didn’t threaten our national security and health by going all-in with overseas factories.

No, in the past, we as a people made what we bought, and we bought those goods in stores owned and run by our neighbors. We looked out for one another by basing our buying decisions on pride of workmanship, quality, and Country.

We need to get back to those roots, now more than ever.

When the states’ various economies re-open we must frequent the mom and pop stores, the locally-owned franchises and roadside stands, putting the global corporate conglomerates at a distant second. We must analyze the labels of everything we buy, from food to clothes to durables to cars, ensuring that they were made, whole or in part, on America soil by American hands and American minds.

As buyers become tighter with their dollars and buy less of many yet more of quality they’ll find that American products will make the best investment of their spending dollar, not only in terms of a better-made product, but also to the bigger picture of investing in our national well-being. It is such a simple and effective stimulant: if we buy goods that are made in America we employ American workers, managers, designers and farmers all who extract American resources and turn them into the goods we need and want.

So, please buy what they make, keep money in America and ensure that they - our friends, families, and fellow citizens – are all gainfully employed. The payback of buying patriotically can be an economic, emotional, and national victory.

From the 04 May 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News