It had to come to this.

In November of 2016, people kept saying that we’ll make it through this administration, as we had in the past. A critical analysis of history reveals that, to the contrary, some won’t. Indeed, some haven’t. Even with a Democratic mayor in a Democratic city and a Democratic governor as our head of state, a subset of people knew that the corrupt incompetence of the racist, sexist pseudo-billionaire from this city would reap what America has sown since its inception. America’s institutional diseases have prevailed even after mass labor transferred – ostensibly – from Black bodies to complex machines.

This country had a civil war over one of those diseases and – rather than quarantine it – decided to let the disease take new forms and spread from ocean to ocean.

As a Black Latinx teacher, I inherited the legacy of teachers who witnessed educational inequities firsthand and fought tooth and nail to overturn unjust policies and practices upon our children. For decades, the American public has known that teachers are underpaid for the preparation they do and the practice they take on. But there’s also an unwritten contract that teachers implicitly undertake when we assign ourselves to the teaching profession, whether it’s in public schools, charter schools, private schools, schools in alternative settings like prisons and shelters, and even homeschooling. Some of us are explicitly aware of this social contract in moments where the contract we signed and the contract we can’t see come into conflict.

For example, nowhere in our contract does it say we must love our children, or even build relationships with them. Nowhere in our contract does it say we have to spend above whatever monies get allotted to us. Nowhere does it say we have to get to school an hour early, an hour late, a week earlier than school starts, or come during breaks. Nowhere does it say that we have to orient ourselves as people who serve and collaborate with our students, parents, and communities to ensure learning. Nowhere does it say we have to put ourselves in clear and imminent danger. Yet, there we are doing just that because we believe our students need that extra bit. We may not like being told to do those things, but we’ll do it without prompt because we know we need to extend ourselves to do our jobs well.

These elements get complicated when we’re in the face of national emergencies. There exists a real vacuum in leadership in this country that we can’t just cap with a flag and a seal. Our more rational selves give way to human and individual responses. If we don’t see immediate action from people designated to be our leaders, we do what’s natural and protect ourselves from the rest of the world. We step away from our stated values. We rest on our more fragile instincts.

We move further from a communal spirit. Every verifiable source on this virus tells us we need to think communally.

Calls to shut down schools came fast and furious, too. Some media pundits chomped at the bit to harangue Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Richard Carranza for their lack of preparation in this situation. Many rank-and-file teachers across the school system threatened to orchestrate a sick-out while our teachers’ union had urged both the mayor and the chancellor to close schools in the foreground and the background. Throughout the week, large school systems across the country shuttered their schools and creatively set up meal centers and childcare centers in quick succession. Or so it seemed.

In the midst of the maelstrom, few, if any, had paid attention to the unwritten contract we signed, especially those of us who work with children in intentionally impoverished conditions.

In my time as a teacher, I knew deeply the importance of my position as an educator. I slept over a cousin’s house uptown when the MTA had an extended transit strike against the city. I strapped my Timberlands up during snowstorms that should have been snow days. I’ve been to former students’ funerals and former colleagues’ funerals. During Hurricane Sandy, I called parents’ houses to see if they were doing well. For months after Sandy Hook and Parkland, I felt the trauma of knowing I’d have to put myself in front of a gun to protect my students.

I am no hero. I agree that we shouldn’t have to risk our lives to do the job we do. But a larger part of me recognizes what I got myself into when I was hired as a teacher. Gravity should pull us right here.

So now NYC schools are closed until April 20th at minimum, a Pyrrhic victory in the eyes of many. Now, the vast majority of us have to plan for “remote learning” using any number of online learning tools that we may not be familiar with. Now, educators scramble to come up with a plan we didn’t give ourselves sufficient time to understand. Now, Mayor de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo have said the quiet parts out loud: our education system is also one of the most extensive childcare systems in the nation as well. Our extensive childcare system makes every other job, especially our other first responders, feasible. This public reframing of NYC public schools as a set of pillars inextricable to the vitality to the city also means that our most vulnerable and institutionally forgotten in our city feel disregarded once again when we abruptly close the schools.

I agree with closing schools wholeheartedly. I have a wife and son at home who need me to come back home daily and in good health. Our house provides for our parents, too. I also think a school system with about 350 thousand more students than the second-most populous school system presents its own set of challenges. When our parents of color think we haven’t named and addressed the challenges our actions present to the whole community sufficiently, we negatively complicate our advocacy, too.

I now have more questions than answers. How will our students living in shelters get their needs met? How will our students with (dis)abilities get their services? What happens to our homeless students, our students who don’t have Internet at home, our students who didn’t update those contact forms when we asked them? Which companies do we trust with protecting our students’ data? Which adults know how to use these platforms, present these platforms, and support other adults in using them? How do we get beyond e-worksheets and e-busy work? How do we engage students in ways that allow us even a semblance of the energy we create in our classes?

Also, will capitalism and its pernicious bosses strip low-wage workers from jobs when they have to take care of their children?

I don’t have the answers. I haven’t had the time, either. I’m walking into a school building again tomorrow with the same optimism that so many of our ancestors had when they walked into perilous situations. I’ll offer hope the way they did when confronted by their peers and their detractors alike. I’ll practice social distancing because I’m generally an introvert and do my due diligence because my peers rely on me.

People often mistake my optimism for naiveté, failing to recognize I’m always angry. I don’t want to be a martyr, but I don’t write the laws that put students and teachers in the positions we’re in, at least not yet. I just need to know that we’re going to work hard together to bring some sense of calm to this electric city.

Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Use disinfectant where you can. Remain three to six feet away from people you don’t have in your immediate family. Yet, keep everyone in our city in mind as we move. That’s how we get rid of this virus.

Once we make it over this one, we should get to work on cleaning up the others.