Ventura County teachers voice their concerns about returning to work

OXNARD, Calif. -- School is supposed to start in less than a month, but a lot of teachers are worried about returning to work.

“I am feeling a lot of anxiety, and very stressed out,” said Jennifer Braun, who is a third-grade teacher at Lemonwood Elementary School in Oxnard. “We don’t know exactly what our teaching is going to look like.”

Braun is one of many teachers in Ventura County scared to return back to work come August 19.

“I do not know if there is a teacher out there that isn’t a little concerned,” said Braun.

The Lemonwood Elementary Teacher has been teaching for more than 30 years.

“I am over 60 and I am a widow and I have a son who is still in school and he is worried about me coming back to work and being around people,” said Braun.

She's not alone.

“We do have older teachers and we have some with pre-existing conditions,” said Martha Jimenez-Ito, who is a Spanish teacher at Rio Mesa high school in Oxnard. “I myself do not have those problems but my husband has asthma, so I think I would literally have to change my clothes and go directly into a shower before I even came back into the house.”

Many schools are considering hybrid teaching models where students only go to class once or twice a week and all other learning is done virtually. But teachers still have a lot of questions.

“How close can I get to a student? And how can I help a student who might be struggling with math if I can’t get closer than six feet?” said Braun. “I have a huge library that my kids are able to use every day. Are they able to use those books? If a teacher were to contract COVID at school, we don’t know what the protocol would be.”

The school district says it is following CDC and Pubic Health guidelines. There is no telling yet if Ventura County will follow Los Angeles and San Diego, which decided all learning will be done remotely this fall.

“We miss our kids,” said Jimenez-Ito. “We miss them horribly, but we want safety first."