AS LAWMAKERS return to Little Rock for a special session, parents and students across the state wait to see if schools will be given the ability to ask for masks in classrooms again. This comes at a time when the Delta variant of covid-19 infects hundreds of Arkansans every day. And not just older people, either.

Some lawmakers have already balked at the idea of amending the new law that just went into effect banning mask mandates. But the law was passed at a time when most folks looked ahead to a covid-free summer, fall and future.

If you’ve read the headlines lately, you know the goalposts on that future have been dragged way down the field. Delta is here, and it isn’t leaving on its own. And while angry parents have pointed out students under the age of 12 can’t be vaccinated, there’s another thing lawmakers should consider in their political calculations: teachers.

Because while teachers can (and should) be vaccinated, the Delta variant has shown resilience in infecting fully-vaccinated individuals in what are called breakthrough cases.

Doctors say the vaccines still work well at preventing serious illness and death, but the Delta variant is so powerful, it can infect vaxxed individuals, who can then apparently pass it on to others. Vaxxed folks who end up infected might not show any signs, or they might have some mild symptoms. It seems different from person to person.

So if kids under 12 can’t get vaccinated, the next best line of defense against the Delta variant for them and their teachers might be a mask (which everyone is certainly tired of wearing at this point). But school districts can’t require students to wear them until this law is amended.

And if not, a good portion of Arkansas’ teachers might choose door No. 2 instead of repeating the 2020-21 school year. That is, they might leave the profession altogether.

HOW MANY stories did we hear last school year about burned-out teachers who said “enough!” and changed careers? The Horace Mann Educator Health and Well-Being Study published in November 2020 found pandemic pressures during the school year took a heavy toll on teachers.

Here are some highlights, or rather lowlights: Seventy-seven percent said they were working more in 2020 than one year earlier, and 60 percent of respondents said they enjoyed their jobs less. Around 59 percent said they didn’t feel secure in the health and safety precautions of their schools, and 27 percent said they were considering leaving their jobs.

That report was published in November 2020, so there’s no telling how many teachers in that 27 percent did take an early retirement, or at the very least, a leave of absence. It’d probably be a good bet to say more than a few did.

You can see the impacts of disrupted and remote learning on students’ test scores, and that’s not their fault. Standardized test scores fell last school year in most categories.

Teachers were expected to adapt on the fly and teach remotely, sometimes for months. Educating a classroom with 20-30 students is already a challenge. Trying to wrangle the same number of students over Zoom requires several extra hours a day adapting lesson plans and helping kids who aren’t adapting well to distance learning.

IF ARKANSAS teachers do leave the profession in high numbers, that exacerbates an already-established problem. Arkansas has a teacher shortage and has for years. The problem predates covid-19, but the disease is likely making it even worse.

There’s a reason Asa Hutchinson pushed so hard to increase teacher salaries over the last couple years. The teacher shortage in Arkansas is a big enough problem that the Walton Family Foundation asked TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project) to examine the cause and extent of this issue. TNTP was founded by one-time Washington, D.C., school superintendent Michelle Rhee.

This newspaper’s education reporter Cynthia Howell wrote about the study’s results in April:

“Reasons identified by the national researchers for the shortages of licensed teachers include disparities in starting teacher salaries and average teacher salaries. Salary disparities of several thousand dollars between districts result in licensed teachers leaving or avoiding a high-shortage district for greater salaries elsewhere in the state.

“Other contributing factors to teacher shortages in certain parts of the state include a scarcity of adults with bachelor’s degrees—be it in education or other fields—and a lack of awareness of incentive programs to achieve education degrees and state licensure, authors of the analysis found in reviewing data and interviewing and surveying school employees.”

So if you combine those factors with how hard and dangerous covid-19 made the job of teaching in Arkansas, you can imagine why this could be brewing into a perfect storm for exacerbating this state’s teacher shortage.

The other problems listed in the report are long-term issues that’ll definitely need to be addressed, but right now, one thing lawmakers have the power to do is tweak the law banning mask mandates to give school boards the ability to help keep their teachers safe and employed.

As the weeks count down until school starts again, you can bet thousands of educators across the state are weighing their options. They read the newspaper, too.

Hopefully this factor will go into the calculations of our representatives in the Ledge. Or certainly should.