I find it odd to have Eric Bergstrom write a commentary about the grave mistakes made by Salt Lake City’s School Board within the week that Utah set three daily COVID-19 case records.
I’ll be blunt. As a woman who has heard a lot of mansplaining, I would argue his editorial was rife with it. He was most critical of the female board members, specifically Katherine Kennedy, Ph.D., but all the women received his dismissive treatment. He ignored two male board members. Do Sam Hanson and Nate Salazar even exist?
The oddest opinion of all, Eric praised the one male board member who wouldn’t pay attention in board meetings if his life depended on it and would change his mind with the direction of the wind. In my opinion, Mike Nemelka is the last person on the board who looks at a subject with any measure of clarity or reason.
What bothered me personally was Eric referencing the poor single working mom. On behalf of single mothers, thanks, but we can speak for ourselves. We do have voices of our own, and more often than not our voices get dismissed. After the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I have absolutely no patience for it and find it infuriating.
On top of it all, he decides to mansplain privilege and poverty. I get it. We want to give voice to the voiceless, but I’m sorry, as Eric points out, he has privilege, and quite a bit. He is a married man with a house and a job. I’d prefer seeing him check that privilege by simply speaking less and listening more to those he professes to speak for.
As for the district problems raised by Mr. Bergstrom, our reality is we have different students with different voices, socioeconomic status and concerns. He’s concerned about declining enrollment because of remote learning. I’m concerned that both Canyons and Jordan school districts have struggled to follow the health department guidelines to close schools for two weeks after an outbreak of 15 or more within a school. How might that change the metric and frustration with other districts in the weeks to come? We’ll see.
The computer shortage is nationwide. Could the district have planned earlier to buy more computers? Probably. Unfortunately, we would have the same problem we have now with a hybrid schedule, since every kid needs a computer in both scenarios.
How do we deal with kids not logging on? It’s the most recalcitrant problem we face as an inner city district where parents are under-resourced and overworked.
We all want our kids to succeed. While we definitely want improvement and buttressing for Salt Lake City kids, the numbers aren’t as dire as Eric’s anecdotal glance would suggest. I also know that the English language learners and kids with IEPs are being brought in for small group instruction. They’re our most at-risk populations and the ones we should be supporting. Let’s be honest. We need more money, but that’s a story for another day.
I want my kids in class as much as anyone. Sadly, we have competing problems, and there are only problematic choices in this pandemic. We have to trust that the district does want to do what’s best for our kids. Rather than pitting ourselves against the district and taking energy away from actual governance, let’s instead support teachers, administrators and, yes, even the somewhat dysfunctional school board, giving the members the opportunity to work on making things better.
We aren’t giving them the opportunity to govern well if we fight them at every turn.
Emily Stromness
Emily Stromness, Salt Lake City, is the proud single mother of three amazing kids (one graduate and two still in Salt Lake City high schools).
