The Breeze JMU’s award-winning newspaper since 1922
october 21, 2021 VOL. 100 NO.10 BREEZEJMU.ORG
Dukes behind the desk paper’s headline ah yeah
HCPS collaborates with JMU in wake of critical teaching shortage By MCKINLEY MIHAILOFF The Breeze
Annette Fornadel, a dual-language kindergarten teacher at Keister Elementary School in Harrisonburg, always knew she wanted to be a teacher. What she didn’t know was that a growing critical need for teachers would impact her career — along with many others. After transitioning back to in-person classes this fall, the strain placed on teachers has become evident. “There are perfectly wonderful teachers who are resigning and possibly looking for other lines of work because they can’t even go to the bathroom during the day,” Catherine Coulter, the former president of the Harrisonburg Education Association, said at the Sept. 21 Harrisonburg City Public Schools (HCPS) school board meeting. “When a teacher is told they have to eat lunch with their children and their planning time is taken up with a meeting, they have no break whatsoever, and that to me is criminal.” That’s what led Fornadel to stand before the HCPS school board and ask for their approval of an Exigency Plan that would alleviate some of the time pressure on teachers. “The demands on teachers across the nation are higher than they ever have been,” Fornadel said. “I felt like, and I think a lot of my colleagues felt like, we were tired at the beginning of school already. We worked so hard in new circumstances that I felt like it was really important to be heard at that meeting and to really voice that concern.”
Patrick Lintner, HCPS’ chief academic officer, presented the Exigency Plan to the school board Sept. 21. Lintner cited teacher stress, rising COVID-19 cases and the “critical” need for substitute teachers as a few of the reasons the relief plan was necessary. “Our school staff, administrators, teachers — all staff — are spread thin,” Lintner said at the school board meeting, “and certainly expressing the stress of the challenges of balancing this profession they love with their families and their own mental health.” One provision included in the Exigency Plan was to shorten the school day by an hour. After being approved unanimously by the board, this plan went into effect Oct. 4. Although it’s only been two weeks, Fornadel already sees improvement. She said teachers are using this time to their advantage in order to plan lessons that have been put on hold, communicate with parents and meet with each other. “There’s a lot that happens behind the scenes of teaching, so we get to do all of those things in that hour,” Fornadel said. “It’s been very valuable.” Another provision of the Exigency Plan was to begin the process of hiring permanent substitute teachers, starting with elementary schools. On Oct. 11, an email was sent to all active JMU students in teacher education about informational meetings on becoming HCPS substitute teachers. see PARTNERS, page 6
JMU professor stresses global awareness By EMMA JOHNSON contributing writer
Ken Rutherford has lived numerous lifetimes within his own lifetime. When a landmine overturned Rutherford’s vehicle on a humanitarian trip abroad, he found himself face-to-face with death. “The next thing I know is I went blind,” Rutherford said. Rutherford is a political science professor and former director of the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery at JMU. In 1987, Rutherford began his career working for the Peace Corps in Mauritania, a country in Western Africa. He continued his humanitarian work for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as an emergency refugee coordinator in Senegal before finally landing in northern Kenya and Somalia working as a humanitarian emergency relief officer. On Oct. 4, 1993 — the day after Black Hawk Down, a failed raid in Somalia’s capital resulting in a helicopter crash that killed 19 American soldiers — a crowd surrounded Rutherford and his staff’s car.
“I was the only American operating in the area,” Rutherford said. “[My staff] backed the car up through the crowd, threw me in and pulled out.” Rutherford’s staff had told the crowd they were Canadian, allowing them to escape the mob unscathed. A week later, his life would change forever.
‘I mentally wrote my eulogy’
It was a Thursday, Rutherford recalled, when he was driving with a team of Somalis. They were traveling to meet a group of returned refugees from Ethiopia. “When I talk about it, I have to go back and think,” Rutherford said. He went through a checklist of memories leading up to his injury, vividly reliving the moment in his head. “Muslims don’t work on a Friday; my life was threatened,” Rutherford said. “The car slowed down, and I looked up and there was a donkey cart in the road,” Rutherford said. Rutherford’s car was in non-U.S. controlled territory when it hit the landmine. He remembers the dust clearing, looking down and seeing someone’s foot on the floorboard. see LEGACY OF PEACE, page 18
When he’s not teaching, Rutherford spends his time advocating for refugees injured by landmines. Photo submitted by Ken Rutherford