Department of Education
Washington, DC.
Office of the Secretary of Education
The Honorable Betsy DeVos
RE: TOOLKIT UPDATE:
IMPORTANT MEMO TO SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS!
FORM LETTER FOR INEVITABLE TEACHER DEATHS WILL DECREASE YOUR WORKLOAD.
Dear School Administrators,
In order to safely reopen schools across the country, a “tool kit” is essential for every school administrator who wants to stay on top of the proverbial curve of the pandemic. Our suggestions include a ‘closure” form letter for students and teachers. An “exposure” form letter. Let’s say Substitute Bob gets COVID-19, and he possibly “exposed” COVID-19 to 200 children and 50 teachers. You see what we mean?
Do you want to write that many letters?
We also highly recommend a form letter when “teachers or students” take a ride on Charon’s old ferry boat, to use a pleasant euphemism for those sudden and grisly COVID-19 deaths. Again, think of all those letters!
Administrators can happily and easily use this form letter for the community if a teacher, sadly, but necessary for the health of our economy, passes due to COVID-19. Moreover, an administrator who happens to take over for a recently dead or retired administrator, untested in times of strife and death, will be thankful such a letter exists.
An updated form letter will be forthcoming for any potential student “passing” into the Shades to parley with Achilles and Mentor, let’s say. We love our mythology here at the Department of Education. My associates here affectionately call me Hekate. Isn’t that adorable?
But in all seriousness, here it is:
(Add date)
Dear community,
It is with (tender/utter/complete) sadness that I write about the loss of (Teacher A).
(Teacher A) was a (fine/excellent/dedicated) teacher.
(Teacher A) will be missed by all, except for (Student A) who thought (Teacher A) was too strict and gave too much work. If there was a bar, (Teacher A) set that bar to (10, 11, 12).
(Teacher A) loved teaching (subject). (Teacher A) was born to be a TEACHER.
There was nothing else (Teacher A) lived for. (Teacher A) worked (forty/fifty/sixty/seventy) hours a week, and graded (types of assessments) on weekends while (add friends) were out partying or playing (tennis/golf/pickleball) with (husband/wife/special someone).
(Teacher A) worked at this (amazing/wonderful/supportive) school for (# years).
(Teacher A) gave the last full measure of devotion to the incredible craft of teaching, our noblest and most honored of professions in The United States. As you (may/should) know, America treasures its teachers more than any other country, with the possible exception of (Ireland /Finland /Poland/ South Korea/ Russia /Japan /Germany/ Denmark/ Mexico/ Spain/Chile/Guatemala).
We here at (add school, duh), did (everything/ everything possible within budget/ everything possible within the laws of science and virus mutation) to ensure the safety of not only (Teacher A), but all those who still remain in our (time-honored, precious, God-projected) (abode/ house/ refuge/ institution) of (learning/ baby-sitting service).
(Teacher A) leaves behind not only an empty (classroom #), but also (amount in pension and sick days) and (add wife, husband, children, cats, dogs, fish, long-time paramour).
(Teacher A) wanted to do (add three things) in retirement.
Colleagues who remain in the classroom said (Teacher A) was a (good/ great/ phenomenal/ God-like) teacher and “(loved/dearly loved) the students.”
(Teacher A) was (hell-bent/determined like a Crusader) to return to (classroom), even knowing the (danger/risk/utter fear). Our reopening plans were (amazing/ well-considered/ half-baked/ forced by gunpoint by budget cuts).
Please, tonight, over your meal, say a (word/prayer/Beatles song) to (Teacher A). (Teacher A) especially loved (“In My Life, “Blackbird, “The Long and Winding Road”).
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The Department of Education, The Re-Election Campaign of Donald Trump, the Betsy DeVos Foundation for Christian Charter Schools, or the The Alternative Facts and Re-Examination of Science Foundations under the aegis of the God and Family Center for the New American Way.
The atoms of (Teacher A) will surely (linger/haunt/float/mutate) in (room #) for years to come.
– Yours in (tender/ eternal/ momentary) mourning,
Mr/Dr/Mrs/Mx
Superintendent of Schools (healthy/very healthy/ protected by the grey-eyed goddess Athena for eternity)
(EdD/PhD) (online degree school here/ real degree from brick and mortar if before 1995)
(safely ensconced for the safety of this School District in an office with little to no contact with children or employees).