As schools in Lincoln gear up to restart next month, several teachers and staff expressed concerns about infection risks of teaching students in person.

The teachers spoke at the August 13 School Committee meeting where administrators unveiled the results of a survey that asked parents to select either all-remote or fully in-person instruction to start the school year on September 16. The state cut the 180-day school year requirement back to 170 to give schools more time to prepare before classes start.

About 80 percent of teachers in Lincoln would prefer to start the school year fully remote and not in person, said Matt Reed, co-president of the Lincoln Educators Association. In contrast, 77 percent of parents in the new survey said they would like to see fully in-person classes, vs. 21% advocating fully remote.

The same survey revealed a mix of sentiments among faculty, with a plurality (36%) preferring a remote assignment, 22% preferring fully in-person, and 16% expressing no preference. Thirty-three percent of instructional support staff said they had no preference, while 31% preferred fully in-person work and 16% preferred remote.

In an earlier survey, 53% of families said their first choice was fully in-person learning with safety protocols and 20% said fully remote learning, while 25% preferred one of several hybrid options.

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has urged school districts to hold classes in person if possible, though they must also offer remote instruction for those with medical vulnerabilities or simply prefer not to attend, even with classroom social distancing, mandatory masks for students, and other Covid-19 precautions. Some towns are also offering a third hybrid option, with some days in person and other days remote.

Every Massachusetts district is wrestling with the decision about what to do. The Wayland School Committee recently voted to begin the school year fully remote. The Concord and Concord-Carlisle districts are still debating which options to offer, though Concord educators have urged their school committee to consider starting the school year remotely. Teachers in Sudbury held a “day of action” at three locations on August 13, hours before the town’s school committee was scheduled to meet, with a flyer saying “Only When It’s Safe — Students First.”

As required by the state, Lincoln submitted a detailed reopening plan earlier this month outlining health and safety precautions, scheduling, and more. The Lincoln teachers’ expression of concern “is in no way a reflection of dissatisfaction with [the school administration’s] work or the plans they submitted to DESE,” Reed said at the August 13 meeting. “It’s the unknowingness that gives many people pause, and teachers want to feel fully prepared.”

“We are worried for our own health, the health of our students, and their families,” both physical and mental, said Lincoln School fifth-grade teacher Joe Colombo, referring to the “stress and anxiety every time a mask slips off someone’s face or someone sneezes.”

“Many teachers have begun to wonder if [the advantages] of the in-person model can actually be fully realized,” said Lincoln School kindergarten teacher Michael Chin. “We’re not choosing between remote and in person; we’re choosing between remote compared to a shell of what in-person learning used to be before Covid-19.”

“How often will I need to remind our first-graders about picking their nose, wiggling a loose tooth, or sucking a thumb?” said Lincoln School teacher Rachel Goldner, lamenting having to fight the “urge to connect and communicate… with a reassuring hand on a child’s shoulder or a hug,” or having morning meeting not in a circle but with “kids in various corners of the room unable to see other children’s smiles and frowns.”

She also touched on the “mind-boggling number of logistics that still need to be ironed out” with regard to things including snack and lunch time, policing recess, student arrivals and departures, after-school activities, and a likely shortage of substitute teachers.

Other teachers worried about safety protocols surrounding toileting and general cleanliness for preK children, evaluating and working with special education students, and making the frequent arrival of new Hanscom students feel welcome.

“Just because we can be fully in-person at the beginning of the school year, should we?” mused Hanscom Middle School fifth-grade teacher Erin Dotson.

“We know there’s a lot of detail still to be worked out,” Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall said. Under the Family First Coronavirus Act, teachers are eligible for paid leave if they or a family member gets sick.

Another big issue is staffing. “If we’re fully remote, we won’t be able to do what we did in the spring and keep people on the payroll — we will have to furlough people,” McFall said.

“Without medical data showing we should absolutely not bring kids back to school, it’s difficult for me to say we should go fully remote,” she said. “I have to follow the guidance of the governor and the Commissioner of Education, and what families say they want and need.”

Lincoln schools are not offering a hybrid option because they have the space to allow fully-in person instruction even with social distancing. “We didn’t see that a hybrid model has that much more benefit,” since all students will still be in the building at various times, and teachers would have two cohorts of students at different parts of the week,” McFall said. “It’s a hard, hard place for us all to be right now, but I think we’ve provided the right options for folks.”