Elizabeth Shaw

This interview with Elizabeth Shaw was conducted remotely via Zoom on August 28, 2020. This is the second interview recorded with Elizabeth, a school librarian and part-time religious school educator at Rodeph Sholom, a Jewish elementary school located in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The interview begins with a reflection from Elizabeth on her role in a broader school community and her beliefs about childcare as a communal rather than a two-parent task. In the interview, she also discusses a number of challenges that have arisen in Rodeph Sholom's reopening plan for 2020. The school is dependent on tuition to run, and with parents advocating for a variety of their own needs, Elizabeth sees teachers being stretched thin. Topics discussed on this theme include: an administration that is more concerned with placating tuition-paying parents than attending to teacher needs; limited power of teachers to assert their priorities due to their non-union status; the burden of a combination of in-person and remote teaching requirements; and a difficult process for at-risk teachers applying for health accommodations. She also critiques the responses of parents to New York City moving a number of homeless people into a hotel across the street from the school, and she reflects on the discussions about racism and safety that have ensued.