Columbus Diocese Department of Education

To Whom it May Concern,

As you know, this year is incredibly challenging for teachers. To list all the challenges from Covid19, while navigating a new learning management system a week before students arrive, seems futile. We are doing our best to stay positive for our own mental health and for the good for our students. We are working the hardest we ever have in order to be able to adapt to a more digitally-centered classroom. We want to embrace the digital age, which is why we are so frustrated that one of the most useful tools for teachers during this digital age has been banned: YouTube. Yes, it is a social media platform - one that has blossomed and become a great media outlet for teachers and even an evangelization tool for the Catholic faith. Having to find replacements for the engaging videos made by Catholic Relief Services, LifeTeen and Ascension Press, watching international speakers around the world, keeping up with current events, learning to rap vocabulary and science terms, visual aids for math, and one hundred other positive uses and resources, is one less thing we need to be spending our energy on at this time.

We know your decision to eliminate YouTube could not have been a hasty one, but we do hope that you reconsider. Most teachers would agree that it is not a place for students, but it is an irreplaceable resource for teachers. Yes, irreplaceable. By banning YouTube, access to all the other resources that use YouTube to embed their videos would also be cut off. Lifting this ban is something tangible that you can do to make the lives of many over-stretched and tired teachers a little easier.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,