ORLANDO, Fla. — With students back to school in Central Florida, life almost seems normal again, but inside the classroom, COVID-19 is changing everything.

“This is by far the hardest year ever,” Merritt Island High School math teacher Traci Stiles said.

She and teachers across the state are providing instruction to students online and in person simultaneously.

“It’s exhausting, to have the kids online and in the classroom,” Stiles said.

Teachers in four Central Florida school districts interviewed by Spectrum News 13 all expressed concerns about how the pandemic is affecting their work.  

“Today, I am beyond exhausted,” Orange County teacher Matthew Panzano said.

Volusia County teacher Amy Hawkins said, “I’ve cried more as a teacher, in the last six weeks than I have in the last 10 years.

The teachers said a lot of the problems they face in the classroom are a direct result of the way local and state governments are handling education during the pandemic.

“On all levels, I have been I’ve been outraged,” Seminole County teacher Joanna Marino said.  “I’ve been outraged at the response. And across the party lines.”

For some educators, it will make a difference at the polls, too.

“It’s definitely going to change the way that I vote in this election,” Marino said. “It’s definitely changing the way that I’m looking at the candidates, um, whereas before maybe I wasn’t giving them necessarily the scrutiny that I’m going to be giving them now.”

For others, the actions by politicians reaffirm their election choices.  

“Especially our governor, who I feel, thinks that the economy is more important, than the lives of our students and teachers,” Panzano said.

“Has it changed my view of the state government? No! Because that’s not new,” Hawkins said.

For Stiles, the virus threatens her family’s fragile health.

“There is always a fear of him losing his kidney,” Stiles said.

Stiles’ son Blake underwent two kidney transplants in his young life. Exposure to a disease like COVID-19 is potentially catastrophic.

“If he loses that kidney, it would be a nightmare for me…just a complete nightmare,” she said.

Because of the state’s mandate to go back to the classroom, Stiles risks exposure to the virus every day – and that confirms her decision at the ballot box.

“It has not changed, what I’m putting, because basically everyone that’s in office right now, I probably did not vote for,” Stiles said.