During the outbreak of COVID-19 in March and April, the New York City United Federation of Teachers lost more than 75 school-based employees. 28 of those employees who died were paraprofessionals.
Education Cities was broken up into two new organizations in 2018. The founder, Ethan Gray, became a founding partner at John Arnold’s and Reed Hastings’ new organization The City Fund. Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat reported, “With big names and $200 million, a new group is forming to push for the ‘portfolio model.”’
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How would you feel about the school directors who voted to keep their buildings open and their classes in-person when just a few miles away the kids in a slightly more well-to-do neighborhood get to stay home, protected and safe learning online?
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In NYC our position has to be clear, and it has to be unified whether you are staying home or coming to school. This is not a time for fear, it is a time for resolve. The fear is of the virus, not of reprisals from an administrator or possibly some lost wages. Strikes have happened throughout this country and continue to happen. Workers in this country would have nothing if not for the efforts of those who stuck before us.
Teachers never promised anyone a rose garden, but given the time and autonomy to use their professional expertise even as gardeners are allowed to plant, prune, and provide the resources of water and fertilizer … you know what? We get thistles to bloom roses. We make deserts fill with flowers during a dry season. We plant tiny mustard seeds that years later produce a million times over. All we need is time and support.
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We do not live in a healthy society. We are acting like spoiled children who want to do what they want and refuse to be held accountable for their actions. Sadly it is our children who will most often pay the price for adult recklessness.
Time to join with the NAACP in their 2018 call for a charter school moratorium. With the industries record of creaming, advancing segregation and self-dealing, charter profiteering can not be accepted. Charters have not delivered significant education improvements just disruption, community harm and fraud. School chartering is a FAILED experiment.
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So it’s back to school time, and – let me tell you – am I ready to return to the classroom! Actually, I’m just bursting to pop onto campuses for the FIRST time this year.
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Every job faces its own Covid-19 difficulties, but there should be no comparison guilting. Every job is different. Teachers face comparison attacks, with no consideration of the uniqueness found in the school environment. Teachers are not taking an extended vacation. They’re working around the clock to teach children safely whether in school or remotely. Some parents and critics are expressing frustration and scapegoating teachers, but it’s the virus they should be worried about.
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But we need to generate a consensus NOW. We need to learn how to resist, in order to protect ourselves, our students, and all of our families. It is time to ask yourself; what will be your response to these violations of contract and common sense?
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School directors need to make reopening decisions that are in the best interests of everyone because we’re all in this together. That’s what so many folks seem to be forgetting. Yes, even from a completely selfish point of view, unsafe school reopening will affect each of us.
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To reverse the re-segregation of schools in America, stopping public school privatization is necessary. The separation of church and state must be reestablished.
This is not a safe plan for students, staff and families. I ask you to reconsider and move to a reopening plan that begins with all students engaged in distance learning.
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Everything students miss about school will actually still be missing, Entire communities will be risking their lives for a fantasy of “school” that doesn’t even exist anymore. When parents talk about why they want to send their children back to school, the majority respond that the children are missing the “social learning” or the “social experience.” They have a picture in their minds of a group of students sitting around a lunch table, sharing food, laughing, chattering.
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We will get through Covid-19, and the most important thing to do to help children learn at this age, is to present them with many books that matter to them, read to them, and let them talk.
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As UFT President you do not have the right to change our contract without a vote by your members. If we are forced to work under these conditions, we will resist, with or without you.
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Teachers, particularly many of us in NYC, have been anxiously eyeballing this first week of August for the big reveal of your school reopening plan, hoping for you to once again save the day...But after months of messaging that the buck stops with you, I watched Monday as you appeared to take that buck, and pass it.
As a teacher, I will educate the students that have to come to school. I will console them, and possibly give my life to do what is right for them. As a parent, my child will not set foot in a public school building until it is safe to do so. Period.
This year with the fight over the return to school in the middle of 100 year pandemic, we are seeing the horrifying logical culmination of that Education Standardization movement.