Dear ones,
Even if you only got part of the way, thank you for reading my lengthy post on Wednesday about the complex issues surrounding school reopenings. As I mentioned, when and how to open schools is an intersectional problem, like so many questions of justice. I touched on the public health and educational equity dimensions of the question, and today, I’d like to consider the labor angle.
Special Education and English Learner violations are rampant in schools this year as a result of inadequate staffing for the Mayor’s reopening plan.
A majority of educators are teaching 2 or more learning models.
Staff do not feel that the DOE’s COVID testing and safety protocols have been sufficient to detect and prevent cases in their school buildings.
Staffing and programming issues related to in-person and remote students, learning models, COVID19 school cases, and classroom/school closures have created significant hurdles for consistent, safe, and effective learning for our students.
Lack of WiFi and devices remains a significant obstacle to equitable remote learning.
The failure to deliver mandated services has been widely reported; it remains a very serious concern, as have the concerns about staffing generally, the effectiveness of testing and tracing, and impact of the digital divide. Additional findings — that surveyed teachers feel that they lack the training and resources they need to teach effectively and that they are thinking about finding other work — are also unsurprising. It has been a disheartening year to be a teacher, with few of the rewards that usually accompany the work and many extra helpings of stress.
Given that the city’s median 7-day test positivity rate is 6.48%, with some zip codes clocking in as high as 15%, it is likely that the city will continue to close and reopen schools in neighborhoods where there is high community spread. Teachers can be forgiven for wanting to continue remotely through the school year, given the added stress of uncertainty.
My teaching partner of longest duration — and unbreakable connection — wrote to me yesterday to ask if I was aware of Badass Teachers Association. I was not. This is from their home page:
Badass Teachers Association was created to give voice to every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality through education. BAT members refuse to accept assessments, tests and evaluations created and imposed by corporate driven entities that have contempt for authentic teaching and learning.
I read a number of Badass blog posts that discussed the insulting and inaccurate reports of students not learning from remote instruction, the traumatic experience of teaching in-person in districts where they are running out of ICU beds and a whole kindergarten class got Covid, and the problem of gaslighting teachers.
Teachers are being excoriated, as if they are refusing to do their duty or no longer willing to work hard. The message is that their lives and mental health are not important. The teachers I know are deeply concerned for the well-being of their students and many have gone to extraordinary lengths to assist families (buying tablets with their own funds, shopping for groceries, etc.).
Unions have been falsely characterized as refusing to “return to work,” when in fact, we want desperately to return to our classrooms (and the “work” has never left — it’s with us seven days a week). But we want to be partners in designing what school looks like. There’s too much at stake to ignore teachers’ fine-tuned understanding of children and their needs.
Ignoring teachers’ needs has consequences.
Experts and teachers’ unions are warning of a looming burnout crisis among educators that could lead to a wave of retirements, undermining the fitful effort to resume normal public schooling. In a recent survey by the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, 28 percent of educators said the coronavirus had made them more likely to leave teaching or retire early.
That weariness spanned generations. Among the poll respondents, 55 percent of veteran teachers with more than 30 years of experience said they were now considering leaving the profession. So did 20 percent of teachers with less than 10 years’ experience.
“If we keep this up, you’re going to lose an entire generation of not only students but also teachers,” said Shea Martin, an education scholar and facilitator who works with public schools on issues of equity and justice.
This is tragic. When people who love the work can no longer sustain it, it means the system is failing.
Effective school leaders are teaming up with their staff to design sensible programs. I am aware of schools in the city that have gone rogue — ignoring mandates from the DOE in order to partner with teachers to create schedules that work for students and families (including all-remote programs before the Mayor shuttered all of the schools).
Demonizing unions and their members instead of listening to what they are asking for is the wrong path. That was true before the pandemic, and like so many other things, it is more obvious now.
Today was apparently a day for reflection rather than action. I was going to ask you to contact your council members to support a bill to “require significant reforms to the program and the role of school safety agents (SSAs) by August 2021, so that SSAs no longer make arrests, carry weapons or mechanical restraints, or wear law enforcement uniforms on school grounds.”
In my ongoing efforts not to be like Ted Cruz, I am going to try to follow my own advice. In this case, that means I want to look into what the Safety Agents’ union (the Teamsters) are saying about this bill.
Have a great weekend!
with love,
L