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AFT Releases Guidelines to Reopen Schools

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2020 //
22


For Immediate Release
April 29, 2020

Contact:
Andrew Crook
607-280-6603
acrook@aft.org
http://www.aft.org

AFT Launches Landmark Plan to Safely Reopen America’s Schools and Communities

Union issues blueprint for imagining a new normal for public education, public health
and our economy in the age of COVID-19

WASHINGTON—The American Federation of Teachers has released a detailed road map that, in the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, charts a path to safely and responsibly reopen school buildings and other institutions crucial to the well-being and economic vitality of our communities.

The 20-page, science-based “Plan to Safely Reopen America’s Schools and Communities” sprung from an intense collaboration of public health professionals, union leaders and frontline workers to prepare for what happens next in the period between flattening the curve and truly eradicating the virus.

It features five core pillars that inform our decision to reopen the country based on the science as well as educator and healthcare expertise—not on politics or wishful thinking.

To gradually reopen, we need to:

1. Maintain physical distancing until the number of new cases declines for at least 14 consecutive days. Reducing the number of new cases is a prerequisite for transitioning to reopening plans on a community-by-community basis.

2. Put in place the infrastructure and resources to test, trace and isolate new cases. Transitioning from community-focused physical distancing and stay-in-place orders to case-specific interventions requires ramping up the capacity to test, trace and isolate each new case.

3.​ Deploy the public health tools that prevent the virus’ spread and align them with education strategies that meet the needs of students.

4. ​Involve workers, unions, parents and communities in all planning. Each workplace and community faces unique challenges related to COVID-19. To ensure that reopening plans address those challenges, broad worker and community involvement is necessary. They must be engaged, educated and empowered.

5.​ Invest in recovery: Do not abandon America’s communities or forfeit America’s future. These interventions will require more—not less—investment in public health and in our schools, universities, hospitals, and local and state governments. Strengthening communities should be a priority in the recovery.

The blueprint acknowledges Americans’ eagerness to return to some semblance of “normal.” But to do so, we must meet an unprecedented challenge: figuring out how to reimagine our society and the physical places we hold dear—public schools, places of worship, workplaces, restaurants and more—in ways that put our ultimate priorities first: the safety and well-being of working families, especially frontline workers, and the economic health of society.

Our schools, in addition to educating students and acting as centers of the community, enable parents to work outside the home, meaning their safe reopening is a pivotal—if not the most pivotal—factor in remaking the country.

The comprehensive document addresses complexities and provides specific guidance for transitioning from lockdowns to other public health approaches. And it is the only plan we know of that marries the instructional and social-emotional needs of students and the logistics of programming in schools with the imperative to adopt public health tools that prevent viral transmission.

It shows how, in response to the crisis, we must plan and align logistics, educational strategies and public health approaches into one coherent response. And it is expected to evolve as the data, and the facts, change.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said: “America is staring down a singular challenge that will require all of us to come together and negotiate a safe path forward. By drawing on facts and science, and the expertise of educators and healthcare practitioners, we have drafted a bold five-point plan that aligns necessary public health tools, student instructional needs and logistics to gradually—but safely, equitably and intentionally—reopen our schools and communities.

“Our blueprint serves as a stark contrast to the conflicting guidance, bluster and lies of the Trump administration. The input of educators and healthcare workers, as well as parents, is crucial in making any reopening plan work. They are the eyes and ears, and are indispensable in making any plan work safely and effectively. We hope this blueprint will be the start of a real discussion on reopening schools, universities and other workplaces that allows our workers and families not only to dream of a safe and welcoming future, but to realize it.”

The plan can be read here.

Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten

The American Federation of Teachers is a union of 1.7 million professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do.

Randi Weingarten PRESIDENT Lorretta Johnson SECRETARY-TREASURER Evelyn DeJesus EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
Communications Department • 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W. • Washington, DC 20001 • T: 202-879-4458 • F: 202-879-4580 • http://www.aft.org

AFT Teachers • AFT PSRP • AFT Higher Education • AFT Public Employees • AFT Nurses and Health Professionals

Categories Education Reform, Health, Safety, Unions

Teachers Unions Warn of Strikes and Protests if Schools Are Opened Too Soon

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2020 //
39

Randi Weingarten of the AFT and Lily Eskelsen Garcia of the NEA warned that teachers would take action if schools were opened before it was safe to do so.

The nation’s two biggest teachers unions say they would consider strikes or major protests if schools reopen without the proper safety measures in place or against the advice of medical experts — raising the possibility of yet more school disruptions.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, previewing a reopening plan first with POLITICO, said funding is needed for a host of public health measures for schools, including personal protective equipment. Collective bargaining, strong enforcement of safety standards and protections from retaliation will be important for teachers and staff so they feel safe to speak up as schools try new approaches, she said.

If schools are reopened without proper safety measures, “you scream bloody murder,” Weingarten said. “And you do everything you can to … use your public megaphones.”

Teachers are united after more than two years of strikes for more state funding and they have “tremendous power” as advocates for children’s safety, said Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association. She didn’t rule out strikes if state leaders move prematurely on a reopening of schools, and she said she believes parents would protest too.

Categories Health, Safety, Teachers, Unions

New York City: At Least 40 Educators Dead of Virus But Department of Education Refuses to Release Their Names

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2020 //
8

Chalkbeat reports that at least 40 NewYork City educators have died because of the coronavirus but the Department of Education refuses to release their names or to explain their reticence.

Christina Veiga writes:

Rosario Gonzalez, a 91-year-old paraprofessional who cared tenderly for children in an East Harlem special education program, rarely missed a day of work in more than three decades.

Claudia Shirley continued to teach in Bushwick even after retiring, and loved her job so much that she inspired her two daughters to become educators themselves.

Carol King-Grant, a special education teacher in the South Bronx, was known for her love of sudoku and beautiful singing voice.

All died in recent weeks from suspected cases of the coronavirus, according to the United Federation of Teachers. The union announced that, as of Friday, it knew of more than 40 of its members presumed to have been claimed by the pandemic, including both active educators and retirees.

The union is naming names, and releasing a tally of the lives lost at a time that the education department has refused to do so. The department’s silence has sparked an uproar among teachers, who feel the lack of recognition is a smack in the face, particularly as they continued to report for work even after the danger of COVID-19 was The education department has kept mum on the number of cases within its ranks even as other public agencies, including the police department and transportation authority, have released figures. However, the education department stopped confirming cases as community spread became rampant and the health department told New Yorkers to assume they have been exposed.

“We understand there is a lot of uncertainty across the City surrounding COVID-19,” education department spokesperson Miranda Barbot told Chalkbeat on April 2. “School employees are sometimes reporting information to their principals and superintendents, and we are determining how best to collect this information in one place.”

Teachers have demanded that the city publicly disclose deaths among their colleagues. In the absence of official information about the disease’s spread within school communities, teachers have taken it upon themselves to inform their co-workers of positive cases. They have blasted the city for keeping campuses open even as the number of sickened New Yorkers skyrocketed. well known.

Categories Accountability, Health, New York City, Safety, Teachers

Michigan: District Designs $48 Million High School Anticipating Active Shooter

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2019 //
70

Fruitport, Michigan, will open a new high school designed to offer safe spaces in the event that an active shooter appears on campus.

It is quite a commentary on the state of our society.

The design of the new sections includes subtle safe spaces that can be used to protect students in the event of a shooting, and long curved hallways that would offer protection too.

“To cut down on the sight lines if we have an active shooter in the building,” Szymoniak said.

By reducing the sight lines anyone with malicious intent would be unable to see the entire length of the hallway.

Cement block bump outs are also placed in the curved hallways.

“To cut down on sight lines further, it also gives an opportunity for students to hide back behind and hopefully get help from within the classroom,” Szymoniak said.

Inside the classrooms students can hide in one corner that can’t be seen from the hallway. Access controlled locks on all of the doors in our school district give school leaders the ability to lock down the entire district with the push of one button. And impact resistant film will go on all classroom windows in the new high school.

Szymoniak says by adding layers of safety it will buy students, teachers and staff time and it will protect lives as police respond to the scene.

“These are going to be design elements that are just naturally part of buildings going into the future,” he said.

The new normal?

Categories Education Reform, Guns, Safety

Ohio: Gun In Unlocked Case in School Found by First Grade Children

By dianeravitch
August 17, 2019 //
20

Two first-grade children found a gun in an unlocked case in South Bloomfield Township last spring.

Highland Local Schools officials were alarmed to learn that a gun used as part of a concealed carry program to protect students was found by two first-grade students who removed it from its unlocked case.

The incident played out in mid-March in an administrative office beside Highland Elementary School in South Bloomfield Township near Sparta, but only recently came to light. It has reignited in this Morrow County district — located about 40 miles north of Columbus — a debate over whether teachers and school staff should be armed to protect students from active shooters.

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“My feeling is that (guns) don’t belong in schools,” said Wayne Hinkle, board president of Highland Local Schools, who was the lone opponent of the concealed carry policy enacted by the five-member board a year ago. “You don’t need them.”

Highland Elementary is a short walk to the district’s transportation office, where Vicky Nelson, transportation director, had left her pistol in a small unlocked plastic case near her desk when she left to go to the restroom.

Nelson was trained as part of the district’s concealed carry program and allowed to have a gun on school property.

Someone thought it was a good idea to have guns in schools.

Superintendent Freund, a teacher and administrator for 50 years, said he “became physically sick” when he learned of the March incident. “People were horrified,” he said.

As the district reviews its program, which includes several administrators and “select teachers,” he reminds people that critical incident medical response is 20 minutes away from his district of 1,800 students.

“If someone were to get in with an AR (assault-style rifle capable of firing dozens of rounds in seconds), we’re talking devastation,” he said. “Is it worth the risk to carry and prevent that?”

Can a handgun stop an AR-15?

Categories Guns, Ohio, Safety

The Most Important Article You Will Read This Year: “Stop the Bleed”

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2019 //
8

 

The New Yorker magazine published this very informative and important article by journalist Paige Williams about training bystanders to save lives. 

Bystanders can and must be first responders, and they can learn the techniques to stop bleeding. These are crucial as a person can bleed to death in five to eight minutes.

It is a sad commentary on our society but it is reality: none of us knows when we will be the bystander whose fast thinking and action are required to save the life of a friend or a stranger.

The number of shootings and acts of terrorism has escalated and is now called an “Intentional Mass Casualty Event.”

Williams begins with a dramatic account of one of these events at a high school in Murrysville, Pennsylvania.

“One April morning in 2014, a sixteen-year-old sophomore at Franklin Regional Senior High, in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, stole two butcher knives from his parents’ kitchen, hid them in his backpack, and took them to school. He was wearing all black and, according to witnesses, had a “blank expression.” Just before first period, in the hall of the science wing, he stabbed several classmates. Then he pulled the fire alarm. As the corridor filled with people, the boy moved down the hallway, a knife in each hand, stabbing more students. He turned and raced back up the hall—an administrator remembered him “flailing the knives like he was swimming the backstroke.” One girl later testified, “I could feel that my lip wasn’t attached to my face anymore.” A boy, stabbed in the belly, recalled, “I was gushing blood.”

“The students at Franklin Regional, which is seventeen miles east of Pittsburgh, had been trained to lock themselves inside classrooms during a “code red” event. In one room, a home-economics teacher called 911 as she attended to an injured boy. A dispatcher asked where the “patient” had been hurt. “The lower abdomen,” the teacher said. “On the right side.”

“Do you have any way to control the bleeding?” the dispatcher asked.

“I’m putting pressure on it,” the teacher said. She was stanching the blood with paper towels. This was helpful, the dispatcher told her, saying, “If it starts soaking through, I don’t want you to lift it up at all. Find anything else you can to put on top of that.”

“The teacher had been applying pressure for about four minutes when the dispatcher said, “We have the actor in custody,” adding, “But I don’t want you to let any of your students leave that room.” As the teacher bore down on the wound, she talked with the injured boy, her voice tense but cheerful. They joked that he could use the experience in a college-application essay. When he predicted that his mother was going to “have a panic attack,” the teacher said, “I think she will.” Then she said, “I never thought I’d have to do this….”

“Twenty-one people had been knifed, several severely, yet everyone survived. (The attacker was later sentenced to a minimum of twenty-three and a half years in prison.) Law-enforcement and health-care professionals in the Pittsburgh area took note of the fortitude and the competence of many bystanders. Listening to a playback of the teacher’s 911 call, they marvelled at her calm and her effectiveness. Brad Orsini, an F.B.I. agent who worked the case, told me, “You’d have thought it was just another day for this woman.” At one point, the teacher had told the boy, “You know what? Sometimes when stuff happens, you go into a different state of mind. You surprise yourself at how you can handle things.”

Please read this article. You may be called upon to save a life one day.

Categories Safety

D.C.: Charter Schools Ignore Suicide Prevention Training, and a Charter Student Hangs Herself

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2019 //
18

This post about D.C. charter schools asks why these schools are free to choose which laws to obey and which to ignore.

One that they chose to ignore is suicide prevention training for their staff.

The leaders of the charter sector complained about the rules and regulations that the city wanted to impose on them.

The author, Jonetta Rose Barras, writes:

“When I read the email exchange between Michael Musante, a lobbyist for local charter schools, and Scott Pearson, executive director of the DC Public Charter School Board (PCSB), I became enraged. I think, perhaps, you would have had a similar reaction.

“In discussing the introduction of the Youth Suicide Prevention Act in the DC Council, Pearson wrote on Sept. 22, 2015, “Unbelievable. Does it ever stop?”

“I wouldn’t be able to take trips to Europe every summer if it stopped,” Musante replied in the email chain, a copy of which was provided to The DC Line.

“I guess we can just add it to the pile of requirements that don’t get enforced,” replied Pearson about the law created to protect District schoolchildren.”

A 12-year-old student at the SEED charter school hung herself in 2018. This was one of those “miracle” schools celebrated in the propaganda film “Waiting for ‘Superman,'” which is now streaming on Amazon and other services. Did the child’s parent see the film and win the lottery to get her into this boarding school, which costs the District nearly $40,000 per year?

The parent of the child is suing the school and the foundation that operates the school for negligence.

Charter school leaders seem to be against any regulations, suggesting that they interfere with their independence. They currently are fighting a legislative proposal introduced by Ward 6’s Charles Allen that would subject all charter schools to the city’s existing open meetings and Freedom of Information Act requirements. That proposal doesn’t go far enough, however. It’s time to reassess the exemptions provided to charter schools, imposing many of the same regulations that apply to DC Public Schools.

Should a charter school be free from all regulations, all accountability, all transparency, even regulations protecting the lives of children?

Apparently, charters believe that they are above the law and outside of any accountability for their finances or their students’ lives. The laws and regulations are for other people, not them.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, District of Columbia, Education Reform, Safety, Students

Indianapolis: The Purpose of School Choice is to Destroy Communities, Which Endangers Us All

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2019 //
28

 

Jim Scheurich is a professor at Indiana University and a public education activist. He writes here about how School Choice is intended to destroy community.

 

Folks, the philosophy that charter and innovation schools are built on is that your children’s school should be individualized parental choice.  This means parents individually search across the Indy area as to where to send their children, which often means leaving their neighborhood community.  Each family or individual parent is thus on her, his, or their own and not engaged with their neighborhood community.  Also, each family or individual parent is pitted against or in competition with other similar families and parents for the so-called “better” schools.

This individualistic orientation of charters and innovation schools undermines neighborhood communities and even the possibility of neighborhood communities.   Undermining neighborhood communities, according to sociological research, increases violence, including murder.  Other research shows that building community decreases violence, including murder.

This, therefore, means that charter and innovation schools are likely one of the causes of our high murder rate in Indianapolis as the individualized school choice model is broadly undermining neighborhood communities across our city. 

Of course, building community in low income areas is not easy, but not impossible.  However, many such communities have created positive community spaces.  Given the difficulty of creating such communities, we certainly do not need more policies, like charter and innovation schools, that are threats to community and community building.

If you study the neoliberal political and economic “philosophy” behind the choice school movement, you will find a strong focus on individualism over community.  If you want to understand this movement, which is driving the creation of individualistic “choice” schools, read Democracy in chains by Nancy MacLean, a Duke historian, and then read the award winningDark money by Jane Mayer, which analyzes who the Koch brothers are as they are primary supporters of neoliberalism.  Indeed, overwhelmingly, the financial supporters of neoliberalism, the people behind the curtain, the people funding Stand for Children and the Mind Trust, are conservative to rightwing billionaires.

If you don’t believe me or think I am just some conspiracy nut, I dare you to read Democracy in chainsby the highly respected Duke historian, Nancy MacLean. I dare you.

My point is that charter and innovation schools help destroy community, which according to sociological research can lead to increased violence.

 

Jim Scheurich, Indianapolis Public Schools Community Coalition, a multi-racial, multi-class, citywide group of Indianapolis citizens working to reverse the takeover of our school district by those funded by white, conservative or rightwing, billionaire neoliberals. Also, an activist professor of Urban Education Studies at Indiana University – Indianapolis

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Indiana, Indianapolis, Injustice, Innovation, Privatization, Safety, School Choice, Vouchers

Tim Slekar: A Podcast about Survivors of School Shootings

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2019 //
3

Tim Slekar produced a podcast about school shootings and their aftermath.

Two survivors of the Parkland mass shooting committed suicide, as did the father of one of the children killed at Sandy Hook.

Tim describes the podcast:

“Parkland, FL mother Rosemarie Jensen.  Rosemarie’s son survived the Stoneman Douglas school shooting and talked to us last year about that day.  In this interview Rosemarie talks about the aftermath of living “after a school shooting.”  Last week two “survivors” committed suicide.  But WHY?  And what’s being done now?

“Educated Educators Talking Education:Joanna Rizzotto talks to us about life inside the classroom “after school shootings.” Are we making it safer or simply adding to the anxiety of children and teachers.  Plus we talk to Dou Vang—currently a substitute teacher— who quit teaching after being “shot” during an active shooter drill.“

Categories Guns, Guns in Schools, Safety

Cashing in on Kids: The School Security Gold Rush

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2019 //
19

In the Public Interest is a nonpartisan organization that tracks the privatization of public services and assets.

Its latest report:

Is school security the next gold rush? A year after the harrowing school shooting in Parkland, Florida, investor cash is pouring into the school security market. But big money was already being spent on unproven technology shielded from public view. “Schools and other education-related buyers are the fifth-biggest market for surveillance systems across the world but the top market in the United States, with $2.7 billion in revenue in 2017.” The Washington Post

A warning to D.C.’s education leaders. A former board member at Indianapolis Public Schools describes her experience working with former superintendent Dr. Lewis Ferebee, who also happens to the D.C. mayor’s choice for the next D.C. Public Schools chancellor: “Under Dr. Ferebee’s leadership, we created ‘Innovation Network Schools’— partnerships between IPS and charter schools. But it turned out that Innovation Network Schools aren’t really partnerships at all. In fact, they’re an underhanded way of turning over public resources and assets to private hands.” 730DC

Huge salaries for charter school leadership. Journalist Rachel Cohen digs into charter school administrator salaries in Washington, D.C., revealing startling figures: “The head of Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School and the highest-paid charter official in D.C., received a 24 percent salary increase between 2015 and 2016, from $248,000 to $307,000. Then, in 2017, she received another 76 percent increase, bumping her compensation to $541,000.” Washington City Paper

Police in school don’t make students of color feel safer. Rann Miller of the 21st Century Community Learning Center critiques the final report from President Trump’s Federal Commission on School Safety: “The recommendations from Trump’s school safety panel benefit school privatizers, and institutions like prisons, at the expense of people of color. It’s the American way.” The Progressive

“Wherever there’s a battle over public education lately, a billionaire is somehow involved.” Jacobin Magazine weighs in on the upcoming Oakland teachers strike: “Although charter schools don’t improve student outcomes, they have all sorts of destructive impacts. As noted above, they massively drain resources from public schools. In the 2016–17 school year alone, Oakland Unifed School District lost over $57 million in revenue to charter schools, according to a report by In the Public Interest.” Jacobin

ICYMI: the U.S. spends more on its prison system than it does on public schools. The country’s incarceration rates have more than tripled over the past three decades, even as crime rates have fallen. During the same period, government spending on K-12 education increased by 107 percent. Daily Mail

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Guns in Schools, Privatization, Safety
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