{"id":47409,"date":"2021-02-20T12:23:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-20T12:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2021\/02\/school-teachers-unions-return-in-person\/"},"modified":"2021-02-20T12:44:46","modified_gmt":"2021-02-20T12:44:46","slug":"school-districts-around-the-united-states-lack-any-real-regard-for-educators-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/20\/school-districts-around-the-united-states-lack-any-real-regard-for-educators-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"School Districts Around the United States Lack Any Real Regard for Educators\u2019 Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Throughout the country, teachers are being forced back into schools before it's fully safe. And while many teachers\u2019 unions are waging valiant fights against unsafe reopenings, too many of them are losing.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n Chicago Teachers Union members demand an end to virtual classroom lockouts during a car picket on January 15, 2021. (Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association \/ Flickr)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

\u201cThis is not the agreement you deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

So said Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) president Jesse Sharkey, announcing that members had voted to accept a plan to return to school buildings.<\/p>\n

Chicago teachers began returning to schools on February 11, after contentious negotiations over whether they would be forced to teach in person. While their district\u2019s animosity was exceptional, many similar struggles for safety are being fought across the country.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0CTU agreement<\/a>\u00a0increases vaccine access for educators who are required to enter buildings, delays the return to buildings for some, and establishes union-dominated building safety committees. It also guarantees Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodations for educators who are the primary caregivers to individuals especially vulnerable to COVID, and establishes metrics for what would prompt the district to close school buildings and go fully remote again.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, by not maintaining fully remote teaching, it puts educators and the community at risk for catching the virus.<\/p>\n

Sharkey speaks for educators across the country when he says that the struggle to protect the health and safety of educators and their communities should never have been this difficult, should never have been a subject to be negotiated. And the agreement does not go far enough.<\/p>\n

Although COVID numbers in Chicago and across the country are on a downward trend, the\u00a0daily case rate<\/a> in January was as high as the highest rates last spring. New more transmissible variants are\u00a0expected<\/a> to dominate in the United States by mid-March, just when more students and educators will be back in school.<\/p>\n

So why did Chicago teachers accept the deal? After months of sustained battle, they\u2019re exhausted. \u201cIt is difficult to understand the trauma of this struggle,\u201d said Kirsten Roberts, an elementary educator. Others felt that they had built as much power as possible, and still didn\u2019t have enough power to win what could have been a prolonged strike.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

Exhausted<\/h2>\n \n

The battle in Chicago has been particularly intense, but since January, the heat is being turned up across the country as districts, politicians, and a cascade of media stories demand that educators return to school buildings.<\/p>\n

In Philadelphia, the district announced on January 27 that the first wave of educators would return February 8. In San Francisco the city is suing the school district to force educators back into buildings.<\/p>\n

In Montclair, New Jersey, the district filed a suit against the union for supporting thirty educators who have, with union support and solidarity, refused to enter their buildings since October.<\/p>\n

In North Carolina, cities like Durham, where the school board voted months ago to continue remote learning throughout the school year, are facing state legislation that would overrule these local decisions and require school buildings to reopen.<\/p>\n

Likewise, in Los Angeles, where the union won fully remote schools quickly back in the summer, pressure is mounting from the city council and the governor for buildings to reopen, even as the virus rages in the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people across the country are at a point of exhaustion\u201d from the unrelenting pressure, said Carlos Perez, a high school teacher in Durham.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Refused to Enter<\/h2>\n \n

In Chicago, special educator Ana Bolotin said, \u201cthe leadership fought as hard as they could at the table against a cruel and incompetent mayor and a cruel and incompetent unelected board of education.\u201d But, she said, \u201cthe energy from the leadership shifted away from being able to build power.\u201d<\/p>\n

They won what they could in bargaining, but Bolotin felt there was more to win in the streets. And she believes members had shown they were ready \u2014 when some\u00a0refused<\/a> to enter buildings, teaching outside in the cold instead, and when the whole membership took an initial vote to strike if those educators were locked out.<\/p>\n

Kirsten Roberts, a teacher in Chicago who voted against the agreement, felt that educators should have followed through on a tactic they had voted up: refusing en masse to enter the buildings, and continuing to work remotely. In her assessment, doing this would have forced the mayor either to lock them all out of remote learning \u2014 as it had already done to punish a handful of activists \u2014 or to concede to continue remote learning district-wide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were strong leaders and good people on both sides [of the vote],\u201d said Roberts. \u201cIt was a balance of forces issue.\u201d By locking educators out, she believes, the mayor would have lost any community support. Teachers were ready to teach remotely; the mayor would have been the one denying students the opportunity to learn.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Tricky Solidarity<\/h2>\n \n

Teacher unions in Chicago and elsewhere have struggled to build and assess power in the midst of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Besides the challenges of trying to organize behind masks and over Zoom, the pandemic has affected everyone differently. Dennis Kosuth, a nurse in Chicago public schools, said it took a lot of conversations among members to figure out how to take action together \u2014 some people were more afraid of getting the virus, while others were more afraid of getting fired.<\/p>\n

In places where educators were able to talk through these risks, they used direct action to pressure districts to slow things down and, in the case of Chicago, to finally come to the table.<\/p>\n

Many districts are announcing phased school reopening plans that further divide members. Usually, a small group of educators of special needs students is required to return first. Then, over time, come the educators of young elementary, older elementary, middle school, and high school students.<\/p>\n

This has complicated negotiations and the building of solidarity.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

First-Time Activists<\/h2>\n \n

In Montclair, thirty educators of special needs students were told to go back into the buildings in October. With no preparation, no access to protective gear, and no clear plan, they refused to enter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about it, we organized, and they made the unanimous decision not to reenter the building. They\u2019ve been in that sort of action since October 15,\u201d said Montclair Education Association president Petal Robertson.<\/p>\n

In late January, when the superintendent suggested it was safe to return to the buildings, the union said it was not safe and insisted on mediation. Shortly after mediation started, the city announced that it was suing the union to force educators back in.<\/p>\n

The court refused the city\u2019s request for an injunction; a hearing on the suit is set for March 9. All educators continued to work remotely, except for a skeleton crew of custodians who go in to maintain the buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat group of thirty,\u201d said Robertson, \u201cit\u2019s important to know, they\u2019re not building reps. They\u2019re not on my union committee. They are a quiet subset of the association who have never had to do anything like this before. It changed my whole association.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Members Moving Members<\/h2>\n \n

Schools in Philadelphia have been remote since last spring. But on January 27, the city announced that it would begin to reopen buildings \u2014 starting with Pre-K\u2013second-grade educators on February 8, and their students two weeks later. Liza Dolmetsch, an art teacher in the only K\u20132 school in the city, said her building committee met immediately to talk through what this timeline meant and how to respond.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clear that we did not feel it was safe,\u201d she said, \u201cand that we at least had to talk about not going in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the city, supported in large part by the Caucus of Working Educators, building meetings brought members together to talk through what steps to take in the face of the district\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

Kaitlin McCann, a seventh-grade teacher in a K\u20138 school, talked about the meeting in her building. \u201cIt was very emotional,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are afraid. They\u2019ve been spending months being super safe, not seeing family, not seeing grandchildren, and now they were supposed to risk everything. It really made a difference for people to hear each other\u2019s stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she said, \u201cit was a heated debate.\u201d It wasn\u2019t easy getting teachers in third through eighth grades to support a refusal to return. \u201cBut one thing that helped was saying, \u2018This is a moment in showing our power\u2019\u201d \u2014 no matter where you stood on reopening.<\/p>\n

The building-based organizing was buoyed when Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president Jerry Jordan announced that educators should not enter buildings on February 8. Instead, educators showed up with signs, donuts, and hand warmers. They chanted, made speeches, and cheered supporters who honked as they drove by.<\/p>\n

In Dolmetsch\u2019s school, all fifty-three educators refused to enter the building. \u201cIt was transformative,\u201d she said. As the only building where everyone was in the first wave required to enter, they felt that \u201cwe should be the loudest voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district backed off the plan, for now, and has brought in a mediator.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

Fights Inside<\/h2>\n \n

Direct actions like these have slowed the process of reopening, but we still do not know how much power the unions will need to keep members safe for the duration of the pandemic and if they can access that power.<\/p>\n

In DC, where the union put a strike vote to members around reopening, the members voted it down.<\/p>\n

Back in Chicago, some educators started back in the buildings on February 11. Safety committees will be the front line of the fight to enforce the agreement, and that will require action at the building level. Following up on guarantees for ADA accommodations and access to vaccines will take vigilance.<\/p>\n

One of the complications of organizing during the pandemic is just how weedy and detailed an agreement can become. All those details are ideal places for management to obfuscate \u2014 and, Roberts suggests, the technical issues pulled the fight away from other issues the union could have taken on: education quality and childcare for all.<\/p>\n

\u201cVentilation, social distancing, six feet, three feet, all of this stuff,\u201d she said. \u201cWe tried but didn\u2019t have the space to build solid coalitions around childcare, funding, and reimagining schools.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n

A Sudden Rush<\/h2>\n \n

The pressure to reopen school buildings now, rather than wait until all educators have been vaccinated, exemplifies the reckless disregard for educators\u2019 lives that district administrators and politicians have shown throughout the pandemic.<\/p>\n

But Durham teacher Perez has seen \u201ca dramatic shift\u201d since Biden took office. \u201cNow there is bipartisan support for going back into buildings,\u201d he said. \u201cEven [American Federation of Teachers president] Randi Weingarten is putting out statements saying we need to do this.\u201d Weingarten is a close ally of the Biden administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am trying to get my head around how the argument changed once Biden was elected,\u201d said Roberts in Chicago. \u201cThere was suddenly an avalanche of the need to get back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Chicago agreement being\u00a0held up as a model<\/a>\u00a0for the country, other unions may feel pressure to accept the same terms.<\/p>\n

The pandemic isn\u2019t over. For Perez, the lesson of the struggles thus far is that \u201cwe need to create more opportunities for members to have debates and conversations with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to stop training members to look up\u201d to politicians, he said, \u201cand instead learn to look over their shoulder, toward each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n

Additional reporting was contributed by Jonah Furman.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis is not the agreement you deserve.\u201d So said Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) president Jesse Sharkey, announcing that members had voted to accept a plan to return to school buildings. Chicago teachers began returning to schools on February 11, after contentious negotiations over whether they would be forced to teach in person. While their district\u2019s [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2407,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47409"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2407"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47410,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47409\/revisions\/47410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}