Thousands call for online school in Texas until COVID spread slows: ‘Lives are at stake’
Many Texas teachers are worried about heading back to their classrooms next month as the state continues reporting thousands of coronavirus cases every day that is pushing some hospitals to their limits.
But they also are frustrated that they are being called back to school as many administrators in school districts and workers at the Texas Education Agency continue working from home.
An online petition calling for the TEA to “allow school to remain off campus until it is safe to return” drew more than 80,000 signatures by Wednesday afternoon.
“This is not negotiable, people’s lives are at stake,” the petition on change.org stated.
Calling on teachers to return to school in a matter of weeks is not the right choice, some teachers say.
“It’s the least safe option right now, not just for teachers, but for the entire community,” said Jon Ladner, a 34-year-old Denton teacher whose Facebook post about his concerns has been spotlighted by national media. “What we know about how this virus works is a, it’s extremely contagious, and b, you could have it and spread it and not even know you are doing it.”
Yes, students should have the option of learning online or in-person, but teachers should be given the same choice, he said.
And he said it’s ironic that many administrators are working from the safety of their homes while making plans for teachers to return to their classrooms.
“I think it’s perfectly obvious how hypocritical that is,” Ladner, who teaches 11th and 12th grade AP English at Guyer High School in Denton, said of the TEA’s decision.
Especially, he said, as state education officials “making these decisions to require us to step right in front of the virus (did so) over a Zoom conference.”
Texas State Teachers Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday to keep students and school employees safe.
“We demand that the governor issue a statewide order that all school buildings must remain closed and all instruction be provided remotely until the pandemic has clearly begun to subside and it is safe to reopen school buildings under strict safety standards,” Molina said in a statement. “The state and school districts must work with educators to decide when that time is here. In the meantime, school districts must continue to receive full state funding.”
TEA officials have stressed that they are trying to make the best decisions for students, parents, educators.
The TEA posted on its website that the agency is keeping “limited skeleton crews” at the William B. Travis and Moody Bank buildings, where employees work in Austin. As a result, staffers are “available by appointment only at this time.”
But officials stress that Commissioner Mike Morath and other TEA workers who need to be present have been working in the Wiliam B. Travis building since March, as they did before coronavirus cases began spreading across the state.
Other staffers have been working from home and had the option of returning to the office “on a voluntary basis” this month. The agency also has said that officials are “determining additional next steps for our staff for later this summer and beyond.”
In Fort Worth, for instance, the school board still is holding virtual meetings and some school district staffers are working from home. But some, who work in finance and payroll, for instance, are working in the office because they need to access certain computer systems, said Clint Bond, a spokesman for the district.
Plans in Fort Worth are that all teachers will work from school buildings.
Other concerns
Ladner said teachers have many concerns about schools reopening.
He is married to a teacher and he worries about cross contamination at schools by couples or families who have children in different schools.
He is concerned about coworkers with underlying health conditions. And he worries about school employees who are so scared of getting sick with COVID-19 that they are drawing up wills — or they are choosing to retire early to avoid going back into the classroom amid coronavirus.
Ladner said parents know most children aren’t the best at hygiene even during non-coronavirus times. They likely won’t significantly change their habits even now with the novel virus.
“We tell teachers new to the profession: You will get sick because these buildings are full of germs and kids are kids,” he said..
As reports show that fewer younger Texans have become sick with coronavirus, Ladner wonders if that’s because schools did shut their doors in March and switched to online learning.
“We’ve had the ability to keep them safe this whole time,” he said. “If we just go back to school, we are opening some floodgates.”
The best approach, Ladner said, is beginning the 2020-21 school year with online classes until coronavirus cases are on a downturn.
“Any opening of the schools should come later,” he said.
If that decision is made now, then teachers can better plan for the beginning of the school year, as opposed to quickly pulling together what they could in March when the shift to online learning was unavoidable.
“If the default option is online classes right now, everybody is going to make more informed decisions about what instruction is going to look like for their classes,” Ladner said.
This story was originally published July 15, 2020 at 4:59 PM.
