A review by THE CITY of internal emails and interviews with teachers uncovered a pattern of Department of Education officials playing down the threat of COVID-19 in the days before the schools shuttered, during the week teachers were required to come in for training, and even after the start of remote learning.
Among THE CITY’s findings:
• Students with presumed COVID-19 were not to be logged into the DOE’s official incident reporting system unless they had tested positive. Obtaining the necessary test was, for weeks before and after the shutdown, extremely difficult.
• At some schools, supervisors withheld information in communications with teachers and parents about staff and students who were later revealed to be presumed positive.
• In the final days before the shutdown, DOE headquarters instructed staff not to contact the city Health Department, which was serving as the command center for de Blasio’s COVID-19 response, if a staffer tested positive. That policy is now the subject of an investigation.
• The DOE continued to allow large gatherings of students as part of school events right up until the shutdown, even after the federal Centers for Disease Control was recommending that they be canceled.
• In the days before the shutdown, the United Federation of Teachers contended the DOE was not following state protocols in its coronavirus response. A union official told THE CITY there were reports school officials weren’t notifying teachers and parents about presumed COVID-19 cases within schools.
• Before the shutdown, schools were required to shut down for 24 hours and do “deep cleaning” if a student or teacher was presumed positive. In some instances the union was told of schools that weren’t properly cleaned as required during temporary closures, the official said.
• The UFT pushed behind the scenes for the closure of schools for days before going public with its call.
The City then details some of what went on from March 7 onward, which is an earlier date than we have been given up to now for when the UFT started to push to close schools.
The question of whether to shut the nation’s biggest school system was a contentious affair from the start.
As the number of New York City residents infected with the virus began to rise day by day in early March and private schools started to shut down, de Blasio adamantly insisted on keeping the public schools open.
Around March 7, UFT President Michael Mulgrew began pressing the DOE to close the schools, arguing that more staff and students would be exposed to the virus every day classes remanded in session, union officials told THE CITY.
“We cannot know how differently the pandemic would have played out if schools and other public facilities had been closed earlier than they were,” Mulgrew told THE CITY last week. “Logic would certainly suggest that better planning would have helped, in particular in the case of schools, which didn’t introduce teacher training in remote instruction until mid-March.”
As of Monday, 74 Department of Education staff had died of COVID-19, including 30 teachers, officials said.
The City then details multiple positive COVID-19 cases in schools from March that were swept under the rug. By now we all know these were not isolated cases. The UFT knew what was going on and did nothing to pull us out of unsafe buildings. As we have been saying, for the UFT it was dues first, always.
At the end of the article, Mulgrew talks about the reopening:
“As a city, we have learned hard lessons in this health crisis,” he added. “We need to make sure we heed those lessons in order to re-open school buildings safely for students, staff, and our communities.”
We actually agree but what if the DOE does not follow protocol if there is a second wave of COVID-19? Will there be any assurances that staff and students are safe? Jonathan Halabi, UFT Chapter Leader from the High School of American Studies at Lehman College, wrote a Delegate Assembly resolution on safety for when we return to school buildings. Jonathan wants it to be UFT policy that UFT members do not have to enter a building if there is a question about whether that building is safe.
(Full disclosure: Jonathan showed me a draft of the resolution and I did have some input into the final language.) Due to what has happened since March, people in NYC know COVID-19 is deadly so this resolution should not be controversial. I don't see why the UFT would not advise us to get out of any building that was unsafe.
Jonathan is proposing that UFT Chapter Committees/Safety Committees should be involved in the decisions on reopening buildings. If there is a disagreement on whether the building is safe or not, the resolution calls for outside DOE and UFT representatives to come into a school to explain why it is safe. If this resolution was implemented, there might actually be some trust that can be built.
The entire resolution is below. Since this motion is number 12 on the list, its chances of being dealt with are rather small for this month but we can put pressure on the UFT leadership to deal with this issue.
Please tell your Chapter Leader and Delegate(s) to support it and spread the word.
Motion No. 12 — Resolution regarding safety enforcement mechanisms for COVID-19 in our school buildings (Submitted by Jonathan Halabi)
WHEREAS, the COVID-19 crisis reached New York City this winter; and
WHEREAS, in the first half of March of this year the NYC Department of Education resisted calls to close our buildings; and
WHEREAS, guidelines in place required certain schools to be closed for a day and disinfected; and
WHEREAS, the Department of Education appears not to have closed certain schools for a day and disinfected them when required to; and
WHEREAS, the United Federation of Teachers is currently considering measures to ensure the safety of our members, other adults, and students when school buildings reopen, conceivably in September; and
WHEREAS, the United Federation of Teacher’s proud history includes keeping members out of hazardous conditions, famously during the asbestos crisis; therefore be it
RESOLVED that the United Federation of Teachers will make it a priority in negotiations with the NYC Department of Education that no one be required to enter a building when there is question about their safety; and be it further
RESOLVED that United Federation of Teachers chapter-based safety committees and consultation committees will be involved in all decisions to open and close those respective chapters; and be it further
RESOLVED that the United Federation of Teachers will make it a priority in negotiations with the NYC Department of Education that if the Department of Education believes a building to be safe, when members do not, that they be compelled to send a representative from outside the building to that building, and that representative give presentations in the building to staff, explaining how the DoE determined it was safe to enter the building; and be it further
RESOLVED that United Federation of Teachers will continue to insist on measures to keep our members, other adults, and students safe.
20 comments:
I support this.
The resolution is toothless. It needs to be strengthened with legal language sot that the
DOE is held accountable for its legacy of negligence and malfeasance.
This is not toothless as there is this clause:
"RESOLVED that the United Federation of Teachers will make it a priority in negotiations with the NYC Department of Education that no one be required to enter a building when there is question about their safety"
How is that toothless? Get on board. Force the UFT to do right by the members.
Schools need to be independently evaluated by for their building hygiene, ventilation and bathroom facilities. If they do not meet health standards they should not be reopened, I worked in three different school buildings. They were all infested with mice, roaches and bed bugs. They were all treasure troves of bacteria, viruses and pathogens.They all were saturated with fomites.
"I worked in three different school buildings. They were all infested with mice, roaches and bed bugs."
Were those your principal and the assistant principals?
Thanks, James. It won't get discussed at tomorrow's DA, but it's already generating some discussion outside. We will work towards it for June (I was putting it up for the June agenda anyhow).
I think focussing on September makes sense. I think giving chapters and safety committees a sense of agency makes sense. And requiring Central DoE to be represented at a school where there is a dispute, and inside that school... How will they object? That the schools are unsafe?
jd
I’m a union believer and believe a bad union is better than no union at all.
However, the way I see it, contracts and MOAs are just pieces of paper unless they are actually put into practice.
If a building is infested, the UFT has to have the trickle down effect. Chapter leaders must tell people not to go in or go home and UFT members need to adhere to these instructions.
Sadly, from my experiences, some younger teachers will side with administration as to not want to have any ‘problems’ or ‘lose my job’.
The UFT does a poor job of promoting solidarity
So, I ask, if a building is infected and people don’t side with the UFT and listen to instructions, what does a piece of paper mean?
Mike, I agree with you contracts are just words on paper. It is up to the vets to show the young UFTers the importance of a union and to convince them that they need to be part of it.
I'm definitely trying, James.
Usually, it unfortunately takes a younger teacher to be stabbed in the back by an administrator for the younger teacher to see the whole point for having a union.
But you are right, it is our job as veterans to keep banging the drum so to speak.
There’s tons of schools with no veterans. What’s that a joke? I guess the UFT is going to completely ignore the requests for an explanation concerning their refusal to act in the deaths and sickness of the gullible sheep, that are the rank and file, sent in for a three day training. I won’t support anything the UFT does until it answers for it. All they care about is dues, so I will withhold mine, starting next month, until the UFT explains itself, apologizes and makes some changes. If it didn’t do anything to help teachers sent into potential death traps, what do you expect them to do when massive layoffs start in September? Do you think they’re going to have a strike? LOL. I’m done with them. June 1st is almost here. Everyone one I know is dropping out. Stop us Mulgrew by answering us.
Your stand and the everyone you know who is dropping out would be a bit bolder if you told us who you are or at least your schools. I do agree the UFT leadership has a lot to answer for 9:35 but how can you start a movement if nobody knows who you are or at least where you are from?
Isolated teachers opting out of the UFT won't mean anything to the UFT and is basically meaningless unless people join together and start an alternative employee organization.
Again it's talk, talk, talk and empty promises. The doe is great for using the term "under investigation" which usually turns out to mean "nothing was done." Also, going into schools with classrooms without air-conditioners is highly unsanitary when it's 100 degrees, but that doesn't seem to bother anyone either.
There's an article in the Post reporting that the doe is slashing the fellowship program slashing about 400 jobs. I thought there was a hiring freeze anyway. At least the doe did something smart by cutting this useless program. The teachers in that program last probably only about 3 years in the system anyway. Good riddance to teaching fellows!
My nephew is a fellow. While it is not the same as a college traditional certification program through a college, it is not the worst of the alternative paths into teaching.
I want to see evidence of the leadership having a spinal cord during today's streamed delegate assembly. Why can't we be as gung-ho as some of the uniformed municipal unions. The firefighters, cops and sanitation put up much more of a fight. We were declared essential too and should should it
Retention for the New York City Teaching Fellows has not been great, but it was always better than "2 and out" by design TfA. (Gary R. and a few others are clear exceptions)
In fact, quite a few Fellows HAVE become long term teachers, including at least 4 of the 25 career teachers in my school.
I know fellows who have become activists. I know fellows who are Chapter Leaders.
I do not agree that this program was "useless."
The ATRs should have precedence over teaching fellows.
I would not call teaching fellows or teach for America useless. I would say that both programs are no longer needed especially in NYC where there are so many teaching already in the profession. We have and will have a lot of atrs with school budgets decreasing, so why hire fellows or tfa people?
Teach for America has told their people starting in the fall that all of their training will be done online, so I am pretty sure that the ‘teacher hiring freeze’ will not occur as the mayor said it would. Mulgrew will not stop this either. Why would he? Double dues.
We have heard the phrase ‘hiring freeze’ before. As long as principals can play games, they will. The leadership academy principals or APs looking to move up love playing games. Their favorite term is ‘you are not a proper fit.’
Something like the fellowship program should only be utilized if there is a teaching shortage. When you have 1000 + ATRs you clearly don't have a teaching shortage.
School safety? Please! In my 25 years of teaching in NYC, I've worked through many flu seasons, including a few that were as deadly as the Wuhan virus. Not to mention the various strains of TB and chicken pox that always seemed to come around. Then there was Ebola, SARS, West Nile virus, and a whole host of other diseases our wonderful diverse city allows to enter into our environment. By the way, how many kids are NOT getting their vaccines because of the idiotic lockdown? Yeah, schools will be open, because parents will demand it. If schools were open during flu seasons, the'll be open in the fall. The DOE will use the leverage of the last retro payment to keep you in line.
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