We showed yesterday how the Department of Education has all kinds of plans to keep sick children and staff out of school. However, what about asymptomatic spread of COVID-19?
From Harris Lirtzman's Facebook:
The proportion of asymptomatic COVID cases is crazy high and researchers believe that understanding why will lead to effective treatments, a more efficient vaccine and fewer superspreader events.
DOE better be ready to test and get rapid results. Not likely to happen.
In other states, opening school buildings seems problematic so far. Coronavirus outbreaks in schools in Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee are not encouraging. It is only a matter of time before NY is hit again if we reopen buildings. I hope I'm wrong.
Thank you to all of you who are sending so many articles to post. I am trying to keep up but falling behind a bit. Here's one from Gothamist that tracks how deadly COVID-19 has been in NYC.
46 comments:
what needs to happen is that everyone take pictures and share the crowded hallways, stairwells, and parents and children not social distancing when entering school builidings. Are different grades scheduled to arrive at different times? everyone arriving at once and selective screening is going to cause spread. #We are not guinea pigs.
Wish we had the opportunity to express our valid concerns. Same concerns here in NYC.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/08/07/tim-walz-press-conference-interruption-pkg-vpx.wcco
Unless there are regular on-site mandatory tests for school staff and students with rapid results or a vaccine,
the only safe option is 100% remote learning.
Saturday night
Northern Blvd.
Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC
@MTA
bus packed to near (non-covid) capacity.
James, it is a lost cause. Nothing is changing. Abuse will continue.
I am super surprised that I haven't heard more about who is taking care of our own kids while we are in the building teaching. My 4th grader is on a hybrid model going in 2x per week. Am I expected to pay a sitter full day 3x per week. I might as well not work. I would like the union to address this. Anyone know where we can send our questions?
I’m one of the teachers (I know there are a bunch of us) who is going to have to figure out and pay for child care for multiple kids. It may turn out that that will cost more than I make. Oh, and I’m also terrified of causing students or colleagues to get sick. I qualify for a child care leave. can I cancel it and return if we go virtual a few weeks in? What are the other options? Just not going in? How quickly would I get fired? I’m so consumed with anxiety
So if a teacher or student gets a confirmed Covid result AND reports it, which not everyone may do, and that class shuts down and goes fully remote for those 2 weeks, then what students is that teacher teaching remotely if that class already has a remote teacher? 😳🤔
Also, does this mean that those kids can’t go to their assigned REC center if they are in one for those two weeks ok their assigned remote days? If not, then where do they go if their parents are working?
Another charter network will be virtual, KIPP and Sucess Academy.
BREAKING: At least 6 students and 3 staff members who last week attended the Paulding County #Georgia high school—infamous for the photo of its hallways jammed with unmasked students—have now tested positive for #coronavirus.
What could go wrong with safety when we have leaders like this? Remember, NY has far and away the most covid deaths. De blasio took a shot at Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday for trying to lure the wealthy back to New York with the promise of tax breaks — and said he would like to raise taxes on the rich if federal coronavirus aid doesn’t come through.
Hizzoner’s remarks came days after Cuomo said he was begging rich New Yorkers who fled to their vacation homes during the coronavirus pandemic to return — and was even offering to cook them dinner.
“To the point about the folks out in the Hamptons, I have to be very clear about this, we do not make decisions based on the wealthy few,” de Blasio told reporters during his daily press conference Thursday. “I was troubled to hear this concept that because wealthy people have a set of concerns about the city that we should accommodate them — that we should build our policy and approaches around them.”
Nothing like reporters working remotely explaining how safe hundreds or thousands of students in a building + school staff is totally safe, so no worries!
DeBlasio is destroying the city. He is blinded by good intentions that is causing everyone, who has enough money, to leave. The fleeing rich won’t be paying for his progressive agenda and the folks in public housing won’t either. It’s the middle class and they have and will be laid off en masse and leave as well. Many are leaving now as they can buy a 100k mansion in the sticks and work from home. If Cuomo had real courage, not his insipid trumpet playing to attract a woman and the presidency, he would remove deBlasio now. He’s hoping for everything blowup spectacularly - his revenge is much more important than NYC. Oh yeah, and Trump is going to win again, and he’s not going to rescue deBlasio, Cuomo or NYC. Biden is a ridiculous choice, the Dems would get better traction on thin ice. Everyone hard core New Yorker is now considering leaving NY.
Cuomo for months has been saying NY SMART with the response to Covid19— during his daily conferences. His decision to reopen NYC public schools along with DeBlasio—is nothing short of NY STUPID.
Since A LOT of us do not feel as though we are being represented fairly from the top.. I propose we create a letter from the bottom (us) to send to the top that would fairly represent our feelings. Our whining here has gotten us nowhere in the past and I believe it is time to step up.
If your opinions are not in accordance, do not send the letter. However, if you agree with some of the arguments - send it. We are stronger together. Now is not the time to be afraid of backlash from higher ups. Now is the time to be afraid of getting put into a potentially deadly situation.
IF YOU LIKE THIS IDEA, feel free to start posting your concerns and demands.
If you're not a classroom teacher, you cannot understand the logistics what it means to be teaching in the classroom and how these ridiculous proposals will play out. If you are an Ed policy maker (or admin) who've been out of the classroom for several years, you probably no longer can relate to the logistics of what it means to be teaching in the classroom, and how these ridiculous proposals will play out. If you're a politician, well then...
The things I am hearing are ridiculous
Due to a backorder of PPE equipment, the New Paltz School District will reopen in September with remote learning only
DOE: In the event a child exhibits Covid-19 symptoms, they'll be kept in an isolation room with a staff member of the principal's choice to keep watch.
Principal: Hmmm, let's see..who's been a thorn in my side recently?? *rubs hands together devilishly* 😈 👏🏽
30 children in one school coughing/feeling weak during regular flu season on the exact same day: Each student placed in their own isolation room, since obviously 30 will be available (After all, we can't put all of them in the same room...some may have a cold/flu and others may actually have Covid-19, and those students run the risk of infecting the students who have a cold/flu). Having all of these available isolation rooms and extra staff members who don't have to teach and can stand guard for these rooms is amazing!!!
DOE: Oopsie
Getting ready to go back to school in a few weeks.
Got my will done, made sure the wife knows how/when to sue the fuck out of the NYCDOE, and to make sure she gets the "He died in-service" three years of annual salary payout from the city owed to survivors.
More than 1/3 of school buildings surveyed in 2019 by city inspectors had at least one deficiency in exhaust fans that are a critical component of any ventilation system.
@AlisonHirsh
@DOEChancellor
@NYCMayor
What is your response to parents & teachers?
UFT: Blame Trump
We wasted the summer, while President Trump sowed distrust and promoted heedlessness. What’s left now is to see what can be salvaged. In New York City, which has more than a million students, the virus has ebbed, but Mayor Bill de Blasio has offered an inept plan that relies on staff and equipment that don’t exist and that the city has no plans to pay for, all to give children in-person instruction only one to three days a week. Michael Mulgrew, the head of the United Federation of Teachers, has said that the city’s safety standards are “not enough.”
I’m growing increasingly frustrated with the narrative that kids don’t get sick/transmit Covid19 to other kids and/or adults. They do.
Parts of the Bronx as of the last week of July have up to 75% more people testing positive for covid than the nyc average. #EquityOrElse #HealthJustice #COVID19 #OnlyWhenItsSafe #schoolsourstudentsdeserve #DefundThePolice
MORE-UFT
@MOREcaucusUFT
And you think this won't happen in school buildings that have been defunded for decades?
NYT National News
Experts have been warning that office buildings closed for coronavirus lockdowns might face Legionnaires' disease risks when they reopen. Now it has happened in some C.D.C. offices. https://nyti.ms/3kmV8DH
If one student or faculty member dies, or suffers long-term health effects from a disease that was entirely preventable with better distance planning, more mask wearing, internet learning and less general stubborn stupidity, they can put those stats on the victim’s tombstone.
Our students are majority Black and Latinx. Many of these students also come from neighborhoods with an infection rate above the Mayors 3% threshold. @NYCSchools’ plan will kill more Black and Latinx New Yorkers.
COVID-19 infection rates were at 3.79% in the neighborhood where the majority of my Ss live (data-July).
@NYGovCuomo
@NYCMayor
: To use average % to determine re-opening schools in such a highly segregated & unequal city is to turn a blind eye
I am not going to even bother going over the myriad of cohort schemes that the DOE has come up with in splitting up classes and school for safe distance learning and whatnot. In a system so large, this cohort plan to too cumbersome and will be too burdensome on the families.
The much maligned schedule, hopefully this is just a trial balloon or some type of prototype but a one size fits all 1,800 schools is not workable. Worse, was the silence from the UFT in putting this forward. Again, this is where the UFT still continues to have problems with the rank and file. This schedule appears to have been completed in a vacuum. Who was involved? Were teachers involved? What other choices were presented to the UFT as well as the DOE? And once again, a change to the contract was not presented to the membership to be voted on. I for one am tired of this. This must end now, not sometime soon. Especially with what happening now, nothing in education is static anymore. Life and education are now fluid. The UFT must change with the times.
I don't believe a word the DOE says. Right now I am giving the benefit of the doubt to the UFT.
So what makes me think the buildings won't reopen?
Two hundred thousand students will start off the year remotely. Where are all the extra teachers coming from? Schools are going to need extra teachers in the schools, right? They're going to need just as many extras if not more doing remote learning.
We still don't know how many teachers will receive medical accommodations to teach from home. The New York Post has speculated that 80% of teachers at Stuyvesant High School will receive accommodations. What if that's the same in every building? What is the demarcation line for a school and teachers being remote? Do we know if medical is processing the accommodation requests without quotas for each and every school?
The school buildings are disgusting. Some of these buildings are over 100 years old. That means there is 100 years of rat doody, dead vermin, dead cockroaches, etc... lying within the floors and wherever. And if that gunk hasn't ever been cleaned what makes anyone think the buildings will be thoroughly cleaned every single night. Where is the extra custodial staff coming from? The extra monies to clean and disinfect? The safety materials for the custodial staff? Too many questions, zero answers.
Plus, there is not enough ventilation in the buildings. Some windows don't open. Some air conditioners, if a school has them, don't work. Are the proper filters installed? If so, how do we know?
The lack of nurses. Mulgrew has drawn a line in the sand with this one and I hope he keeps to it. He said if every school doesn't have a nurse then teachers will not report. As of now, I believe, there are 85 nurses without a school nurse. And no one cares if you train someone for a day and give them the duties of a nurse. They aren't nurses.
The monitoring of students and staff. Did I read this right? Mommies will determine whether or not junior has symptoms? The same mommies who send junior to school with snot dripping out of his nose? Oh yeah, there are to be temperature checks outside the school buildings in the mornings. By whom? For whom? With what training will these temperatures be taken? Won't that cause a non social distancing situation outside the building? This would seem to take up quite a bit of time.
All it takes is one. It takes one child to get sick, one child to die and there will be a shit storm. The city doesn't want a shit storm. And the parents will pull their children in a nano second. Then again in Carranza and De Blasio you have two thick headed bone heads.
Which leads me back to...
As I said earlier, I am giving the UFT the benefit of the doubt thus far. I do not think that that it is time(nor is it a fair comparison) for emulate Chicago and Los Angeles. Nor is it time for Mulgrew to go all radical on the DOE.
Think of a poker game. The UFT has a flush, and Carranza and De Blasio are holding different cards of different suits and keep on raising. Why the fuck should the UFT call? Let the Carranza and De Blasio keep fucking up. And guess what? They will. Why use a hammer when a chisel will do? Mulgrew is p3wning both these dolts. Let him.
If and when Mulgrew declares that staff can't (not will not) report, the teachers will come out as the benefactors and protectors of the schools and students. Carranza and De Blasio will look like schmucks. This isn't Chicago or Los Angeles. Yes, those cities are big but not nearly as important. All eyes are on New York City right now.
I'm not rationalizing anything. I'm not shilling. This is how I feel.
Twiddledumb and Twiddledumber should have been planning for full and comprehensive remote learning as well as proper professional development. They've both been caught with their underwear down around the knees. It's time to bring the undies down to their ankles.
Your poker analogy falls a little flat because the UFT dithering and delaying is helping to cause the system to go into even more disarray. All of this planning for impossible in school learning is a complete waste of money and time. The resulting remote learning will be a mess if and when blended learning falls apart. How about the thousands of doctor visits for notes? Who is processing over 20,000 applications for remote only? Who is helping with the needless anxiety UFTers are feeling?
There is absolutely no reason why we can't be Chicago or LA except Michael Mulgrew and his Unity Caucus.
James,
Hell no!
The DOE can not even provide a school calendar for next year.
We are talking about the DOE here!!!
How can it can you expect them to account for asymptomatic spread?
Are you joking? Just stop it!
to 5:29
There is strength in numbers. The UFT shouldn't be Chicago or LA. It should be better!
We should not be lagging behind these two other unions.
Mulgrew's tactics is letting everyone do the tough things that need to happen. He hides behind others-the principals union, parent groups and hopes for the best.
He is paid to be a leader SO HE NEEDS TO LEAD NOT FOLLOW. Protecting our lives is not a pawn in a game. Please don't justify his actions when our lives are at stake.
This is not a poker game. It is real life. People are thinking of taking unpaid leaves, resigning to protect their families. We deserve to know that he is going to demand we are protected by saying we are not going back to unsafe, unprepared schools.
Games of chance should be played for fun not for a safeguard to dying.
Mulgrew needs to be ousted. He is not a leader.
It is high priority that we get him out.
He is a coward, a milquetoast leader, and he a betrayer.
The union president sent out an email that we should not go back. Town Hall coming up.
All the complaints, same results. Uft members are sheep. NYs dumbest.
This is the doe in 2020. Years (OK, maybe decades) ago, jobs at McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, etc. were mainly filled by high school kids looking to make a few bucks for spending money. Now those jobs are apparently careers unto themselves in many cases.
Mulgrew needs to be ousted. Mulgrew deserves 100% union dues. Nobody opt out. Make sense?
Can someone post email?
UFT Members Demand That UFT President Michael Mulgrew Represent Them Properly and Not Promote Secret Changes To The Contract
The coronavirus has added another historical moment to UFT activism.
NYC teachers are seeing the disaster that collective bargaining by President Michael Mulgrew and other top people at the teachers' union has brought to effective representation and members' rights. The UFT is, it seems from their actions in the past decade, too politicized to follow their own principles. New lawsuits are popping up in Federal Court citing the collaboration of the Department of Education AND the UFT in pursuing harm to members - or at least playing along to get along.
UFT members are not blind to the lack of support the rank and file get when a problem arises such as workplace injury, discrimination, false charges of incompetency, or misconduct. At least most who have had, or continue to have, a problem in his or her workplace have been frustrated by the lack of fair representation at hearings or getting relief.
UFT Secretary and Staff Director Leroy Barr
Two recent cases show what I mean. In one case: a probationary paraprofessional who worked without any disciplinary actions for 18 years, suddenly was accused of swinging a small boy - whose para left him for a moment - in the air and yelling at him. He has autism. One person described this alleged "event" to the principal, and the paraprofessional was discontinued. She filed for arbitration with ADCOM and was shocked when she received the decision, written by Staff Director Leroy Barr who was not at the hearing yet cited her "confession" as stated in the principal's testimony, not the paraprofessional's own testimony, to dismiss her case and deny her the arbitration she requested.
Tenured members also get shoddy treatment. Tenure is created to protect the rights of teachers to due process and the whims of false claims, and this is something that the UFT is denying members. I know many UFT members who are assaulted by violent students in their classrooms and are denied LODI (line of duty injury) relief by their principals or are told to not go back to their schools and then charged for not stopping the violence, and sent to a 3020-a hearing to be terminated.
Where is the UFT in this absurdity?
JANUS V AFCME also made a dent in the all-powerful pocketbook of the UFT as well as other Unions, albeit minor, so far.
Over the last couple of months, members have been demanding the UFT make the Department provide guaranteed safety measures in the fall so that they can go back to in-person teaching without worrying they are going to die. What does the UFT leadership do, but alter the contract without the rank and file voting on the changes! This is what UFT member Michael Flanagan, Ed.D., UFT Chapter Leader, District 10 the Bronx writes, re-posted below.
We hear you, loud and clear.
Dear UFT President Michael Mulgrew,
I am a 34-year member of the United Federation of Teachers. This morning I received an email from you informing me—and the other 77,000 or so UFT members—that you unilaterally agreed to drastic changes of our working conditions. Those working conditions were voted on by the rank and file members of the union that you were elected to represent. They cannot be changed by you or by the city without another rank and file vote by the members. That has not occurred.
I represent 110 staff members in a school, and I need to protect those members’ rights, from a disease, from a Mayor who is willing to send us back into harm’s way and now, apparently, from my own union. And I will do so.
I am linking our current, legally enforceable UFT contract, for your review. I am also including the email you sent this morning entitled “Your Work Day If School Buildings Reopen”
It is interesting to note, that these very same revisions that you agreed to, were sent out to principals by the Chancellor’s office a week ago, I am linking the video of the Chancellor’s Presentation to the principals, dated July 30th. I was presented with these revisions by my own principal two days ago.
Why is it we, your union members, only hear from you today?
When did these negotiations take place? Who was on those committees? Why were none of these new conditions brought to your members for a vote? Why did the principals know about this a week before your members?
As UFT President you do not have the right to change our contract without a vote by your members. If we are forced to work under these conditions, we will be forced to resist.
With or without you.
Many will claim that teachers in New York City cannot strike, because of the Taylor Law. Well under the Tri-Borough Amendment of the Taylor Law, if our contract expires, we continue to work under the conditions of that expired contract until a new one is approved by the union’s membership. The City of New York will be violating our contract’s working conditions if these “agreed” upon changes go into effect. UFT members will have no choice but to engage in job actions. They may include any and all of the following:
1. Working to the letter of our CURRENT CONTRACT
2. ALL of the UFT members working remotely, and none of us showing up in the physical buildings
3. Mass sickouts
4. A strike
5. Class action lawsuits against the NYCDOE and The UFT for contract violations
If we strike under the Taylor law, we will lose two days' pay for every one day we are out of work. Our union will be fined one million dollars a day, and the union leaders will be arrested.
Due to the health risk of the Coronavirus pandemic, many union members are prepared for that. More will be, the closer we get to the reopening of school.
There is also the unfortunate option, of union members defunding the union, until we get real representation during this crisis. Under the Janus decision, we are all VOLUNTARILY paying union dues. If we are not represented by our leadership, then we have no leadership.
I would urge you to reconsider your email today and this “agreement” you entered without the voice or consent of your union members.
Put these proposed changes TO A VOTE. Now.
Represent your members.
The 3 years of salary death benefit is automatic if you’re in-service. What you want is the line of duty benefit. The MTA got half a million for each death from COVID. Hope your wife is satisfied with that
James please tell all of your bloggers to participate in the UFT TOWNHALL on Thursday, August 13 at 3 30.
They were all invited and if they want to learn what is going on directy from the UFT they should participate.
I will listen as I have listened to each Town Hall and live blogged. Is Mulgrew going to start taking tough questions?
ADVISE your bloggers to listen in and hear directly.
UFT TOWNHALL
August 13
3 30
How about answering tough questions?
I'm a UFT member but I did not get the invite to register.
How can I listen to the UFT Townhall on August 13?
Thanks
Email UFT.
James let's be honest. We can't be LA or Chicago because NYC teachers are not as progressive. Our list of demands will never include defunding the police and other things not related to coronavirus. My school is 50 to 60% conservatives. No way they'd agree with LA and Chicago teachers unions demands. There are maybe 10% progressives in my school and the rest are old school liberals who don't have the stomach for crime waves. I bet half of these liberals vote for Trump. I think if anyone thinks Biden is sure to win, you're not reading people accurately. No one had any political signs on their lawn in my neighborhood in 2016. During the riots Trump/pence signs started popping up all over. By insisting that riots were peaceful protests the democrats have alienated many who may have voted their way.
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