At today's press briefing, Mayor Bill de Blasio did the full Donald Trump when he said this concerning DOE employees testing positive for COVID-19:
"Some people will test positive. And those folks will immediately get support. After two weeks, those professionals will come back to work -- and they'll complete the entire school year," de Blasio said. "The same will happen with students. We have to remember that for the very small percentage of people who test positive for the coronavirus, it is a very temporary reality."
What did you say, Mr. Mayor? This is a deadly virus that has taken the lives of 194,000 Americans and worldwide has killed close to a million people.
Some of those people who test positive, Mr. Mayor, will not come back to work after two weeks like you say. Some of them will die like they did in the spring when 75 DOE school based workers and 12 School Safety Agents passed on from COVID-19. The NY Times put the scope of the pandemic's cost in NYC right out there in their paragraph on the death toll in the nation's largest cities. Chicago and LA were hit hard they report. "And in New York City, about one of every 360 residents has died." We've lost 23,750 New Yorkers.
Here's what the FDA website says about a vaccine and a remedy: "Currently there are no FDA-approved medicines specifically for COVID-19." "There are currently no vaccines available for the prevention of COVID-19."
But de Blasio says that two weeks after testing positive, it's back to work and they'll complete the whole year. The only person who de Blasio could be remotely compared to for downplaying the virus here is Donald Trump. Trump told Bob Woodward: “I wanted to always play [the coronavirus] down. I still like playing it down because I don't want to create a panic.”
Our mayor is now in Trump land when it comes to coronavirus in NYC schools. de Blasio did acknowledge that 55 DOE employees have tested positive for COVID-19 at the beginning of the school year but he brushed that off for sure.
Some teachers and parents do believe COVID-19 is a big deal so they held protests outside a number of schools today. NBC 4 covered the PS 139 protest in Brooklyn.
What about Michael Mulgrew? The mayor did mention Mulgrew at about the 48 minute point of the presser. The mayor responded to a question on Mulgrew's angry video from Friday by saying that he hasn't seen Mulgrew's video. He adds that he, his first deputy mayor and the chancellor are in constant touch with Mulgrew and they are responding to UFT concerns immediately. The mayor concludes: "If something's wrong, even in a single classroom, we want to know about it right away so we can fix it right away."
Report, report, report, document document, document is my advice. The mayor himself said he wants to know about the concerns.
17 comments:
Teachers need to stop taking the abuse. Cops don’t take it and debozo leaves them alone. When will teachers stand up and stop taking this shit?
If someone at a school test positive and they inform their chapter or admin. is the chapter or admin. required to send an email alerting the entire staff? Or is staff left up to find out through the rumor mill? Cause that is what is happening in some schools.
I havent shown up at all. I told them Im not going in, Im waiting to see what happens. I chose to work remotely without permission.
Whistleblowers will be blown out.
I just watched a puke worthy commercial on Channel 7 from Carranza on how wonderfully prepared the schools are. Pictures of state of the art building ventilation systems, sparkling clean schools and tons of sanitary supplies. What a sick joke. What’s up with Mulgrew? Why is he allowing this? He should have a commercial with the dead mice, six month old used condoms in the back stairwell and stopped up toilets of Grace Dodge.
I have a feeling that the DOE and UFT are going to hide cases until an explosion that could have been avoided happens. Only some teachers and even fewer rogue chapter leaders will do what is right and come forward with cases. This is insanity. A revolt NEEDS to happen.
So DeB says two weeks and a COVID patient is good to go? What about those COVID patients we read about that are in months long comas? Or were rid of the virus after two weeks and are still having repercussions from the infection?
Wow What did your principal say?
We are seeking new petitioners.
BIG NEWS:
We are seeking more petitioners for our Article 78 to grant UFT members wider access to the remote work accommodation. In the Article 78 we filed, we argued that the system by which the NYC DOE dispensed remote work accommodations is arbitrary and capricious.
Judge Ramseur of the Manhattan NYS Civil Court ruled in the favor of our 5 petitioners and has (thus far) granted them TEMPORARY injunctive relief from reporting to work in person.
In layman’s terms, the five petitioners WON their case! Unfortunately it immediately just applies to them. BUT ALL IS NOT LOST.
We are hoping to broadening this injunction to a longer duration for these 5 petitioners and we would like to fight for more petitioners to be granted this opportunity.
If you would like to join us and be able to hopefully be granted an opportunity to work remotely, we would need you to commit to joining us.
This will cost some money (fee to be determined) and you will have to put your name/story on a petition as to why you feel that you were denied or are not being granted access to a remote work accommodation (eg: you are pregnant and were denied; you are 31 and care for an elderly parent).
None of our petitioners faced any form of retaliation for filing the suit.
** Anyone who is going to try to Badmouth Bryan Glass, Lydia Howrilka, the court, or the 5 petitioners will be immediately banned from this page.
While we wish that this decision did apply to more UFT members, we can see this as an opportunity to open the door to more UFT members to file an Article 78 (like the Brave 5 did) with the help of Glass and Howrilka, and be granted a remote work accommodation.
IF YOU WANT IN, EMAIL BRYAN GLASS AND LYDIA HOWRILKA AT:
Lydia.Howrilka@live.com
bglass@ghnylaw.com
Meanwhile, teachers are busy setting up Google Classrooms and producing the usual crap Admins task us with each year. We have schedules that the Union says we shouldn't have. But we have them.
Chapter Leaders, as usual, are cutting deals. Some are trying to help Admins out of the program jam with SBOs even as Mulgrew says the programming problem is not something that should be solved at the school level.
Has the Union stopped schools from submitting and SBO that would get the Admins out of the program jam?
Meanwhile, teachers are busy and will work, work for sanity and for kids they are dedicated to. What a mess.
What can we do? It seems that the operational threat is like the strike threat, the one that was abandoned even though the testing regime we demanded was never met.
So the programming demands won't be met either.
We will teach too many kids in courses we don't have licences for in remote, blended, asynchronous and synchronous Google and real classrooms.
And the union will do nothing about it?
I had covid in march and I was not okay after 2 weeks. I am what they call a long hauler and have had symptoms for 6 months and counting. It makes me so sad and angry to watch what is going on right now
Honestly, nothing yet. I log in and go to the meetings remotely.
Before covid we have had unhealthy schools. Roaches, mice, bed bugs, lice, asbestos, lead in the water, air conditioners that dont work, no heat in some cases. They did not take care of these conditions. What makes them think they can solve the covid problem. I was asked to take a temperature check and the device did not work. We can all work from home and give them time to fix it. But they wont. Their using us as an experiment that has already seen some negative effects.
The biggest problem is no one in a leadership position, be it the President, Governor, Mayor, or Mulgrew, has presented the alternative. Continuing a stay at home mindset for the next 12-18 months (as per Fauci's vaccine timeline, assuming you believe that) will plunge us into a Depression worse than the 30's. As it is GDP last quarter was down 33%. Printing money like the Weimar Republic isn't sustainable. If presented the choice between being penniless, homeless and on a bread line, and going to work, people will go to work. Those under 55 who are far more likely to get hurt or die in a car accident than from the virus should be encouraged to work, shop, dinner and a movie etc. so the older and frail don't have to. People think they can get paid have benefits and have a solvent pension while lounging at home, that would be nice but it doesn't work that way.
@7:51am. Absolutely. Learn from the past and do differently in the future. There is no need for anyone to sacrifice their life for some BS. Hopefully educators will have zero tolerance to roaches, lead in the water, fraudulent grading, disrespect being ignored and everything else negative. Demand to be treated right. Unfortunately, sometimes you must teach people how to treat you.
This is from the Financial Times, TJL,
France’s “temporary unemployment” scheme to avert mass bankruptcies and lay-offs as a result of the coronavirus crisis will be extended, and is now expected to last up to two years, the country’s labour minister said.
The biggest European economies, including Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain, rolled out or enhanced such schemes when the pandemic triggered lockdowns across the continent that sharply reduced economic activity and made it impossible for millions of workers to do their jobs.
Muriel Pénicaud, the labour minister, said that at the end of April some 8.6m employees were benefiting from the French scheme, under which the state pays subsidies to companies to fund the salaries of those prevented from working.
Hi James. So those EU countries have managed to pass relief where ours hasn't - but still, how are they paying for it? Where is the money coming from?
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