With COVID-19 cases expected to spike this holiday season, teachers unions are asking the state to establish pandemic protocols across all schools or shift to statewide remote learning.
The Board of Education Union Coalition has released a report that says in-person learning is considered a high-risk activity, contrary to current state policy. And with about 96% of the state’s population in a COVID red alert municipality, the coalition says no classes should be operating fully in person.
Jeff Leake, president of the Connecticut Education Association, said the union has received many complaints about districts not following coronavirus protocols. CEA, one of the unions in the coalition, represents about 40,000 teachers.
“The social distancing protocol, however, is one that hardly any districts, that we know of, can do. We are hearing from teachers that kids are only 2 to 3 feet apart in some cases,” Leake said. “In a normal situation you want them to be together, but that was pre-COVID. And now we’re in this pandemic, so that can’t happen.”
The coalition acknowledges the state has done a lot for schools in terms of improving internet access and distributing remote-learning devices among other things, Leake said. But not enough has been done to improve the in-person experience.
“I hope everyone sees this is the unions trying to work with parents and administration ultimately for the benefit of the kids to say ‘we know we have the safest classrooms we can possibly have and we’re not skimping on anything.’ If we can do that, we are ready to work with others,” Leake added.
If safety and transparency requests cannot be met, the coalition is asking the state to go fully online from after Thanksgiving until Jan. 18.