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Teachers Will Ask Judge To Block In-Person Learning At NYC Public Schools
By
David Cruz
Published Sep 2, 2020
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Mark Lennihan/AP/Shutterstock
By
David Cruz
Published Sep 2, 2020
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Several New York City teachers will ask a state judge to keep schools fully remote for the upcoming semester and expand the criteria for instructors to teach from home, arguing that it's still too risky to bring students and teachers back into classrooms while the danger of the pandemic still exists.
"I will not allow them to use me or my children as test subjects," said Francisca Harding, a 12-year D75 science teacher in the Bronx, and one of the petitioners filing an injunctive relief against the City of New York and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza. "My whole family is in the front line," said Harding, whose three children are in the public school system. Harding added that she was also filing the suit for the "thousands" of educators who "are not tenured, and do not have the safety net that I have within the DOE, and especially home instruction teachers, hospital instruction teachers, paraprofessionals."
Harding argues that the school buildings are not safe for teachers even as city officials have cited measures like electrostatic cleaning of classrooms, hand sanitizer, limited movement among students, a nurse in every school building, and maintaining a 30-day supply of personal protective equipment for everyone.
Currently, students are expected to return to school for in-person learning on September 21st, 11 days from the original date Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city Department of Education proposed, with training for remote learning for teachers occurring September 16th through 18th. The decision was made after the DOE struck a deal to delay school reopening with the United Federation of Teachers, which threatened last week to strike.
The Independent Budget Office released a report on Wednesday showing that 90% of public schools have enough space for students to socially distance, provided gyms, cafeterias, and auditoriums are used as alternative classrooms. The agency based its findings—using the DOE's current plan of keeping only eight students to a class—off the annual school space survey that principals submit yearly, adding that there are currently no hard numbers showing how many students at each school have opted into remote learning. The agency admitted the figures are "rough estimates of potential capacity across the system."
"They're playing what we in the DOE call the 'horse and pony game.' We're trying to create a show for you guys, and tell parents, 'Look we're safe.' But a lot of those parents are also educators," Harding countered. "And we know for a fact that the schools are not safe. The cleaning has not been done correctly. Some teachers find dead animals or dead rodents under their desk. And that's been there for years. And now de Blasio is gonna tell us all of a sudden, there's gonna be a purified cleaning throughout all the schools, in the DOE?"
Harding and other petitioners hope a judge forces the DOE to agree to expanding the Reasonable Accommodation Request criteria—a set of DOE-approved medical conditions that allow impacted teachers to work from home instead of a classroom with the belief their conditions could worse if they return to school.
The filing of an injunctive relief was brought by UFT Solidarity, a subset group within the UFT that's criticized the school reopening plan and the narrow approval process for RAR's.
"It excludes certain groups of people, including people who are cancer patients, people who are parents of small children, who may have opted to go remote," said Lydia Howrilka, a teacher and organizer with UFT Solidarity. "People like myself who are caregivers of elderly parents and guardians who unfortunately will be putting our loved ones at great risk if we were to come into work. Educators have been given this Hobson's Choice of choosing between their livelihoods and their health."
In a statement, DOE spokesperson Danielle Filson said the agency will "review the lawsuit when we served."
“Throughout the entire pandemic we have prioritized health and safety for our students, teachers and staff, and the plan we developed together with the UFT and other labor partners does the same. We will review the lawsuit when we are served.”
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COVID-19
schools
David Cruz
David is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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