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UFT Warns Teachers Not To Enter School Buildings As Principals' Union Pleads For More Staffing
By
Sophia Chang
Published Aug 28, 2020
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JOHN MARSHALL MANTEL/SIPA/Shutterstock
By
Sophia Chang
Published Aug 28, 2020
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With just less than two weeks to go before public schools are expected to reopen, the New York City teachers union has warned its members that they should not enter school buildings until they’re “proven to be safe.”
In an email blast Friday titled “Only When Safe,” a United Federation of Teachers representative wrote that “The UFT is advising members to not enter school buildings for anything other than retrieving classroom materials and supplies. No one should be going into their school buildings to set up their classrooms or attend a meeting or (professional development). Do not go in.”
He added, “If you are asked to attend something, attend virtually. The union’s school health and safety plan is clear. School buildings should re-open only when proven to be safe.”
Last week, UFT President Michael Mulgrew announced a list of health and safety requirements the union wants before schools reopen, including mandatory testing of all students, staff and teachers who will be inside school buildings. Mulgrew said if the requirements aren’t met, the union was prepared to take job actions including strikes.
Meanwhile, the New York City principals’ union is ramping up its call to delay school reopening with a letter pleading Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza for more time and more staffing.
The letter from the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators comes in response to the city’s newly issued instructional guidance this week, which lays out general structures for students and teachers while they’re in classrooms and engaged in remote-learning.
The guidelines from the Department of Education, which the mayor’s office said was crafted with input from the UFT, ask principals to assign teachers to only one type of teaching: in-person, fully remote, or to handle the remote part of a hybrid schedule.
That’s what worries CSA President Mark Cannizzaro, who said this will lead to staffing shortages. “Regrettably, the DOE has now created a potential staffing crisis with just two weeks to go before the first day of school,” Cannizzaro wrote, and added, “compelling school leaders to open their buildings on September 10th while adhering to this new guidance is indefensible.”
While no school calendar or first day of school has been officially released, de Blasio has repeatedly referred to September 10th as the day he hopes students will return to school. He and Carranza have talked about using substitute teachers and other DOE personnel to assist with staffing shortages.
“Every school will have the teaching complement that we need,” de Blasio told Brian Lehrer during his weekly call-in segment on Friday.
Mulgrew said the guidance was created out of necessity, and doesn’t answer the question of staffing. "Under the pressure of the pandemic, we have created a strategy to combine remote and in-person learning, a flexible system where a team of educators will work with a given group of students. But even with this approach, many schools will still face a staffing shortage, which the system will have to address," he said in a statement Thursday.
Cannizzaro said he was skeptical about the reality of finding, training, and deploying thousands of extra teachers in the next few weeks, and pointed out all these new teachers could upend administrators’ plans.
“As school leaders process this new guidance, distributed on the very day they were required to share schedules with families, many will be forced to abandon their carefully considered plans and communicate to their superintendents that their school simply doesn’t have enough staff to begin the year. They must now communicate to families that far too many students will not be taught remotely by their in-person teachers,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said the schools will have enough teachers by the beginning of the school year. “As the Mayor has clearly said, we’re working with schools to ensure they will have what they need to begin the school year,” said de Blasio’s spokesperson Avery Cohen in an emailed statement. “We’re exercising every possible option, including redeploying staff from central and field offices, the use of substitute teachers, and additional hiring if necessary.”
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COVID-19
csa
United Federation of Teachers
schools reopening
Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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