Weingarten said 76 percent of his union members surveyed in June said they felt comfortable returning to school buildings with “adequate safeguards,” before the virus began to spread more rapidly in the United States and the president Donald Trump, as well as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, started “reckless threats” open or otherwise “
“Now they are angry and scared,” Weingarten said. “Many resign, withdraw, or write their wills. Parents are also scared and angry.”
Key context: The group, which is the second-largest labor union representing teachers in the United States, adopted a resolution this month that schools can only open in places where the community’s average daily infection rate among those tested for the coronavirus is less than 5 percent and the Transmission rate is less than 1 percent. That resolution denounces “unsafe and unsafe plans” by state and local authorities “or the faulty implementation of the plans.”
The union said schools can reopen only if staff at high risk for serious health problems or death from hiring Covid-19 have access to special accommodations or adjustments in the workplace and local authorities have plans to close the schools if infections increase. The union also requires schools to enact safeguards for classrooms, including rules for physical detachment and facial linings, and to provide resources to disinfect facilities and “necessary updates to ventilation and construction systems.”
Whats Next: Senate Republicans want to set aside billions in aid for schools reopening their campuses for face-to-face classes, a condition that has drawn criticism from a growing number of advocates and Democrats. Now work stoppages are on the table.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is expected to discuss concerns about the reopening of schools when sitting with Weingarten during an AFT town hall.
