The first Portland district on the Oregon side of the Columbia River that continues to reopen plans after the rules were changed last month is being resisted by the local teachers union. The Lake Oswego school district last week announced plans to begin reopening schools for its youngest students from one month this morning. The LOEA’s resistance follows a message to Gov. Kate Brown from leaders’ union leaders in Oregon’s five largest districts last week.
Health researchers said that students – especially children up to the third grade – have a relatively low risk. As Oregon has detected the virus in institutions from nursing homes to child care centers, it has been found that cases are presented in dozens of schools that offer personalized education, but not in numbers large enough to indicate that schools are important sources of transmission.
The first suspected case of coronavirus in Oregon was diagnosed in an employee at Forest Hills Elementary in Lake Oswego.
Meerah Powell / OPB
The Lake Oswego Education Association, the local union representing 440 teachers, counselors and other educators, issued a statement Monday blasting the move, saying, “Lake Oswego teachers do not want to die or kill their families.” In the LOEA message, the union said it had surveyed its members and found that 76% “did not want to return to it until a vaccine was available, or until the district used health statistics to decide when to reopen. ” According to the union, only 11% of members “looked forward to returning to the classroom.”
Local President Kelly Fitzsimmons said on the one hand: ‘Teachers want to be in the classroom. Teachers miss their children. But at the same time, she said that teachers are seriously concerned about exposure to COVID-19, as the numbers and mortality rates continue to rise.
‘We’ve heard of educators caring for elderly parents, who have health conditions that make them vulnerable. “Some are on the verge of panic, on the verge of quitting,” Fitzsimmons said.
A Lake Oswego school employee was the first person in Oregon to be identified with COVID-19 last winter.
Lake Oswego District officials defended the decision to reopen Monday in a statement. It is said that union leaders were consulted last year and that the district is working according to the guidelines of their agreement.
“During September and October, district and association leadership, representing teachers, counselors and specialists, met weekly to develop a new agreement (MOU) for hybrid learning, which includes the agreement that teachers will return to a personal school if it allowed by the state, ‘Mary Kay Larson, communications director of LOSD, said in a statement to OPB.
The message says union officials were notified on Jan. 4 of the planned return to hybrid learning.
According to the district message, top officials agree with the union on the importance of vaccines for teachers.
“Superintendent Dr. [Lora] de la Cruz actually met with the governor to personally plead for school staff to be included in the vaccine distribution list and work with Clackamas County school districts and public health to expedite the distribution of vaccines to school staff, ”the message reads.
Elsewhere in Oregon, school officials in Bend-La Pine and Redmond have announced plans to resume personal tutoring in the coming weeks. In Southwest Washington, the Evergreen and Vancouver school districts also plan to teach in person.