CONCORD, NH (AP) – The pressure is building on school systems in the US to reopen classrooms to students who have been learning online for almost a year, and this puts politicians against teachers who have yet to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
In Chicago, the turmoil is so great that teachers are about to strike. In California, a frustrated Governor Gavin Newsom begged schools to find a way to reopen. In Cincinnati, some students returned to classrooms on Tuesday after a judge filed a lawsuit over education security.
While some communities claim that online classes remain the safest option for all, some parents, with the support of politicians and administrators, have complained that the education of their children suffers from sitting at home in front of their computers and that isolation harms them emotionally.
In Nashua, New Hampshire, the school board has decided to stick with distance education for most students until the city reaches certain targets for infections, hospitalizations and tests that are positive for the coronavirus.
Alicia Houston, whose sons are in sixth and tenth grade, said it was her biggest frustration to ‘not be able to help my children effectively’, even though she quit her job trying to do so.
“Watch them get a little darker,” she said last week. ‘Watch them fall apart. The emotional and mental health piece is one of the most important pieces. A trauma like this is not something they are necessarily going to recover from right away. ”
Some families and their supporters have also argued that reopening schools will enable parents to return to work instead of staying home to oversee the education of their children.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a recent study that there is little evidence that the virus spreads in schools when precautions are taken, such as masks, removal and proper ventilation.
But many teachers returned without first being vaccinated against the plague that killed more than 440,000 Americans.
Kathryn Person, a high school teacher in Chicago, wants to teach further so she does not risk the health of her 91-year-old grandmother and an aunt struggling with lung cancer. Person said she trusts the union will fight school officials if they try to punish teachers who do not return.
“If they try to retaliate, we will strike if that happens,” she said.
In California, with 6 million public school students, unions say they will not send their members into an unsafe situation.
Newsom, a Democrat, said he would not force schools to reopen, but would rather give an incentive and proposed a $ 2 billion plan that received criticism from superintendents, unions and lawmakers. This will give schools extra funding for COVID-19 testing and other safety measures if they resume personal classes. Schools that reopen earlier will get more money.
Newsom told educators that he was willing to negotiate, but that certain demands, including the call by unions to have all teachers vaccinated before school started, were unrealistic given the shortage of shots.
“If everyone had to be vaccinated, we might as well tell people the truth: there will be no personal instructions in the state of California,” he said.
The largest districts, including Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, say the plan sets unrealistic rules and timelines.
“The virus is currently at the helm and it does not have a calendar,” the 300,000-member California Teachers Association warned in a letter. “We can not just choose an artificial calendar date and expect to turn on a switch to reopen each school for personal instruction.”
President Joe Biden’s government and Republican senators have dual proposals for stimulus packages that will hand out billions of dollars to help schools get children back into the classrooms.
About 10,000 Chicago teachers and staff and 62,000 students in kindergarten through eighth grade were expected to return to school on Monday for the first time since last March. But the Chicago school system extended distance education by another two days, calling for a cooling-off period in negotiations with the teachers’ union.
District-wide efforts to vaccinate Chicago teachers only begin in mid-February.
In several states, legislators are promoting legislation to teach more personally.
According to a law in Iowa, signed Friday by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, districts must offer full-time classroom instruction to parents who request it. Despite concerns that teachers are still not vaccinated, they will return this month.
In North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is under pressure from GOP lawmakers to reopen more schools. In South Carolina, there is a dual pressure to get students back in class five days a week.
“Once this pandemic is over, I hope never to make a Zoom call again,” said Todd Rutherford, a Democrat. “I hate it. I can not stand them. I can not imagine being in third or fourth grade and having to stare at a screen to learn.”
In Utah, the Salt Lake City school system announced plans to begin teaching in person for at least two days a week under pressure from lawmakers who threatened to cut money.
The principal in the state of Washington insists that teachers be vaccinated when it is their turn, but also insists that they return to the classroom immediately, or not.
“The bottom line is that a vaccine is a huge safety net, but it’s never the thing that’s going to create the perfect scenario,” said Chris Reykdal, public education supervisor.
Emily VanDerhoff, a first-grade teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia, and a union official, were to be vaccinated last Friday. But she and others see that their appointments were canceled when the vaccine supply was low.
The Fairfax County Superintendent has unveiled a preliminary plan for students to begin returning on Feb. 16, but the union says less than 10% of teachers feel it is safe to return.
“Even if we are all vaccinated, it will still be necessary for the community to spread less to feel safe and for it to be safer to have students in schools,” VanDerhoff said.
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Kunzelman reported from College Park, Maryland. Associated Press reporters Bryan Anderson, David Pitt, Sophia Tareen, Don Babwin, Jeffrey Collins and Jocelyn Gecker contributed to this report.