The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Tuesday that 80% of all teachers, school staff and child care workers in the US have received at least the first dose of coronavirus vaccine.
About 8 million pre-K to 12th grade workers were vaccinated by the end of March, following President Biden’s March 2 order to allow all school staff and childcare workers to receive the vaccine.
TEENAGERS FROM CALIFORNIA CAN GO TO AN ENTERTAINMENT PARK BUT CANNOT GO TO WIPES
“We strive to ensure that teachers, school staff and child care workers are vaccinated during March, have borne fruit and paved the way for safer personal learning,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday. “CDC will build on the success of this program and work with our partners to continue expanding our vaccination efforts as we work to ensure confidence in COVID-19 vaccines.”
But despite the rapidly increasing number of shots fired at school officials, teachers’ unions have remained reluctant to return their members to the classroom for personal instruction.
Legal battles have erupted around the country from San Francisco to Chicago, mainly over the issue of getting teachers back into the classroom for personal tutoring.
At the end of March, an agreement was reached in Oakland, California, to reopen classrooms early for needy students, including homeless children, foster and special needs, after insufficient teachers agreed to return to the classroom, despite cash incentives and vaccination of the vaccine. .
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Teachers from Oakland will find instructors in the classroom for select students on April 14, just three weeks after the district and the teachers’ unions agreed to start teaching in person.
But the father of a high school student in Southern California, Scott Davison, said that what he saw was not the teachers refraining from reopening schools, but rather union officials.
“I do think it’s important to differentiate the attitude of the majority – the vast majority of teachers do not share the opinion of their union,” said Davison, a lawyer who helped file a lawsuit under the Parent Association against six Californians. school districts and state, told Fox News. “I talk to a lot of teachers all the time, who pre-eminently disagree with the establishment of their teachers’ union.”
“I think it’s important to distinguish that it’s union leaders who have political talking points and political agendas trying to claim benefits for them, who are really at odds with their calling – that’s helping students,” Davison added.
Chicago Teachers Union members and supporters join a caravan outside Chicago headquarters while a Chicago Board of Education meeting takes place in Chicago on December 22, 2020. (Photo by Max Herman / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Davison is not the only one who suspects that teacher unions led the narrative and led school teachers on how to act during this unprecedented time.
Last month, reports surfaced alleging that Chicago officials instructed teachers not to disclose whether they had received the vaccine.
Teachers in Chicago have returned to the classroom after a tense public battle, but parents suspected unions across the state were using the pandemic as a bargaining chip for wage increases.
“This amounts to these negotiations with teachers’ unions and the district,” Jonathon Zachreson told Fox News, noting that California, after combining each aid package passed by Congress, received $ 33 billion for school funding.
“It really has to do with poor leadership from Gavin Newsom. He effectively closed schools at the behest of teacher unions during the summer,” Zachreson explained.
“These unions for teachers are wasting time negotiating more funds, and using our children as bargaining chips,” he added.
Supporters of the Chicago Teachers Union are participating in a caravan as negotiations on a coronavirus (COVID-19) safety plan agreement continue on January 30, 2021 with Chicago Public Schools. (REUTERS / Eileen T. Meslar)
While some schools in southern California have reopened after the Davison case, parents in northern California remain frustrated by the lack of state intervention.
San Francisco caught the country’s attention after the city forced the district into action by suing the Board of Education and suing the San Francisco Unified School District in a last-ditch effort to reopen schools for personal education.
While schools reopen in the Bay for hybrid learning, there are still negotiations with the teachers’ unions.
Zachreson, who lives outside Sacramento, has launched one of the largest petitions in the country and called on Newsom to order all pre-K to 12 schools to offer full-time personal education – a measure that 14,000 parents in California has already signed. .
Zachreson said union officials use “safety” as an excuse to keep schools working according to hybrid schedules to keep their negotiations going.
“What I believe is happening is they will continue to continue with these models, these ridiculous hybrid models under the guise of safety, to negotiate more payment and benefits for their members,” he said Tuesday.
The CDC said it was not necessary for every teacher and student to be vaccinated before returning to the classroom, and noted that the detrimental consequences for children doing virtual learning exceed the threat of transmitting the virus during schooling. .
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In February, the CDC director encouraged schools to start again by emphasizing the significant risks children face by continuing their isolation, such as a lack of education and food safety.
President Biden has said that nearly every American 18 years and older can expect to be vaccinated by this summer. But parents remain concerned that it will not change the attitude of teachers’ unions to get children back into the classroom full time.