The district previously agreed to this safety requirement in a memorandum of understanding. But now it wants to allow the superintendent to change it.
“When they tried to give the superintendent unilateral control to change the distance, they tore up the MOU,” said Brookline Educators Union President Jessica Wender-Shubow.
She and the union vice president have already been served with papers for supporting the sickout. Strikes by public sector workers are illegal in Massachusetts.
Educators were already unhappy with the district for “faking it” on safety and rushing a return to buildings, Wender-Shubow said. “We started by telling the truth, exposing the lack of compliance everywhere.”
As some schools reopened on hybrid models, educators wrote down every example of non-compliance with safety measures, and sent more than 100 letters to the school committee (equivalent to a school board). Some educators read their letters aloud at a school committee meeting.
Ninth-Grade Teachers Led
One building in particular organized and led the way. In mid-October, educators who work with ninth-grade students, who are in their own building, were suddenly given an earlier date to return to in-person learning under the hybrid model.
Educators were already unhappy with the district for “faking it” on safety and rushing a return to buildings, Wender-Shubow said.
Members in that building started a petition campaign, demanding a one-week delay in the hybrid start date. They got more than 90 percent of members to sign before presenting the petition to the school committee. They won the delay.
But then the district announced that the hybrid model for ninth-graders, which has half of the students face to face Monday-Tuesday and the other half face to CONTINUE READING: Teachers Stage Social Distance Sick Out - LA Progressive