The battle over reopening schools in Texas has grown increasingly politicized in recent weeks, as teacher’s unions continue to call for the state to cancel in-person instruction this fall while GOP legislators accuse Democrats of wanting to sabotage the 2020 election.
With schools slated to reopen in less than two weeks, Texas teachers are threatening to strike in spite of state laws that prohibit collective bargaining. Public employees who go on strike can face termination or even have their pension benefits revoked, per the state’s right-to-work laws.
The pandemic has brought to the fore the extent to which Texas’ political landscape favors businesses over workers, said Alejandra Lopez, a second grade teacher and president of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel.
“We live in an anti-worker, anti-human, anti-future state, and we really have to reckon with that,” Lopez said during a virtual news conference convened by Jolt, the largest Latino progressive organization in Texas.
Teachers have reported being threatened with termination if they refuse to teach on campus in the fall, an ultimatum echoed and supported by several local legislators. A Facebook post by Cedar Park City Council Member Tim Kelly drew ire after suggesting teachers should return to campus or be fired.
“Stop catering to the leeches… Fire them and rehire new teachers,” Kelly wrote.
Other teachers have resigned because of unreasonable policies that could endanger their lives. Misty Griffin, a middle school English language arts teacher at a public school near Dallas, resigned after being told that while her school would be providing distance learning, she was required to conduct virtual lessons from inside the school building, reports the Dallas Morning News.
The state has overlooked the everyday realities of teaching
Teachers say state legislators simply aren’t aware of the logistical intricacies of the educational setting prior to the added burden of following CDC guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic. Legislators have offered no concrete advice on how to prevent coronavirus transmission when students arrive at school, use the restroom and enter the cafeteria, or how to discipline a child who refuses to wear a mask because his or her parents don’t believe in mask-wearing.
Supervised hand washing, as recommended by the Texas Education Agency, is feasible for kindergarteners, but far less enforceable among older students.
“Safety in a school is already an issue and a weakness for many campuses,” said Paloma Garner, a high school teacher in Houston. “I can’t imagine how adding COVID on top of that is something that we can even handle right now.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has responded by arranging the distribution of PPE to Texas schools, announcing in a press release earlier this week that Texas schools would receive masks, hand sanitizer, thermometers and face shields at no cost.
School children treated as expendable in nationwide race to reopen
As tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter have announced plans for remote work through 2021 to prevent community spread of COVID-19, public school children are being marshaled like guinea pigs in a national lab experiment to see which state can reopen the fastest.
In a since-deleted tweet, Vance Ginn, chief economist of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, argued that schools should reopen because the majority of people dying from COVID are “elderly & Hispanics.”
“Why not #openschools, end universal mandates, target vulnerable & check those from #Mexico?” he wrote.
Legislators in favor of reopening schools cite lower rates of infection among children, adding that those who become infected experience less severe symptoms than adults. However, children can still be carriers and pass the virus on to vulnerable adults. Children also fall ill more frequently because their immune systems are still developing, and they put their hands in their mouths more often than adults do.
“I don’t know about you guys, but my kids used to come home from school sick all the time, and I built up an immunity, but there have been so many times I’ve gotten bugs from them,” said Jasmine Robinson, founder of the Collegiate Mom Coalition, a nonprofit that helps mother complete their undergraduate degree. She has two daughters, ages 9 and 11.
“Children can’t be held accountable for their own health,” Robinson added.
Patchwork policies in Texas won’t stop community spread
The latest guidance from the Texas Education Agency gives school districts up to four weeks to delay in-person instruction after the start of the school year, during which they can offer remote learning. Schools can remain closed for an additional four weeks with the vote of the school board and after receiving a waiver. If any school district believes they need a further extension beyond eight weeks, the TEA will review the request on a case-by-case basis.
The catch-22 is that for a school to remain closed if needed, the waiver must be approved by the TEA in order for the school to continue receiving state funding. There are currently no guidelines as to what constitutes adequate grounds for school closure, such as positivity rate or number of new cases.
“We are never going to defeat the coronavirus with patchwork policies,” said Mary Gonzalez, who represents House District 75 in the Texas House of Representatives. Gonzalez added that the legislature is “all over the place” on the issue of reopening schools, with school districts divided on the issue among party lines.
In historically democratic El Paso, for example, schools are offering either hybrid (3 days virtual, 2 days in-person) or 100% virtual schooling, with in-person instruction available only to students in Pre-K through second grade, or students with disabilities. Meanwhile, school districts in North Texas have reported that so many students have opted to return to campus in the fall — after being given the choice between virtual and in-person learning — that most schools are unable to follow social distancing guidelines.
With much of the debate over reopening schools focused on the mode of instruction — virtual versus in-person — educators are losing precious time to plan for the best and safest way to teach students during a pandemic.
“Educators are ready to do their jobs,” said Lopez. “They showed over the spring how effective and efficient they can be at transforming the education experience as we know it to a virtual platform.”