‘Terrified, petrified, panicked’: CMS teachers call on district to go fully remote
More than two dozen Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers and school-based employees called on the board Tuesday night to reassess its reopening plan with two weeks of in-person orientation and instead reopen under a fully remote plan.
Since Gov. Roy Cooper announced a statewide order to open schools at reduced capacity or to go fully online, teachers in CMS have grown increasingly vocal about their concerns.
The school board has opted to pursue “Plan B Plus Remote,” which would bring students back to classrooms in three socially distant groups over a two-week period, before switching over to full remote learning.
But local teachers have expressed frustration with how their concerns over student and personal safety have been ignored or misrepresented. They have called for increased transparency and communication from district leaders.
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, the majority of the roughly 40 people who signed up to speak were teachers sharing their concerns about unanswered questions regarding the current plan with some directly asking the board to eliminate the in-person component.
Board member Lenora Shipp, a former CMS principal, asked district administrators what is being done to address safety concerns from teachers. Administrators said those conversations were ongoing, and that principals were working with their area superintendents to come up with solutions.
“We heard so much from teachers tonight,” Shipp said. “I know what it’s like to be in those buildings. They need to know they are safe. We need to talk about how we support them to come back.“
Teachers said they still have questions about personal protective equipment, isolating sick students, metrics for returning and access to testing for COVID-19. They said they work in school buildings that don’t meet the safety criteria outlined by healthcare professionals. Many said repeatedly they’re worried about older buildings and their ventilation, especially those with outdated HVAC systems.
Superintendent Earnest Winston said the district is putting together a task force of medical professionals to come up with metrics for when schools could come back to in-person learning, or switch back to remote learning.
Many teachers said they shared apprehensions about keeping students out of school, especially pertaining to mental health, food security and socioemotional development, but the risks to children exposing each other in the classroom are significant. Any coronavirus-related deaths or illnesses resulting from a return to school would be traumatic, they said, especially as coronavirus metrics in Mecklenburg County continue to be the highest in the state.
Lori Carter, a teacher at Philip O. Berry High School, said the racial disparity in COVID-19 cases, which has been more prominent and more deadly among Black and Latino communities, could not be ignored, as those students are most likely to have family members who work essential jobs that cannot be done remotely.
Students should not be exposed to the virus to have their basic needs met, she said, and called on CMS to seek support from faith and non-profit organizations.
“Our students in the Black and brown community will become a conduit for illness,” she said. “We have to demand these organizations commit to support districts most at-risk students.”
Deputy superintendent Matt Hayes said teachers would be encouraged to work from school buildings during remote learning. The district said it is implementing safety measures such as symptom checks, isolating sick students and requiring face coverings, but teachers have said they are worried about how those measures will be implemented.
Limited options for teachers
Employees said they were given limited options for the fall and few opportunities to tell the district their opinions before a decision was made. An earlier intent to return survey, sent to all CMS staff members, asked whether they were willing to return to in-person work or whether they would leave the district. Teachers said that wasn’t a realistic choice. Only those with a limited set of medical conditions could request a different placement, they said.
“You let parents have a choice, but you didn’t let staff members have a choice,” said Elizabeth Mills, a teacher at Berryhill Elementary School. “We love our kids. We can’t wait to be back with them, but teaching them shouldn’t include the possible guilt that we might be responsible for one of their deaths.”
Some teachers who spoke Tuesday said while they don’t have a qualifying medical condition themselves, they are caretakers for people considered high-risk and could not risk exposing their loves ones to the disease if they returned for the two-week period.
“I cannot retire. I cannot resign. I need my job,” said Nhora Gómez-Saxon, a teacher at South Mecklenburg High School. “And right now I am the only one working in my family. I do not have an underlying condition, but I have a mother who finished her cancer treatment just on time to celebrate her 80th birthday.”
Mills said her peers are “terrified, petrified... panicked” about a possible return to the classroom without answers to those questions. She said half the classrooms in her school building do not have doors and windows that would allow for proper ventilation.
Earlier, board member Ruby Jones compared the campus to a “Third World country” when discussing issues of safety in older buildings.
Other elected officials have called on CMS to demonstrate how they are prepared for reopening in the fall. Matthews town commissioner Ken McCool asked CMS to publicly release its detailed plan for reopening and to hold town halls with parents to answer the remaining questions.
“Teachers teach because they love their students, but we should not be putting them on the front lines of this crisis and making them do more work, and they all have to do it with no hazard pay,” McCool said. “We need to advocate for our teachers more, and we need to do it now.”