Education Austin is urging AISD teachers not to report to the classroom at the start of the fall. | stock photo
Education Austin is urging AISD teachers not to report to the classroom at the start of the fall. | stock photo
Education Austin, a teachers and employees union within the Austin Independent School District (AISD), has urged teachers to refuse to come back for on-campus teaching this fall if they are directed to do so, KXAN reported.
AISD Supt. Paul Cruz made an announcement last week that families could choose between 100% online and 100% in-person education for the fall semester. The Texas Education Agency made the same announcement. However, the TV station reports that teachers have not been afforded the option of whether they want to return on-campus or with virtual classes.
Many teachers and employees have expressed concern for their health and safety if they were to be physically present in classrooms in the fall. They also worry that much of class time would be spent enforcing mask requirements and proper social distancing if classes were to meet in person.
“This would not be providing a quality education," Emily Sharon, a teaching assistant at Patton Elementary School, told KXAN. "This would be the majority of your day enforcing unrealistic guidelines that will not be met."
Eric Ramos, a teacher at Martin Middle School, told the TV station that many teachers were scared.
“A lot of us are quite frankly terrified," Ramos said. "We’ve seen the guidelines that TEA put out recently and while they’re good in theory, our schools are not equipped to follow a lot of these."
Ramos said students can't be spaced out enough in the school buildings.
"We do not have the staffing even if we had enough space to separate the kids to where they could be put in separate rooms," Ramos told KXAN. "These are not things that can be done."
Education Austin has requested the district start the school year out virtually for the first nine weeks and then decide what to do.
“We want the best judgments decided by science and medicine, not by a governor and a TEA commissioner that know little about either,” Education Austin President Ken Zarifis said, according to the TV station.
Zarifis said forcing the teachers to go back to the classroom or not receive funding was blackmail. He said that if teachers choose to follow Education Austin's advice and refuse to return on campus, it would not be considered a strike because the teachers will still be able to report virtually.
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