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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]And just a reminder of the danger that Covid-19 poses for teachers, today one of the Brooklyn PS is commemorating the first anniversary of the teacher who died in their school from Covid-19.  She contracted the virus on March 17 and passed on April 5.  NYCPS had several teacher deaths last year, this was the first.[/quote]

Literally every profession has had deaths this year. Frankly, it doesn't sound like a high number for educators compared to others.[/quote][/quote]

NYC public schools had 30 teachers and 49 deaths of staff by the middle of May 2020.  That sounds pretty high for a profession that does not absolutely need to be in-person.  Yes, it is better in-person, but not better enough to risk teachers lives.
[url]https://abc7ny.com/teacher-deaths-doe-department-of-education-schools/6173896/[/url]

[quote]NYC public schools shut down before March 17, so if the dates are right, this was unrelated.[/quote]

After schools closed, the teachers were required to attend in-person training in schools with other teachers and school board staff to learn how they were going to be conducting distance learning.  It was during this training that the teacher was infected.  March 17, the teachers were sent a notice in the early hours of the morning instructing them not to report to school and that further instructions would be pending.  It wasn't until later that they learned that there was a positive Covid-19 case from one of the teachers.  From other teachers, this teacher had been careful and had not left her place since school closed down except to report to work as required.[/quote]

Yes, 30 sure does sound scary until you realize that there are 75,000 teachers in the NYC public school system, also realizing that because public schools were closed to students, nearly all of those infections came from somewhere other than classrooms.[/quote]
That's a mindless thing to say. Teachers were traveling across the city on public transportation when we already had packed ICUs and were running out of ventilators in NYC. There were students and staff who had COVID in the week preceding closure as well, when the mayor refused to shut schools down. They shut down city council indefinitely for a single case, but insisted that over a million people gathering together as COVID spread unchecked was totally fine. They shut down bars, restaurants, and Broadway, but not our schools. They told us they would just do "deep cleanings" of our schools instead, and that our schools would stay open regardless. Schools in NYC were only closed after teachers planned a sickout. Teachers stood outside buildings warning parents that there were COVID cases in their school communities, risking their jobs. The health department told administrators to stop calling and reporting sick staff and students, and refused to shut schools down due to "invalid tests" that they didn't perform themselves. There were parents reporting to bus drivers and patrons that they had tested positive, and then ghosting the school when they called inquiring. The week preceding NYC school closures was extremely fraught and a tremendous amount of trust was lost between school staff and the city.

You have no evidence that, "nearly all those infections came from somewhere other than the classroom." We knew nothing about the virus at that time, no one was masked, and we were all forced to gather closely together to create google classrooms, set up student emails, make frantic phone calls to every single student and their family from our shared office phone, gather materials, and otherwise "prepare" for remote learning. There were several people in my school (with only 50 employees) who came down with the virus within a two week window of those alleged "professional development" days, and some lost family members. Several of my students lost family as well. In reality, they had no PD planned for us during those three days and told us to figure it out, which we could've done from home, without commuting or gathering together unsafely.

By the way, it wasn't 30 people in the DOE who died. It was 88. https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/news/covid-19-losses
[/quote]

DP.  NYC doesn't seem to release the number of part-time employees.  But they do say they have 75,000 teachers.  35 deaths out of 75,000 people is well below the death rate for the working population as the whole.[/quote]
Sorry, what is the death rate for comparable professions? I don’t see any numbers here. 
The NYPD lost 46 members, and ostensibly their job is much more “dangerous” than teachers (reflected in their benefits, ability to retire after 20 years of service at any age, unlimited sick time, etc.)[/quote]

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