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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a NYC teacher. We are talking about striking. Teachers are willing to teach under safe conditions only. The current plans that the city submitted to the state are not acceptable. There were parent and teacher protests at DOE headquarters this week. 
The conditions that we stayed open under in March were horrific-the city claimed that there were twice weekly "deep cleanings" happening (no) and that there were cleaning supplies delivered to all schools (never materialized) and that we were amping up hand washing (we had no soap or hot water). When teachers were calling the health department to report positive COVID cases, the department refused to shut the schools down (as they had promised to do) and questioned the validity of the tests. Teachers were standing outside schools telling parents that their children were not safe and turning them away, risking their own jobs. We will not go back to that. [/quote]

What specific safety-related things are you asking for so that we as parents can advocate too?[/quote]
Intermittent testing of school communities to identify asymptomatic cases (you would identify a statistically representative percentage of the population and test that %), a school nurse in every school (currently there are 400 vacancies), contract tracing, a comprehensive procedure for shutting down schools for known positive cases, and evidence that procedures (social distancing, mask wearing, reporting and tracing of positive cases) are being followed. For example, the Department of Education and the city initially promised us that ventilation systems would be upgraded, but have since said that a window that opens even an inch would be considered acceptable and adequate ventilation to reopen. That's not good enough. [/quote]

Wow, I'm the PP that was hoping that schools were doing a better job with putting protocols in place but after what you wrote, I am totally on your side.  And I apologize for my ignorance and privilege- I'm in a wealthy school district and I completely discounted the HUGE disparities that exist for other districts.  Guidelines say there should be a "pandemic coordinator or team" for each school so I am appalled that some schools don't even have nurses. The other big issue is the level of trust that teachers need to have with the administration to deliver on their promises for adequately safe opening.[/quote]

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