Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of the United Teachers Los Angeles union, said she understood the benefits — she watched her own son engage with teachers online during the spring shutdown — but she argued that a full school day over video would not be feasible for either students or teachers (although some private schools have embraced it).
“You’re not going to see people engaged,” she said. “Kids will turn off to that.”
The union’s priorities, Ms. Myart-Cruz said, include ensuring that remote mental health counseling is available to students, and that teachers are reimbursed for work-from-home expenses such as upgrading their internet connections.
In the Sacramento City Unified School District, a history of mistrust between the union and administration has led to a series of repeated breakdowns in talks during the pandemic.
The district will open in a remote-only mode on Sept. 3, and has proposed that lessons delivered live over video or audio should be recorded for families to access at times that are convenient for them. But the union has objected, arguing that recording lessons could be a violation of privacy for educators, students and families, because their likenesses could be posted and viewed without their explicit permission.
In the spring, the union argued in favor of providing more paper materials to students, making the case that it was unfair to lean into high-tech learning when some students lacked laptops and internet access.
Across the country, it is likely that most students will experience a mix of online and in-person education this academic year, sometimes during the same week. That means that teachers will need to do two very different jobs: teach in classrooms and online.
The Coronavirus Outbreak ›
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated July 27, 2020
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Should I refinance my mortgage?
- It could be a good idea, because mortgage rates have never been lower. Refinancing requests have pushed mortgage applications to some of the highest levels since 2008, so be prepared to get in line. But defaults are also up, so if you’re thinking about buying a home, be aware that some lenders have tightened their standards.
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What is school going to look like in September?
- It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
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Is the coronavirus airborne?
- The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.
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What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
- Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
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Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?
- So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.
Districts without collective bargaining, like Marietta, Ga., have more flexibility over assigning teachers’ roles, and plan to staff their remote learning programs with educators who have demonstrated skill in engaging students online.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/us/teacher-union-school-reopening-coronavirus.html
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