Principals Union Votes ‘No Confidence’ In Mayor De Blasio’s Plan To Reopen New York City Schools
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — As the next wave of New York City public school children prepare for in-person learning this week, there’s a new standoff over safety.
Now, the union representing principals is calling for a state takeover of city schools.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza got a failing grade from the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, which unanimously voted “no confidence” to their handling of reopening schools.
“We just felt that we had to make a public statement at this point, because this past week, too many repeat errors occurred, and we need to be able to do better by our folks, so that they can do better by children,” CSA President Mark Cannizzaro said Sunday night.
Twice, in-person learning has been delayed. On Friday, a last-minute change allowed teachers to work remotely from home — in some cases, even if kids are in the classroom.
Fed up, the principals union is calling for the mayor to hand over control of city schools to the state education department for the remainder of the pandemic.
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Teacher Nate Floro is among the Department of Education workforce heading back to school for in-person learning this week, and he believes the city is making a huge mistake.
“It’s really scary,” he said. “I’m really pretty angry at this point that none of our concerns have really landed with the mayor.”
“I think it’s about time. I wish that my union had the wherewithal to do the same — the UFT,” said fellow teacher Marissa Garcia.
Faculty have been raising concerns about poor ventilation, lack of PPE, a shortage of teachers and no required COVID testing of staff or students.
“If you’ve got 100 people that haven’t been tested — because mandatory testing was dropped by both the UFT and the DOE as part of going back — 10 kids, 100 kids on mass transit, there’s your second wave,” Garcia said.
The mayor’s office still hasn’t responded to CBS2’s request for comment. A DOE spokesperson would only say the department would continue working with labor leaders on a safe and healthy schools reopening this week.
Many teachers we spoke with said the schools aren’t ready and would prefer to go fully remote.
“I have absolutely no confidence in the mayor, of course,” said Floro. “But I think what we need right now, is to empower school teachers to be able to do what we know how to do.”
Elementary schoolers start in-person learning Tuesday, and middle and high schoolers begin Thursday.
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September 28, 2020 at 05:10PM
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