Boston Teachers Union says concerns remain ahead of Monday reopening

The Boston Teachers Union continues to worry about the safety of Boston Public Schools buildings as the district gets ready to send thousands of kids back to school on Monday.

BTU President Jessica Tang told the Herald she’s specifically worried about what she sees as the lack of safety verifications — analysis of air exchanges and air quality, and the plans to test students and teachers for the highly contagious coronavirus.

“They had all this time to get those tests done and they just didn’t do it — That’s actually unacceptable,” Tang said in advance of thousands of students with special needs going back to in-person learning starting Monday as the city begins to further phase kids back into schools. “We just really would have felt much more confident about the reopening if those verifications were also completed.”

Boston Public Schools, which enrolls upward of 50,000 students, didn’t respond to a request for comment Saturday.

The union earlier in the week sent around to all its members a copy of an email Tang sent to Superintendent Brenda Cassellius, asking questions about where the district was in various preparations, and then another later email in which Tang wrote, “If the district is not ready, they should not be rushing to reopen.”

Tang told BTU members that union reps would meet Monday night and review data from walkthroughs of various buildings to “determine next steps.”

Tang did say it’s important to give “credit where credit is due” in acknowledging that the district’s buildings appear significantly improved from the way they were in the fall, when the teachers union clashed with the city, at one point filing a lawsuit over Boston’s requirement that the district keep kids in school.

The lawsuit ultimately didn’t go anywhere, but as the pandemic worsened, the city paused and rolled back its reopening.

The state on Thursday released data that BPS has reported a total of 151 coronavirus cases so far this year, an increase of 19 cases from the previous week.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3pMdXT7