Boston teachers vote no confidence in school superintendent

For those that don't know the details behind the re-opening. It's not like they opened up 28 schools to ALL the students enrolled in them. They are bringing back about 3% of the students that are of highest needs. That means in a school of 500 kids, that equals 15 students spread out among multiple grades.

This has been an incredibly helpful site that our family has used to gauge risk and it illustrates with facts that a classroom with a handful of students is relatively safe. https://indoor-covid-safety.herokuapp.com/

The union should've thought this through and been open to students coming back in September when the rates were low. They could've been open using a hybrid approach until now and gone fully remote when the rates went up. Now you have significant mental health issues for students, especially those that don't do well in remote, isolated settings, that could've been mitigated by being in school when it was relatively safe. But now we are at a push comes to shove point where the mental health situation is such that there is no other choice but to get these kids back into school.

The Suffolk Superior ruled on this and it wasn't in the unions favor. Get back to work or resign!

Parents should wonder why teachers feel so helpless while getting paid far less than they should. The city reneged on the deal they had in regards to Covid numbers. There is nothing more than my teacher friends want than to be back in school teaching those kids...safely.

Now teachers are expected to put their own lives and the lives of their families at risk b/c white parents are having a meltdown? This is of course after the city/state wasted months of valuable prep time to get an actual on-line teaching modality in place.

Teachers have expectations of not only teaching but being therapists, mothers, fathers, nurses, providers of food, clothing, supplies, etc. Teachers and their union are not the bad guys here. We are all in a difficult situation w/ no perfect answers but put the blame where it belongs.

The teachers union and it lack of accountability and utter dereliction of duty during this pandemic. It infuriating watching them play the victim card over and over again.

Its time the mayor and the superintendent actually did something proactive and create a safe place for teachers and students to learn in-person. The mayor has the build BPS report and yet has done nothing to improve/upgrade school buildings aside from a few strategically placed window fans. The governor can talk all he wants about fully funded suburban schools, he has done absolutely nothing for BPS. These teachers are bending over backwards to teach our children right now and they need actual real support from this city.

There is a serious lack of creativity and will going on here. It's disappointing and absolutely detrimental to children (and families) with real needs. I would like to cast a vote of no confidence in the BTU teachers.

also relevant: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/we-now-know-how-much-...

some highlights:
"The best way to understand how transmission might occur between children and adults would be to constantly monitor healthy families with school-age children to see if they get infected. By testing frequently, scientists would catch infections as they occur, making it clear who got sick first.

Iceland and deCODE put this into practice by conducting comprehensive testing and tracing, screening more than half the country’s population: Anyone who was potentially exposed was quarantined, sealing them off from the community, but often exposing their families. By looking at the difference between adults and children in these quarantines, deCODE found that children play a minor role in transmission."

In what way are the measures in place at these newly reopened schools "inadequate"?

All of the people whining about this on Twitter saying Marty Walsh is out to kill teachers don't seem to like noting that these schools are opening to 3% of the district's student population, and the 3% that needs it the most.

Sounds like they've just gotten too used to getting paid their full salaries to provide a paltry minimum of 15 hours of interactive instruction per week per their MOU

In 2016, my wife and I spent countless hours campaigning against Question #2 (lift the cap on charter schools). We knocked on doors, made phone calls, etc.
I 100% regret all of that work.

Every level government, from City Council, the State House, to Congress, has absolutely failed us. There is no effort from any elected official (other than Baker's efforts) to try to resolve these issues. The BTU is a disgrace. The slogan "We're all in this together" is a lie. When confronted with a crisis, the teachers ran away. I would rather have Star Market employees teach my children. They would actually show up.