Tacoma, Puyallup teachers fear reopening with COVID spike. ‘I don’t think it’s safe’
They’re the questions on the mind of every parent and child.
They’re also the questions facing every teacher in the state, including here in the South Sound.
What will in-person instruction look like this fall?
And will it be safe for in-person instruction to occur at all?
As cases of COVID-19 continue to spike in Pierce County, predicting school districts’ ability to welcome students back to the classroom is impossible.
Still, according to teachers union reps from two of Pierce County’s largest districts, one sobering assessment seems safe:
Right now, we’re headed in the wrong direction.
It doesn’t look good.
According to Shannon Ergun, the new president of the Tacoma Education Association, the priority in any school reopening plan must be keeping students and staff safe. With this in mind, unless the situation in Pierce County improves in the coming weeks, in-person learning looks like a long shot at best, she said.
“If that continues to be the situation as we move toward making a plan, then in the fall I would hope we would choose to go with a distance learning model,” Ergun, who represents Tacoma teachers in negotiations with the district, told The News Tribune Wednesday.
Like Ergun, Karen McNamara, president of the Puyallup Education Association, said teachers in Puyallup will ultimately look to the science, the public health experts and the state for guidance on whether it’s safe to return to in-person learning this fall.
McNamara also said she’s “concerned” about returning to face-to-face instruction, given Pierce County’s current spike in COVID-19 cases.
“I’m not a doctor. I’m not an epidemiologist. I’m going to believe Dr. Fauci before I believe anyone else. I’m going to believe what the health department tells me,” McNamara said.
“All I know is that I don’t want to have students return to school and then get sick. I don’t want teachers to get sick. I don’t want kids to take it home.”
The two union presidents are just the latest to voice concerns about returning to in-person instruction this fall, even as the Trump administration has pressured districts to reopen.
This week, the union representing teachers in the Seattle Public Schools pushed back on their district’s proposed plan to return to school in less than two months. As Dahlia Bazzaz of The Seattle Times reported, a statement from the Seattle teachers’ union described the Seattle Public Schools plan as “reckless” under current conditions.
At the same time, King County health officials have warned that current COVID-19 transmission levels are too high to reopen schools, while several large school districts in California have already announced plans to provide only online learning this fall.
In places like Tacoma and Puyallup, meanwhile, we wait, with the specifics on what schooling this fall will look like yet to fully emerge.
Both districts have been discussing the options for months, and have developed hybrid plans combining in-person instruction with distance learning.
In the weeks ahead, both districts will now need to hammer out an agreement with teachers.
“As long as I’m seeing increasing and not decreasing (COVID-19 case) numbers, I don’t think it’s safe to put our students and staff back into buildings,” Ergun said.
Relying on COVID-19 science
According to Tacoma Public Schools spokesperson Nora Doyle, there are six meetings scheduled from now until mid-August between the district and its teachers.
The district also has meetings scheduled with various other labor groups in the weeks ahead, as well as “acknowledgment that we’ll engage with all of the bargaining groups,” Doyle said.
“We anticipate a collaborative process focused on supporting students and staff while upholding important health guidelines in the Reopening Washington Schools 2020 Planning Guide from Chris Reykdal,” Doyle wrote in an email response to questions.
“We share the union’s concerns and are watching the Pierce County COVID cases closely, as well as the latest guidance from our public health officials,” Doyle continued. “The Governor’s office has referred to the current situation as being a dial that may move in either direction. We’ll need to be flexible enough to meet that range while at the same time ensuring a safe learning and work environment.”
In Puyallup, spokesperson Sarah Gillispie said the district is working with its teachers “towards a reopening that is in compliance and meets the guidance of public health experts.”
“Naturally, health and safety factors are top concerns with staff and we are committed to a collaborative process with union leaders as we finalize our plan. Similar to Tacoma, we are in the process of bargaining with PEA and will continue to do so through September and beyond,” Gillispie wrote in an email response to questions.
“We have a positive, collaborative partnership with PEA and we ... expect to reach an agreement in the best interest of our staff and students,” Gillispie added.
While negotiations with teachers will dive into the weeds of how returning to in-person instruction might be feasible during a pandemic, Ergun and McNamara said their unions’ overarching objective will be ensuring the safety of students, staff and the community.
Ergun said she expects issues like personal protective equipment, social distancing measures, safety protocols, and serving vulnerable students and those with individualized education programs to be addressed, as well as creative approaches to limiting the potential spread of COVID-19.
Ergun also said she hopes to “have a clear plan that provides triggers for being in the building or not,” calling for an approach that “has the details laid out … to the best of our ability.”
“We need to be cognizant of all those things as we make our plan,” Ergun continued. “My goal is to follow the state recommendations.”
Elements of uncertainty makes decisively moving ahead difficult, however.
Based on previous guidance issued by state superintendent of public instruction Chris Reykdal’s office, districts across the state have been cobbling together blueprints for how a return to in-person instruction could work.
In Tacoma, what has emerged is a plan that would provide a full online option for all students and a part-time in-person hybrid option for others, prioritizing face-to-face instruction time for young elementary students.
Similarly, in Puyallup the school board recently approved a plan for students to alternate between in-person instruction and distance learning throughout the week.
What remains unclear is what state and county public health officials — as well as the governor’s office and superintendent of public schools — will be recommending seven weeks from now, when school is scheduled to start.
“The reality is, we just need to keep an eye on that,” Ergun said.
“Our decisions have been, and will continue to be, based upon the most up-to-date guidance we get from those agencies that instruct our operations,” Doyle added via email, citing the state and county departments of health, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Gov. Jay Inslee’s office, among others.
Under the plan for reopening Washington schools issued by OSPI, districts must present a formal reopening plan to the state no later than two weeks before the scheduled start of school.
Officials from Tacoma and Puyallup expressed optimism that the districts and teachers union representatives will be able to reach agreements before then.
“I’m confident that we’ll be able to come up with a plan. Is it going to make everyone happy, no?” McNamara said. “I do firmly believe that the district does not want us to come back to a situation that’s not safe.”
“TPS has been able to work collaboratively with TEA on a host of issues the past two years. We remain confident that if a solution can be found, the parties at the table are the right people to do it,” Doyle said of the situation in Tacoma schools.
“When so much is outside of the control of the two parties negotiating — as is the case here — there is always a concern that a mutually acceptable resolution could be hard to reach,” she added.
Distance-learning needs improvement
There seems to be little question in Tacoma that the hasty distance learning experiment the district was forced to to resort to last school year wasn’t good enough.
“I don’t think it met anyone’s expectations,” Tacoma School Board President Scott Heinze said.
Heinze said the five members of the Tacoma school board regularly hear from parents who tell them, “you need you to go back five days a week, face to face.”
They’re concerns Heinze said he understands.
From an educational standpoint, Heinze believes distance learning “hasn’t worked for most students” in Tacoma. When in-person instruction ended in March, Heinze said many students and families disengaged from school, for understandable reasons. Those who rely on the district for special services, like special education and various therapies, were particularly hard hit, he said.
Heinze also knows the potential financial toll on families and the social-emotional toll on kids from being out of school are high. If parents are forced to choose between work and caring for their children this fall, both options come with significant negative consequences, he acknowledged.
All of it weighs on him, which is why Heinze, like others, said he is hoping some level of face-to-face instruction will be possible this fall.
He’s just not sure it will be, which is why he also believes it’s important for the district to develop a much more robust distance learning plan.
“I don’t think we can undervalue human interaction. We are social creatures. When you take away that human interaction and the structure … and shift the responsibility from teachers in the classroom to the home, it’s tough,” Heinze said. “If the consensus is that face-to-face is not the safest way to be educating students … then we all have to make certain that we’re on the same page with what distance learning looks like.”
Ergun echoed the concerns, saying that, in addition to agreeing on a plan for the potential return to in-person instruction, TEA is dedicated to developing a distance-learning plan that addresses issues of equity and better serves Tacoma students who need the district’s support the most.
“We need to make sure that the tens of thousands of students in Tacoma, who didn’t have appropriate or effective access (last year) … do have that connectivity if we return to a distance learning model,” Ergun said.
Community needs ‘to take this seriously’
McNamara can’t help but be frustrated.
In her 60s, with many years teaching in Puyallup under her belt, the union president is worried about the health of students and their families, as well as her own health and the health of her husband.
McNamara also hears from parents advocating for a return to the classroom this fall, noting with some irritation that “a lot of those same people turn around and say, ‘It’s my right not to wear a mask.’ ”
“You can’t have it both ways,” McNamara said. “There isn’t a single teacher who does not grieve daily, and hope with all their heart that we can come back.”
“If you don’t wear a mask, then we aren’t going to get any better. It’s one thing everyone can control,” McNamara said.
Voicing similar concerns, Ergun said she lives near the Tacoma Mall, and every day she sees the parking lot full.
Perhaps everyone shopping inside is wearing a mask and adhering to social distancing recommendations, but Ergun suspects they’re not.
It’s enough to make Ergun wonder if enough people actually care about in-person instruction resuming this fall.
“The community has to make a decision to practice all the elements that will keep us safe and healthy. Right now, I don’t see Pierce County residents doing that,” Ergun said.
“That tells us that our community hasn’t decided to take this seriously enough yet, and that may mean that we can’t go back to schools.”
