Imperfect attendance
Will teachers take leave if COVID-19 cases continue to climb?
Numerous teachers across the country will soon be faced with the prospect of returning to the classroom this fall, even though they feel their health may be at risk. In many cases, teachers with compromised health or those who live with family members who may be especially at risk for infection will have to decide if school administrators and policies can protect them and their students from catching the coronavirus. “It’s something schools are going to have to be ready for,” says Tom Lancaster, a former principal living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Lancaster led schools in Toledo, Ohio, and Seattle, Washington, before retiring in 2014. “I’ve heard from former colleagues who say they’ve already talked to teachers who won’t come into the classroom unless they feel completely safe. And I don’t know if ‘completely safe’ is going to be a reality for some time.”
Lancaster, who says he occasionally serves as a hiring consultant for school districts, says schools are staffing up, including onboarding first-year teachers, while still being cautious. “I don’t think starting your teaching career in an online classroom is ideal but that may be the only option for some people,” says Lancaster. “And schools will have to hit the ground running as soon as a start date is announced. It’s not like you can hire 12 new teachers in a week. You have to be fully staffed and ready to start the school year, no matter when.”
Legal protection
Arthur Ehrlich, a partner with Chicago law firm Goldman and Ehrlich, who specializes in employment law, says an individual’s personal situation is key when determining their potential. “If you’re a high-risk group--a heart condition or diabetes--something that would put them in a more severe position if they get COVID, they have a little more leeway in terms of legal rights but their situation can usually be accommodated with remote learning,” Ehrlich says. “The provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act still apply, especially to a COVID situation if that teacher has an underlying potential disability. If there is an ability to work remotely but the school district won’t allow it, that could come down to an ADA violation.”
Teachers, like employees in other fields, can use the Family Medical Leave Act if they are unable to work because of their own illness or compromised health, as well as affected family members. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act requires certain employers to provide employees with paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for specified reasons related to COVID-19 through December 31, 2020.
According to the Department of Labor, the FFCRA allows employees of covered employers two weeks, or 80 hours, of paid sick leave at their regular pay rate if they’re unable to work because they’re been quarantined either by an order from the federal, state or local government or due to the advice of a health care provider. The FFCRA also covers employees who are showing symptoms of COVID-19 and seeking a medical diagnos is.
Employees who are unable to work because they need to care for an individual subject to quarantine or because they must care for a child under 18 whose school or childcare provider is closed or unavailable for reasons related to COVID-19 can receive up to 12 weeks of paid sick leave at two-thirds the employee’s regular rate of pay.
Visit the Department of Labor’s Coronavirus Resources page at dol.gov/coronavirus for more information.
No ‘Petri dish’ desks
While many teachers say they’re expected to comply with face-to-face schooling, many feel that their own schools and districts aren’t acting in good faith. Still, even with precautions in place, many teachers realize there’s no ironclad safety guarantee. “You can take everybody’s temperature but they’re not going to have a temperature unless they’re sick,” says a teacher from Illinois who wishes to remain anonymous. “When they’re in the pre-symptomatic phase, they are highly contagious and they won’t have a fever.”
Another Illinois educator says any effort to return to school later this year has to prioritize the health of teachers, students and parents who are high-risk categories. “An administration that doesn’t put [the health of others] first is not worth supporting. [Administrative officials] break the contractual and ethical obligations they have to everyone involved with the school to put people at risk unnecessarily,” she says.
And then there’s the physical state of the classrooms. Several teachers who returned to their buildings at the end of the school year to collect their belongings were dismayed at the cleanliness of their classrooms, a situation they hope is addressed during the summer. “I was shocked, to be honest,” says G.R., a grade-school teacher for Chicago Public Schools. “I expected to find a sanitized environment and it looked like it was barely touched.”
Before COVID-19 put a new emphasis on cleanliness, many school districts around the country were already cutting back on custodial services or outsourcing the work to cut costs. Now, many districts have been forced to adjust to a new reality and either stretch existing budgets or find new funding to ensure thorough daily cleaning of classrooms. Some school districts are planning on using additional federal funds to keep their classrooms clean. Pennsylvania’s Erie School District will be using COVID-19 relief funds to maintain a full custodial staff, spending nearly $1 million to keep 13 maintenance workers who were scheduled to be eliminated for the 2020-21 school year as part of a financial agreement with Pennsylvania’s state board of education. Instead, the 13 positions will remain part of the 85-person staff responsible for the schools’ upkeep.
“It has to be better than it is right now,” says the Chicago teacher. “We used to have a full custodial staff. Now it’s different. It’s like someone comes in, sweeps out the room and shuts the door. If they want me to come back to work, that’s not going to cut it. Ever see a kid’s desk? It’s like a Petri dish for germs. If I go back and see a disgusting desk when I get to my room, I’m out.”