Unions wrong to drag feet on reopenings

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new plan to reopen kindergarten through sixth grade classes beginning in the spring finally puts the state on a needed forward course.

Although we appreciate the parameters of his “Safe Schools for All” framework, we’re troubled by the governor’s willingness to put union priorities above the needs of parents and students.

In particular, the plan “hinges on districts with collective bargaining agreements to reach memorandums of understanding with their labor partners,” as the Sacramento Bee’s Marcos Bretón reported. As a result, mostly poor unioncontrolled schools will face delays — and unions will use these requirements to exact salary concessions.

Unfortunately, teachers’ unions have long dragged their heels. In December, the California Teachers’ Association sent a letter to the Legislature explaining that, “Safe schools should not be a relative or subjective term up to regional or political interpretation.”

The union said it wanted schools to reopen — but it struck us as an attempt to arm-twist for more funding.

The governor’s plan seems to give the unions the state approach they said they wanted — but CTA leaders seem unenthusiastic about it. “While these tenets are addressed in the proposal released Wednesday, there are many unanswered questions and the devil is always in the details,” said CTA President E. Toby Boyd, in a statement.

Administrators at the largest district in the state are raising concerns.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials complained that the plan doesn’t sufficiently address the problems faced by low-income and minority students. Meanwhile, a coalition of LAUSD-supportive civic groups made a variety of funding demands — including for seemingly unrelated matters related to childcare, infrastructure and transportation.

By letting unions control the terms of the publicschool reopenings, the governor is harming the prospects of the disadvantaged students that CTA and LAUSD claim to be championing. As Bretón added, wealthy parents such as Newsom send their kids to private schools or wealthier suburban school districts that will manage their way forward, while urban districts will face further delays as unions continue to “block the door.”

The governor clearly understands the importance of a quick return to in-person education. “It’s especially important for our youngest kids, those with disabilities, those with limited access to technology at home and those who have struggled more than most with distance learning,” Newsom said. No doubt, kids from poor families are struggling more than students whose parents have more resources to mitigate the ongoing challenges.

The governor’s new budget allocates $2 billion to fund testing and the purchase of personal-protective equipment for schools that start resuming in-person instruction. The plan also dictates a variety of safety measures for classrooms, directs a team of health and education experts to help individual schools implement the new safety policies, and creates a web-based system for monitoring school reopenings and infection rates.

We’re disturbed that it’s taken so long to get to this stage and typically prefer local decision-making to state mandates, but the proposal is a welcome sign of progress. However, we remain frustrated — but not surprised — by the continuing resistance of some education unions and other school officials to resist even the most reasonable reopening standards.

Frankly, Newsom needs to spend more time getting California kids back to school — and less time appeasing the school establishment, which seems most intent on using the pandemic to secure public dollars.