‘Motor march’ fights reopening
Arizona teachers protest against in-person classes amid COVID-19
Teachers started to roll into an Encanto Park lot in Phoenix at 6 p.m. Wednesday. On their cars they’d scrawled “I’d rather see your kids on a laptop than a ventilator,” “Teachers are not martyrs,” and “AZ #1 in COVID.”
They were among dozens, if not hundreds, of teachers participating in motor marches across Arizona on Wednesday evening. The community marches signify a new teacher movement rising, as they protest reopening schools for in-person classes as the number of COVID-19 cases remain high in Arizona.
In north Glendale, about 15 teachers drove in sign-bedecked vehicles with their blinking emergency lights. Some teachers honked and waved as people passed by the line of cars.
“Any learning that a child might miss or fall behind on can be recouped, but a student’s life or the life of their teacher can’t.”
Kelley Fisher
Kindergarten teacher at Las Brias Elementary School in Glendale
Similar motor marches were planned on Wednesday in Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert, Tucson and Yuma. Another march is planned later this week in Surprise.
Many of the teachers participating in the protests were engaged in 2018, during the #RedForEd movement. Many of the roughly 30 teachers lined up Wednesday in Tempe had their #RedForEd T-shirts on. But this time, they said, they are facing life-or-death stakes.
Some are drafting their wills, a school board member said at a news conference earlier this month. A few of their colleagues already have died, including a beloved rural educator and a Chandler High School swim coach.
Kelley Fisher, a kindergarten teacher at Las Brias Elementary School in Glendale, said people get into teaching to make a difference in a student’s life. “Any learning that a child might miss or fall behind on can be recouped, but a student’s life or the life of their teacher can’t,” she said.
The educators are up against the clock. Gov. Doug Ducey in June ordered a delay to the start of in-person classes until Aug. 17. But many educators are pushing for school buildings to stay closed through October, when they hope the state will have a tighter grip on containing the virus.
State schools Superintendent Kathy Hoffman sent a public message to Ducey on Tuesday, urging the governor to set clear metrics to drive the decision to reopen schools.
“We cannot ask schools to make decisions that will impact the teachers’ and students’ health and safety without first providing them with the necessary public health data and funding to make safe decisions,” she wrote.
While there’s pressure for Ducey to delay school reopening, he also faces pressure from the Trump administration and others to reopen schools on time.
Ducey is expected to make an announcement this week on schools. It’s unclear what he will decide.
In some districts, teachers already are reporting to their schools to prepare classrooms and attend beginning-ofthe-year training and orientation.
For Alexis Aguirre, an instructional coach in the Osborn School District in central Phoenix, the beginning-ofschool-year rituals feel grim when juxtaposed with COVID-19 death rates.
“A lot of teachers and parents are really confused as to why they’re being asked to go back in person when we’re dying at unprecedented rates here in Arizona, especially in Maricopa County,” she said.
While some districts have already pushed back in-person start dates to October, other districts may still be poised to begin in-person classes on Aug.17 if the governor doesn’t take action, Aguirre said. Some teachers are afraid to speak up.
“A lot of people don’t know how to raise their voice and bring this issue to the table, but then other folks are afraid of retaliation and they’re afraid of losing their jobs,” she said. “We want to stand in solidarity with them.”
The J.O. Combs Elementary School District in San Tan Valley, for example, will open for in-person classes on Aug. 17, according to a letter from the superintendent.
A now-deleted tweet from the district’s assistant superintendent, Mark Duplissis, received backlash online over the weekend because he posted photos of teachers sitting in person at an orientation.
Some teachers do not oppose returning to teach in person.
Stephen Pena, a math teacher at Round Valley High School in Eagar, said the spread of COVID-19 in his eastern Arizona community is not as widespread. He supports Ducey for not mandating every school in the state stay closed until October. “He’s giving districts a choice of what best fits them and their community,” Pena said.
In March 2018, before the #RedForEd movement led to a statewide teacher walkout, educators similarly held protests in their communities. As in 2018, educators are calling on the state to send more money to schools. This time, teachers say the funding is desperately needed to cover the increased costs for technology and protective gear, like masks and hand sanitizer.
Becky Williams, a sixth-grade teacher in the Scottsdale Unified School District, said that when schools are ready to reopen for in-person classes, there’s little money available to make class sizes smaller to ensure more distance between kids. Arizona’s class sizes are high and keeping distance between kids in crowded classrooms is not feasible.
“There needs to be some funding in place that’s going to allow us to follow the CDC guidelines because right now most school districts cannot commit to reducing class sizes,” she said.