Teachers push back against closing
“The backlash from the community in response to your decision was subsequently deflected, and targeted at the teachers, with unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims of an organized effort among PGEA members.”
— John Shantz, president of Pottsgrove Education Association
LOWERPOTTSGROVE » The president of the Pottsgrove School District teachers union has pushed back against Superintendent William Shirk’s assertion that the last-minute decision to postpone a return to in-person education Sunday night was due to teacher call-outs.
John Shantz, president of the Pottsgrove Education Association, sent a letter to Shirk objecting to the characterization and allowed the letter to be shared publicly on a community Facebook page dedicated to school district issues.
In his letter issued at 8:30 p.m. Sunday evening, Shirk wrote Monday’s planned return to hybrid in-person learning was postponed because “...there has been an increase in professional and support staff call-outs for Monday, December 7th which prevents us from effectively covering our hybrid classes. Therefore, beginning tomorrow, Monday, December 7th, through Friday, December 11th, all Pottsgrove schools will remain in the ‘all virtual’ mode for
grades K through 12.”
Shantz noted that in total, there were 46 call-outs for Monday, out of 458 teachers and staff, adding that the number “was no greater than the district has experienced in past occasions in the regular course of delivering instruction.”
“Data on staff ‘call-outs’ was not publicized in the letter, but was known in advance by you. Yet, you chose to communicate at the last possible moment to the community that the basis for the suspension of hybrid and in-person teaching was ‘functional closure,’” Shantz wrote
“By emphasizing a ‘functional closure’ as the basis for your communication, you have fueled emotional and unsubstantiated responses, on multiple social media platforms. Allegations that the district was ‘forced’ by a presumed ‘ organized effort’ by the teachers to coordinate a ‘sick out’ were insinuated. Such allegations are unequivocally and patently FALSE — as you likely know — but the premise of your letter enflamed the passions of the community, in a manner that you did nothing to refute or dispel,” he wrote.
“The backlash from the community in response to your decision was subsequently deflected, and targeted at the teachers, with unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims of an organized effort among PGEA members,” he wrote.
“We wish to emphasize in the clearest and strongest terms that the PGEA leadership would never prompt its membership — explicitly or implicitly — to engage in legally prohibited actions that would violate an existing contract or state labor law,” Shantz wrote.
Shirk, Shantz wrote, would have been justified in citing an increase in COVID-19 cases for postponing the return to class. As of 10:30 p.m. Monday, the district’s COVID dashboard shows 10 cases of students testing positive for the virus, and two staff members.
“The PGEA membership is failing to understand why you did not emphasize this perfectly reasonable rationale for your decision,” wrote Shantz.
“The decision to suspend in-person hybrid instruction — and the justification for it — was yours alone. We would appreciate it if you would send a follow-up communication to the public affirming this,” he concluded.
Contacted Tuesday, Shirk said he has no intention of replying officially to Shantz’s letter.
“There are two reasons” to call off in-person educating, “transmission inside a building or a functional closure,” Shirk said. The latter was the reason he cited.
“When I say it has to do with inadequate staffing, that means it has to do with everyone,” Shirk said.
He declined to identify how many of those who called out were teachers or other employees, but noted, by way of example, that “Lower Merion School District had to return to virtual because they lost too many bus drivers.”
School Board President Robert Lindgren said in fact a number of teachers had let the district know early on that they would not be available Monday “and we had a plan for that. But then what happened was over Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, several other districts closed, which resulted in even more teachers calling out” because they now did not have child care.
“And that’s what pushed us over the edge because, as you know, it is very difficult to get substitutes in this age of COVID,” Lindgren said. “No one was alleging, we were not insinuating there was a sick-out,” Lindgren said.
“At the same time, we didn’t want people to panic that a number of our teachers had popped positive tests for COVID. It was certainly COVID-related, as is almost everything these days, but we didn’t want people to worry that suddenly, a large number of our teachers were sick, so that’s why we were calling it a ‘functional closure,’” Lingren said.
“Myself and the staff put in about a 10-hour day Sunday, but we didn’t want to change plans until all the data was in,” said Shirk, “and that resulted in us pushing things off until 8 p.m. at night.”
As things stand now, Shirk said the district intends to return to in-person hybrid learning on Monday, Dec. 14, until the winter break, which begins on Wednesday, Dec. 23.