Union calls for Little Rock district to begin school year online-only
The Little Rock Education Association union of employees called Monday for the Little Rock School District to pull back its plans to open school buildings to students and faculty next month and instead start the year with online instruction for all students.
The organization “refuses to be complicit with the Governor and Education Secretary in putting our students and ourselves in danger of the harmful effects to our health and/or possible death from the global covid-19 pandemic,” association President Teresa Knapp Gordon wrote in a statement to the city’s news media outlets.
“Mounting evidence indicates Arkansas is a ‘red zone,’ and the potential for exposure has increased exponentially within our state,” Gordon wrote.
The 23,000-student Little Rock district has previously announced plans to offer two instructional delivery plans from which parents can choose — a traditional school plan of on-campus instruction five days a week or full-time online instruction.
The employee organization is proposing that there be online delivery of instruction in the first two weeks of the student school year, with no students in the buildings.
At the point when the total number of covid-19 cases in the state and Pulaski County has been in decline for 14 days, students will attend schools two days a week and learn virtually the other days. Students learning remotely will participate in learning online simultaneously with students on campus. Students and faculty in full schools may be housed temporarily in vacated district buildings or buildings with surplus space to achieve physical distancing requirements.
The third phase of the plan would enable all students to return to learning on campus when the total number of covid-19 cases has dropped to below 50 cases per day statewide.
Gordon said the proposed phase-in plan for the 2020-21 school year “is the morally correct choice for our students and educators.”
Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key, who serves in place of the school board in the state-controlled Little Rock district, responded to the association’s statement later Monday.
“We acknowledge their feedback, and decisions will continue to be made based on public health data in consultation with Arkansas Department of Health and the necessity of education,” Key said through spokeswoman Kimberly Mundell.
The Little Rock Education Association is a union of both state licensed teachers and support staff. The organization previously served as the sole contract bargaining agent for the employees, but that ended last year.