Flashpoint in reopening high schools: Live streams
City teachers say it’s now required but not in contract
STAMFORD — Live-streaming from the classrooms is a critical component in the proposal to reopen Stamford’s high schools, but teachers say they aren’t required to do it.
A memorandum of agreement, or MOA, between the Stamford Education Association teachers union and the Board of Education from October states teachers “are encouraged to provide some instruction to their assigned in-person and remote students simultaneously through live-streaming.”
But last week, Superintendent Tamu Lucero sent a memo to teachers that said live-streaming will now be required, starting April 19, the tentative date that high schools will return to a full-time in-person schedule.
Lucero quoted from the same MOA, highlighting the passage that says, “Livestreaming in the hybrid model from classrooms or remote teacher work locations to students participating remotely may be
used as directed by the Board in the future, subject to the following.”
She did not include the 11 items listed after that section of the agreement, one of which is a line stating teachers are “encouraged” to provide such instruction.
Last week, parents were sent a form with two options for the reopening: students could either opt in or decide to go fully remote. Currently, high school students go to class every other day in the hybrid model and follow along from home on the days they aren’t in the classroom. Another cohort, about 25 percent of students, is in the distance teaching and learning academy, or DTLA, which is entirely virtual.
Hybrid students who choose to stay home once schools reopen will not be placed in the DTLA. Instead, they will remain in their classes and receive instruction through livestreaming every day. Teachers will be expected to stream to those students at home while simultaneously teaching to students in their classroom.
In November, the district made a push to incorporate live-streaming into teacher’s classrooms. At the time, administrators said it was expected that all teachers would be streaming, but not all have.
Live-streaming remains a challenge for many teachers, some of whom say they don’t have the appropriate equipment to pull it off or have not been trained, said Diane Phanos, president of the SEA.
“It definitely is a frustrating topic at this point in time,” Phanos said.
Lucero was asked for comment Thursday, but schools spokesperson Sharon Beadle said she would not be unavailable in the
“coming days.”
Live-streaming is widely used, said Amy Beldotti, associate superintendent for teaching and learning, and she believes the high schools will be ready to deliver the service when schools fully reopen later this month.
“The only way to accommodate all needs, requirements and wants is to require teachers to live stream,” Beldotti said.
Teachers have had ample time to incorporate and get used to streaming from
their classrooms, she said.
“I think the position of the district is that livestreaming is the way that we can engage our students most effectively in the situation we find ourselves in,” she said. “We think we can all work together to make sure that students needs can be met.”
Beldotti also pointed to the same sentence of the MOA that was highlighted in Lucero’s memo when explaining how streaming could be mandated.
“That’s pretty clear to me that Tamu can direct teachers to use live-streaming whenever she felt it was time to do that,” Beldotti said.
Lucero also stated in the memo that she spoke to Phanos about this issue in late March, and that Phanos “posed no objection” to the fact that the district “would be moving forward with live-streaming.”
Phanos said she has no recollection of that.
“She is remembering a conversation that I don’t remember,” Phanos said, adding that she would not have agreed to making live-streaming a requirement. “Teachers are working harder than ever and meeting the needs of the kids and instructing kids in a very difficult situation, so why would you put more pressure on them?”
However, she said she will direct teachers to follow Lucero’s requirement. And any educators who say they do not have the equipment or training to do so should contact their building administrators, she said, echoing Lucero’s own advice to teachers.
The SEA will consider “all options,” Phanos said, which could include filing a grievance — an unfair labor practice complaint — as well as a request to bargain over what she called the “unilaterally implemented requirement.”
“They can’t change a clause in our contract without bargaining first,” Phanos said.