The Cleveland Teachers Union (CTU) voted to continue with remote learning on March 8, citing concerns over safety.
The decision came Thursday night, after the 500-plus person membership convened virtually.
鈥淭his vote is in response to direction from Chief Executive Officer of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District Eric Gordon, which mandated that all teachers, paraprofessionals, and related service providers are to return to their assigned worksites on March 8 to teach remotely from their schools. No students are scheduled to report in person on Monday and all classes will continue virtually as they have since September,鈥� a CTU statement said. 鈥淲e need proven safeguards, like personal protective equipment, distancing, and ventilation, but the District has failed to address our concerns and to provide documentation we have requested.鈥�
CTU members are 鈥渆ager to come back to the classroom,鈥� the statement said. But beyond the vaccine, mitigation strategies need to be in place before educators re-enter the buildings.
鈥淢y concern is that we are not fully prepared to do that at this moment. We're getting there, we're close. We're not quite there,鈥� Cleveland Teachers Union President Shari Obranski, told ideastream Friday morning. 鈥淎nd even when you have the vaccine, that doesn't stop necessarily the spread of COVID, it just means the adults that got the shot are less likely to get sick and die. That鈥檚 what the vaccination means. So it doesn't protect our children. It doesn鈥檛 protect their families.鈥�
Following the CTU vote, CMSD asserted its commitment to starting the hybrid model as planned.
鈥淚t is the district鈥檚 intent to begin our transition to hybrid learning beginning Monday, March 8 as planned. We remain in discussion with the leadership of the Cleveland Teachers Union (CTU) regarding their concerns,鈥� CMSD said in a statement.
In a tweet, Lt. Governor John Husted criticized the CTU鈥檚 vote to continue with remote learning.
鈥淐leveland school personnel jumped to the front of the line to get vaccines in return for going back to school in-person March 1. Now the union is violating that agreement. If you weren鈥檛 going to go back to work then you shouldn鈥檛 have taken the vaccine,鈥� Husted said in the tweet.
Obrenski said Husted is entitled to his opinion.
鈥淭he March 1 paper, first of all, that was signed by superintendents,鈥� Obrenski said. 鈥淭eacher leaders, had absolutely no input into any of that, whatsoever. And we all want to be back in person with students. That is our ultimate goal.鈥�
Gov. Mike DeWine was at a vaccine clinic in East Cleveland Friday morning and was optimistic CMSD and the teachers鈥� union can get Cleveland students back into school buildings.
鈥淚'm kind of the eternal optimist,鈥� DeWine said. 鈥淚 think this thing is going to get worked out. I think the Cleveland schools have done a very good job preparing to have a safe environment.
鈥淚t's been a year since they've been into class and it's time,鈥� DeWine said 鈥淵ou know, we know a lot more today than we knew at the beginning of this pandemic. One of the things that we know is that鈥� students are wearing masks and teachers are, that they can be safe in a classroom.鈥�
But the governor stopped short of demanding Cleveland teachers return to the classroom Monday as promised by Gordon, about teachers backing off promises made to return to in person learning after getting vaccinated.
鈥淚t's not the Governor's job to get between the teacher's union or any union and management, but what we have tried to do is create a statewide safe environment,鈥� DeWine said.
Obrenski said it is clear to CTU members that CMSD needs more time to create a COVID-safe environment.
鈥淲here we are right now, just this week, we were able to put building safety teams in place in each of the buildings. So, we have the building administrators and the building union leadership, as well as really other important members of that school community, like the custodian and cafeteria worker and the secretary,鈥� Obrenski said. 鈥淲e have our nurses and there are health aides that are being brought on board to run the wellness clinics, when we get our students back in place. We鈥檙e making sure that buildings have what they need and have the policies and procedures in place so that we can get them reopened and get people back inside and they're just not done with that work yet.鈥�
ideastream鈥檚 Glenn Forbes contributed to this report.
Copyright 2021 90.3 WCPN ideastream. To see more, visit . 9(MDA5NTM4MTIyMDE0MTg3NDc2MTVlZjdmNQ001))
