The two Utah Teacher’s Unions react to Governor Gary Herbert’s Sunday night emergency address. Leadership feels the measures don’t go far enough to protect teachers, staff and students as COVID-19 cases increase.
In Sunday night’s address, Governor Gary Herbert issued a state-wide mask mandate, ordered limits on private and public gatherings and cancelled all K-12 school extracurricular activities except for sports teams that are in state playoffs. He said based on CDC guidelines, they will begin faculty testing at Colleges, Universities and in K-12 school districts.
Utah Education Association President Heidi Matthews says the actions don’t go far enough and that membership wants the Governor to require school districts experiencing high levels of COVID transmissions to move secondary schools immediately to virtual, online learning. She says it is not sustainable and it is unsafe for teachers and the community.
“The impact on student learning with these constantly changing modalities, and above all, the huge impossible, unsustainable working conditions of our teachers, who are having to go back and forth in between you know teaching in all different manners. We must treat our schools as if they are a part of our communities, which they are, not separate them out, not have a separate set of standards for our schools that differs from the rest of the state.”
Matthews says they will continue to have conversations with Governor Herbert’s office and Education Advisor Karen Petersen about testing mandates and the need to move toward remote learning in the secondary schools. Matthews says closing schools is a community issue which should consider the short term and long term vitality of the profession as well as the health of the entire community.
“Our concern at the Utah Education Association is the health and well-being of our teachers and our adults in the school, all of our educators so that they can be the best possible that they can be for their students. So, in caring for our teachers we care for our students, their families and their communities. But we really need to be much more deliberate in taking care of our teachers and adults in our schools.”
Utah’s American Federation of Teachers President Brad Asay (Eh-See) says his email, texts and phone calls exploded with members concerned the Governor’s new orders did not include closures for schools. He says it is impossible to socially distance in a school. He says some parents send their kids to school even if they’ve been exposed to COVID-19.
“We know that the infection rate is higher between ages 25 and 15. That is the group that is a super spreader and they’re in our schools. It's impossible to police what the governor's mandate is. Kids will not keep their masks on when they’re away from the classroom. When they’re together in the hallway, they take their masks off. When they’re together at lunch, they sit right next to each other, socially interacting at school, hugging each other, greeting each other, shaking hands, high fives, everything that kids have always done. And it’s happening in our schools. So, you cannot tell me that infections are not happening at school."
Asay says he supports the Governor’s mask mandate and restrictions on large gatherings and wants those same guidelines to apply to schools.
“I’m angry that the state is not acknowledging this—is that they will not close the schools for a time, go to online learning and let's see if we can get these numbers down. Governor asked us to be socially responsible and that individually we need to be responsible. We’re trying. You cannot socially distance in a school. They've already acknowledged that and it's impossible. And you cannot police these mandates that are coming down. So, why is he expecting this across the state for all of us which I wholeheartedly agree with we need to do this, but he's making an exception for the schools.”
Both Matthews and Asay want secondary students to begin virtual classes immediately with the likely need to continue through the Christmas holiday vacation. They say the pandemic case increases are dangerous, adding that the pressure on teachers is unsustainable.
