Thread -
When my s's evaluate source trustworthiness, I give guiding Qs like:
Whose voices/priorities are here? Whose are missing?
What is relationship bt author+audience?
To what extent does the msg match the actions?

I don't trust the DOE on school community safety this fall.

When I say I don’t trust DOE, it isn’t a political ploy/empty rhetoric/moving target, as some seem to believe, but rather an evidence-based claim. I know every teacher, in every school, had a different experience this spring -- here's mine, fwiw.

By the time schools closed in March, ts in my building had been navigating challenges surrounding COVID-19 for weeks. Many of our students and staff traveled to places throughout Europe and Asia during February break; we'd heard rumors of a virus but had little to go on, so, BAU.

I had s's who were in class for days then disappeared, following up w/ an email noting they were quarantining for 2wks. This was the 1st I'd heard abt such a policy; it took convos w/ multiple t's+admins to get info abt what it actually was. Ofc, an email went out shortly after.

3/11 UFT DA -- I raised issue directly w/ Mulgrew: enough s's were absent that t's were functionally teaching both IRL+online already & chapter mems were concerned. He said he was surprised to hear it, hadn't heard it from others, should rest assured that UFT was working on it.

Around this time, I started to notice t's w/ out-of-character absences. No one told us anything; we were never offered PPE beyond 1 bottle of hand sanitizer. I only learned that I shared a room w/ at least 1 t w/ susp COVID bc a t took risk of sharing convo they had w/ admin.

After school was closed on the following Sunday, one of the members of our department who had been incredibly ill shared with us that they did, in fact, have a lab-confirmed case. Our administration was notified; reporting guidelines were followed; our school was never closed.

Additional cases were shared w/ admin, per guidelines, and, after hours of lobbying that made its way through the DOE bureaucracy, DOE Central leadership made the call that we were to remain open for the "teacher training" (a page of pre-made links to G Suite walkthroughs) days.

Principals, we would later learn, were told by this point not to report any more cases to DOHMH to avoid "clogging the phone lines." I believe that school-based leaders did the best they could in an impossible situation.

I worked closely with t w/ lab-confirmed COVID in our dept, so I cont'd prep for online learning from home, per CDC guidelines, in the hopes that I'd get tested + avoid possibly spreading. Not only did I prep my courses, I also helped train t's. I was charged PTO for these days.

Then one of my colleagues died unexpectedly. Idk which was harder: reading admin's insistence that it wasn't COVID or repeating it every time a kid asked. Decker was one of the best I've met; the absurdity of all of this makes me miss his insight so fucking much that it hurts.

I, we, spent the rest of the spring working harder than ever. You can throw around whatever anec-data teacher hit piece you want: I'd be hard-pressed to name a t who didn't do all they could to support their s's while also juggling things like childcare, fear, illness.

Most days were 10-12 hrs. I tried live lessons -- s's didn't show, for lots of reasons. I understood; I also knew the importance of interaction. I improvised, shifting to kid-scheduled individual confs + ad hoc small groups. Didn't do it perfectly; honestly, I didn't do it well.

But I gave literally all I could, teaching 3 diff courses (1 PreAP+2 APs, 1 for 1st time) to ~170 kids w/ wide range of pandemic-imposed challenges, some I knew + some I didn't + all of which broke my heart. I've supported s's through hard things; nothing has come close to this.

Through this, where was DOE? Where was UFT? Where were school leaders? I learned that I would lose spring break on Twitter, the same place I got most of my updates at the same time as the rest of the world.

Every now and then the chancellor (or his office, at least) would send out an email, typically late the night before some change was going to happen, featuring "curriculum resources" that were more often than not non-functioning links.

As long as this thread it, it still isn’t a complete record of the times throughout this crisis that the DOE left us to our own devices, ignored our needs, and pulled the rug at the last moment. FFS -- it's August 2nd, and we don’t even have a school calendar.

When I evaluate NYCDOE trustworthiness, I ask the same questions I teach s's.
(1) I see limited evidence that t's were considered beyond their function as child supervision. Proposals don’t consider pedagogy, don’t reflect real limitations we’ll face, aren’t honest with fams.

(2) The DOE has demonstrated that they will not communicate with teachers in a timely, considerate way and they will ignore mandates. No attempt has been made to repair this relationship.
(3) Their message, now, doesn’t square with the actions we have consistently seen

I want students to learn well -- no one can tell me why hybrid is more pedagogically sound in a way that reflects the reality of what s’s and t’s will have to do. I want everyone to be safe -- no one can assure me, meaningfully, that our school community members will be safe.

I want to be convinced. I want to learn how to make this work.

But I cannot and will not accept the DOE’s (or, frankly, the UFT’s) statements on trust alone. They are insisting we bet our lives, the lives of every member of our school community, on their ability to come through for us. That is far more than any of us can afford to lose.

@MarkTreyger718 @JustinBrannan @JumaaneWilliams -- thank you for your ongoing advocacy. Thank you for being clear, well-reasoned voices calling for the safety of our schools and the soundness of our kids' education. Please, please don't stop fighting.