Texas Schools Tell Teachers They Must Return to Classrooms
Several school districts are trying to accommodate teachers with health conditions who want to work from home, but many are being called back in as more students return to classrooms.
Texas schools tell teachers with medical risks they must return to classrooms
during the pandemic
By Aliyya Swaby and Emma Platoff - October 20, 2020
After several miscarriages over the last few years, Joy Tucker is finally pregnant with her third child at the age of 37.
A school counselor at the Houston-based Windmill Lakes campus at the International Leadership of Texas charter school, Tucker talked to her doctor about the risks she and her child would face if she were to contract COVID-19 from students or other employees. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that pregnant people may be at an increased risk of severe COVID-19 illness, or even preterm birth. At her doctor’s recommendation, Tucker turned in a note asking her school if she could work remotely.
School leaders denied that request, saying she would have to return to work in person in September. If not, Tucker would have to use the rest of her paid leave to remain home, leaving her no time to recover after the baby’s birth. Her options quickly dwindling and her baby due in January, Tucker lawyered up and filed a grievance with the school district.
“I want nothing more than to go back to work and be with my kids,” said Tucker, who chose to use paid leave instead of returning in September. “If I have to choose between mine and my baby’s life, or going to work in a situation where we could get sick or we could die, there’s no choice to make — I have to stay home.”
Caitlin Madison, a spokesperson for the charter school, declined to comment on Tucker’s case but said, “since this school year started, the ILTexas policy has been that if we have students on campus, then we need to have our employees on campus as well.” About 28% of students in the district have chosen to return to campus.
“The only work-from-home exception for campus staff has been if they are sick with COVID or were potentially exposed to COVID and require a 14-day quarantine,” she added.
International Leadership of Texas is one of a number of Texas schools denying some teachers’ requests to work from home, as they balance staffing against often-fluctuating student enrollment. Federal disability law allows employees to ask their bosses for reasonable accommodations, such as temporary schedule changes, shift changes or working remotely, if an illness puts them at higher risk for COVID-19.
School districts must grant those requests unless they would pose an “undue hardship,” including costing too much or impeding their ability to run the school. With Texas largely requiring school districts to bring back all students who want to return, administrators like those at International Leadership of Texas argue they cannot run their school campuses properly if too many teachers stay at home. More than 2 million of 5.5 million Texas students were attending school in person as of late September, according to a state estimate, an increase from 1 million earlier this fall.
Experts say that school districts should layer safety requirements such as masks, social distancing and sanitizing to keep COVID-19 from spreading. In other countries, transmission in schools has been extremely low. But few of those countries had the same level of uncontrolled community spread as Texas, which has failed to contain the virus in many regions and is seeing regional surges in cases. State data on transmission in public schools shows almost 6,500 teachers reported positive COVID-19 cases, but the data is limited and full of gaps.
Given the unclear picture of COVID-19’s spread in Texas schools, teachers say school administrators are unfairly expecting them to put their lives in danger, in some cases requiring all staff to return to campuses even when most students have chosen virtual learning. Texas teachers have little leverage, given the state’s strict labor laws: Any teachers who strike could be stripped of their jobs, teaching certificates and pension benefits.
“You don’t need to be in an office to do your job,” said Tony Conners, who is representing Tucker and has exclusively represented teachers for more than 30 years. “Since spring break, when COVID-19 hit, everyone was working from home and [school districts] were taking the money from the government and they were telling the communities and parents that they were being well served.”
Conners said he’s heard from more teachers than ever before wanting counsel on how to get accommodations to stay home. The toughest cases, he said, are in charter schools and suburban districts. By law the process is individualized, requiring school leaders to talk with employees about how to meet their needs.
But districts do not have to hire new staff or create new positions to accommodate someone under the law, said Joy Baskin, director of legal services for the Texas Association of School Boards. “If more than half of students are coming back, you have to create social distancing in the physical environment, which may mean you need smaller class sizes and therefore you need all hands on deck,” she said. “A lot of districts responded to that by saying, ‘We don’t have remote-only positions.’”
Even districts currently providing teachers with accommodations cannot guarantee them for the entire year, since many are allowing parents to decide each marking period whether to enroll their students in virtual or in-person education.
“If we can provide some of those accommodations without creating a hardship on a campus where they wouldn’t be able to serve their students safely, then I wanted to be able to proudly say that we had valued both students and staff,” said Austin Independent School District Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde. About 700 of 5,000 total Austin ISD teachers have received permission to work virtually at least through December. But as more students return in person, “we will be challenged to keep all of those accommodations for a long time …... There is of course fine print that says, if it becomes necessary to rescind the approval for school student needs, then we would have to do so,” she said.
Some teachers have already had that rug pulled out from under them. In August, Gina Morreale, an Eanes ISD middle school history teacher, was approved to work remotely after turning in a note from her doctor explaining her chronic bronchitis and susceptibility to pneumonia. She even got an email from administrators asking her not to come on campus to do her work sponsoring the cheerleading team. Lean on the cheer moms, she was told.
A month later, Eanes administrators decided to bring back all students who wanted to come in person, instead of phasing them in slowly. Unfortunately for Morreale, that meant also bringing all staff back to campus.
“This can’t apply to me,” she remembers thinking. “Maybe this applies to someone who is in a walking boot — someone that wasn’t high risk.” She started to think through her options — Could she quit and move in with her parents? Did she need to look for a new job?
She asked her doctor for another letter with more detail, and said she is still working with district leaders, hoping they can agree on an accommodation.
Eanes ISD was forced to call its staff back to ensure there were enough personnel, said spokesperson Claudia McWhorter. The human resources department is working with concerned educators on a case-by-case basis. “Even when we were at 25% capacity, our campuses were short-staffed; some campuses have been forced to have an all-hands approach and even have principals serving as teachers in classrooms,” McWhorter said in an email. “Simply put: with more students returning, we need staff in the buildings.”
For now, Morreale has been able to work remotely, but she’s not sure how long the district will allow it.
“I hope I can until it is safe for me,” she said.
Administrators that deny teachers' requests to stay at home are offering other options. Baskin said the school board association is training human resources directors to get creative in thinking about accommodations that could help teachers with health risks safely work from school buildings. That might mean offering a more remote office away from students and teachers or extra safety equipment.
Six years after finishing multiple rounds of chemotherapy for breast cancer, Pasadena ISD high school English teacher Elizabeth Alanis asked if she could work from home. Her white blood cell count, which determines the health of her immune system, still yo-yos every several months.
To her horror, after a conversation with school leaders, she received a letter denying her request to stay home long term. The district instead offered to minimize her direct contact with students, provide her with plexiglass dividers and protective equipment, set up student desk shields or move her classroom to an external portable building so she didn’t have to pass many people in the halls.
“Your job duties and responsibilities require your physical presence on campus as of September 8, 2020,” they wrote in a letter Alanis provided to The Texas Tribune. “Consequently, the District does not believe allowing you to telework after the short-term program has ended and after students have returned to campus, is a reasonable accommodation based on your job duties and responsibilities as a classroom teacher.”
According to the district, she is one of 59 teachers who have formally requested to work from home through the federal disability accommodations process, of about 3,700 teachers total. None of them were allowed to work from home past Sept. 8, when students returned to campus. “Pasadena ISD must provide students attending in-person instruction with a safe, supervised school/campus environment, and that effort is supported by all of our staff being physically present,” said Arturo Del Barrio, spokesperson for Pasadena ISD. The percentage of students on campus is gradually increasing, from about 40% in September to almost half by mid-October.
Alanis used her personal leave days to remain at home until mid-October, but decided to return Tuesday, unable to afford unpaid leave for months. “I've spoken to my oncologist on this matter and he knows it's a tough place to be in. My white blood cell count is still low, so that just means I'll have to take extra precautions,” she said. “I am going to invest in a medical grade mask and I am going to also invest in an air purifier with a UV light.”
Sitting out of classes for even part of a semester is heartbreaking for Alanis, who has been a teacher for 16 years, most of them in Pasadena ISD. “There’s not much they can take from me at this point. They’ve already kind of taken who I am,” she said, her voice over the phone showing she was close to tears. “I’ve had such huge ties to my students, to my community. And oh my God, I love those kids.”
Teacher Wonders if Students are Learning with Online School
Spend a day with Westfield High School teacher Cris Hernandez, and you'll see the frustrations and uncertainties of virtual teaching. More than four weeks into the school year, he still can't tell if he's connecting with his students.
Faceless avatars and microphone malfunctions: A Houston teacher wonders if his students are learning
"Faceless avatars and microphone malfunctions: A Houston teacher wonders if his students are learning" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Standing before a marked-up whiteboard, Cris Hernandez asked his students to explain what they learned from the day’s history reading, which offered two takes on conflict in colonial America.
Not one of the faceless avatars on the Google Hangouts grid on his computer screen responded.
Hernandez, who teaches Advanced Placement U.S. history, tried harder to coax a response from about five students. Alone in his bare Houston-area classroom in Westfield High School on Monday, he couldn’t see the furrowed brows, glazed eyes or jiggling legs that might indicate his students were confused about the reading, or just plain tired. It was the last class of the day, and getting students to participate felt like pulling teeth.
Finally, one student unmuted herself and responded: “I was just finding it hard to read in general.”
Hernandez immediately launched into advice for building reading comprehension, encouraging students to come to his office hours for more help. As the hour continued, he used examples from the students’ lives to help them understand the dense political analysis. A camera perched on spindly tripod legs broadcast Hernandez and his whiteboard notes to students’ iPads and laptops as he tried not to move too far outside its field of vision.
After the class was over, he flopped down in a chair and sighed. More than four weeks into the virtual school year, Hernandez is often frustrated by the challenge of connecting with his students, sometimes unsure whether they’re learning or even sitting at their computers.
“They really don’t get to see me move around as much. If they are seeing me in the classroom, I bounce around everywhere and I jump. I get excited when I talk about this stuff,” he said. “I could get them excited about this by my body language.”
Hernandez and his Spring Independent School District colleagues are adjusting to a new normal in education as the majority of Texas public school students begin the year learning remotely during a global pandemic. A politico-turned-educator in his third year of teaching, Hernandez usually relies on his humor and energetic personality to keep students’ attention, tools that seem out of reach when he can’t see his students’ faces and doesn’t know if they’re watching him.
In the spring, many Texas school districts struggled to abruptly pivot to remote learning, and more than 10% of students didn’t complete assignments or respond to teacher outreach for some period of time, according to state data. Educators and politicians debated how and when to reopen classrooms in person this fall as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations piled up, weighing the health risks of in-person instruction against the social and educational pitfalls of keeping students at home.
As most students begin the academic year online, Texas has ordered school districts to resume grading, taking attendance and teaching new material, to get learning back on track. That leaves teachers juggling hefty responsibilities, including advocating for stricter safety guidelines, searching for students who haven’t logged in since spring break and facing down the challenge of engaging students over a screen.
For Hernandez and his peers, the stakes of delivering a quality education are especially high. Westfield High School students are predominately Black, Hispanic and low income, communities harder hit by COVID-19 and more likely to have received little instruction last spring.
During first period Monday, one of Hernandez’s chattiest students tried to talk to him and found that her voice would not go through. “MIC NOT WORKING,” she wrote in the chat box, followed by a string of unintelligible letters showing her frustration: “JHFAKFHKFEWF.”
Hernandez had his class of 24 students split in two groups to discuss the reading, meaning they had to close the classwide Google Hangouts window and open separate windows for the small groups. He had wanted the normally chatty student to lead one of the discussions, but it would be harder with her microphone off.
Students logged into the video lesson late, some 15 or more minutes in. Some appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared, their computers likely freezing or their internet spotty. “This is an AP class, so you’re rarely going to have kids come in late, and if they do there’s a reason, like they’re stuck in band hall,” Hernandez said. “Now, I can’t tell whether they have good reason. I have to assume they all have good reason.”
A lot has changed about this year. Before going to school each morning, Hernandez fills out an online checklist of COVID-19 symptoms, self-reporting no sign of fever, cough or shortness of breath. With just staff and a few students in the buildings, the hallways are mostly empty on the walk to his classroom. Rushing to the faculty bathroom between classes, he fits a disposable blue mask over his bearded face.
In normal years, teachers gather regularly with others in their department to talk about student progress and share ideas, a highlight for many. Now, those gatherings take place over video chat, each teacher confined to their own room to avoid spreading the virus.
Technology is more important than ever before. Hernandez is one of the most creative teachers, using an online polling tool to collect students’ answers and setting up separate chat rooms for smaller discussions. His classroom setup includes one camera, an iPad, one large monitor and two computers, so he can simultaneously show his notes on the whiteboard, refer to the historical text, check attendance and monitor students’ written pleas for technical support.
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None of his students turn their cameras on and he doesn’t push them, aware they may be too embarrassed or scared to show their homes in the background. “I told them: Look, you want to be on camera? Be on camera. If not, that’s OK. But that doesn’t excuse you for not participating,” he said. “At the least, let me hear you. Let me see you in chat.”
But even this tech whiz cannot surmount all the hurdles. Due to issues with the publisher, Westfield High students don’t have access to the online history textbooks the district purchased. For now, Hernandez is using a “bootleg book” he found online that’s about four or five editions old and doesn’t even reach former President Barack Obama’s term.
In his second class Monday morning, Hernandez did not recognize a student’s name that popped up on the Google Hangouts grid. In a normal year, he would greet that new student at the door, or pull him aside and introduce himself. Now, the main options are calling the student out in front of the entire class or attempting to email him later.
“How many times have I caught these new people? I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t see them. There might be people I’ve completely lost and I haven’t said anything,” he said. “I’ve been worried.”
Last weekend, school employees went door knocking to find about 80 students enrolled last year whose parents haven’t responded to phone calls or emails. Some likely have moved or enrolled in other districts, Principal David Mason said. A few administrators have conscripted students to help them track lost kids on social media.
In two weeks, Hernandez will be required to simultaneously educate nearly half his students in person and the rest online, adding another task to the precariously tall pile he is balancing. Westfield High phased in students with disabilities first, then freshmen and sophomores next week, and juniors and seniors in two weeks. The school will limit the number of students who can come in each day in order to allow for more social distancing. About half the school’s students decided to return in person by the end of the month, similar to the percentage districtwide.
The district previously told teachers it would close schools each Wednesday to sanitize buildings. But recently, administrators said teachers would be required to come into the building Wednesdays and the district would deep clean after they leave. Teachers and students will be responsible for providing their own masks, Mason said. Students who forget to bring their masks can request one. The school has provided each teacher with a bucket of 300 wipes, a refillable bottle of hand sanitizer and six cloth masks for the year.
Research shows that children are less likely than adults to suffer severe symptoms of COVID-19, but they can transmit it to their teachers or families. Hernandez worries about whether he’ll make it through the year without getting infected and wishes he felt his administrators were doing all they could to keep staff safe.
“This is us living or dying. This is not trying to pencil whip it so you can say, ‘Hey we’ve done these things,’” he said. “If I were an administrator or higher up, I’d be trembling with the sheer weight of the responsibility you have to us as your teachers.”
On Monday morning, despite the technical difficulties and late arrivals, the class discussion appeared relatively normal: A handful of students dominated the discussion, others listened silently and presumably a few daydreamed at their desks. Hernandez took attendance by asking students to drop their names into the chat so he could gather them later.
At the end of the hour, alone in his classroom, Hernandez sent his students off with what has become a catch phrase: “Have a wonderful day, love you all, be safe. I’ll catch you Friday.”
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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/17/texas-teacher-virtual-school-coronavirus-pandemic/.
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