After all the op-eds back and forth re: teachers refusing to teach in the classroom this fall, NYDOE results are in: only 15% of New York City teachers requested accommodations.
15%!
In one school I know, the number asking to teach remotely was 10%.
And what do you want to bet those 10 to 15% are teachers who really should have accommodations, given age and health issues?
One lesson I’m trying to learn, speaking as a person who follows politics, is not to take negotiating positions “seriously.” Unions (and Washington politicians) tend to take maximalist positions, but those aren’t the positions they’re going to end up in and everyone knows it except the people writing op eds and panicking.
(At least, I think unions take maximalist positions … I’m still learning the ropes in my own new union, which has asked that adjuncts be given the choice to teach remotely. Not sure whether asking for choice qualifies as maximalist. It may.)
Anyway, that 15% figure warms my heart. Of course I understand why teachers would be nervous about returning to the classroom, but when you think about the uncomplaining sacrifices made by essential workers in grocery stores and meatpacking plants and delivery trucks…
It’s good to know teachers are made of the same stuff.
Catherine & Katharine 