Erie teachers at risk for COVID-19 can get online jobs

The Erie School District is giving students and parents options as the district plans to reopen its school buildings during the pandemic.

The district is giving its teachers options, too.

To cut down on the possibility of teachers getting infected with the coronavirus, the school district is pledging to accommodate teachers with health problems and other issues that leave them more susceptible to COVID-19.

Teachers with physician-verified concerns will be assigned to online instruction, which the Erie School District is continuing in 2020-21 along with in-person education, with families picking the mode of instruction they prefer for their children. The first day of school for students is scheduled for Aug. 31.

Those teachers who are “at high risk and can’t come to school can work with the remote students,” Erie schools Superintendent Brian Polito said.

He said the district is encouraging staff members with medical concerns to contact their physicians and get the information to the school district soon.

The head of the union that represents the Erie School District’s teachers and other staff members said he is also recommending that union members “get their paperwork going” to seek an assignment to online instruction due to health worries.

“We are encouraging members to go to the doctor,” said Bill Kuhar, the president of the Erie Education Association and a history teacher at Erie High School.

He said about half of the EEA’s 840 members have more than 18 years of service, placing a number of those members in the higher age category that could put them more at risk for contracting COVID-19.

As of Friday, approximately 20 teachers had requested “reasonable accommodations” to return to work, according to the Erie School District’s Department of Human Resources. The requests are under review.

Kuhar said moving the teachers to online instruction will protect the health of teachers and students and help fill posts vital to the 11,000-student district’s hybrid plan for offering remote and in-person instruction when classes start.

Polito on July 7 unveiled the back-to-school plan, including the remote option, as Erie County remains in the green phase of reopening. The district developed the plan with input from a survey of 2,000 people. The Erie School Board is scheduled to vote on approving the final version of the plan on Tuesday.

Uncertainty continues to surround the reopening of the Erie School District and the state’s other 499 school districts, including whether they will be able to hold in-person classes. Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday said he would be willing to halt in-classroom instruction if COVID-19 cases continue to rise statewide. But he said the driving factor will be the comfort level of teachers and families as the state continues to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

“Ultimately, I don’t think it is going to be me pulling the plug,” Wolf said at a news conference. “It is going to be ... teachers not wanting to come back to schools, parents not wanting to send their kids to school.

“We can wave all the magic wands we want and flick all the switches we want,” Wolf said. “If they don’t make individual decisions that ... it is safe to go back, they are not going to go back. That’s why what we are doing here is so important. We need to nip this in the bud.”

“We’ve got to take decisive action so that we have a fighting chance to be able to get to a point where parents are going to feel comfortable and confident that they can send their children to school,” Wolf said.

Under the Erie School District’s back-to-school plan, schools would have to go to full online learning, as they did in the spring, if the county reverts to the red phase due to the pandemic. Schools can stay open, with stricter guidelines, in the intermediate yellow phase. The Erie district’s plan calls for some level of online instruction in the yellow and green phases.

“We are going to need to ramp up our online instructional piece,” Kuhar said.

He said the teachers are concerned about their health and safety as they prepare to return to school. They and their students will have to wear masks and follow social distancing rules in the district’s 16 school buildings, which are to be heavily sanitized.

Kuhar said EEA members have not refused to go to work due to health concerns, and he said the union is committed to working with the district administration to have teachers and students return to school as safely as possible.

“We are going to do that the best way we can,” Kuhar said. “We recognize that our kids need to be in school for lots of reasons.”

Those reasons, he said, include not only education, but also access to food through free school breakfasts and lunches and access to health care through school nurses. About 77% of the Erie School District’s students are economically disadvantaged, according to state data.

Kuhar said the Erie School District will also look to how schools reopen in other states, such as California, where students are to return to school before their counterparts in Pennsylvania.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is advocating that students be physically present in school, as long as they can be there safely, so as not to deprive them of the resources available to them in school. Joining the AAP in its latest statement, made July 10, were the American Federation of Teachers, the School Superintendents Association and the National Education Association, of which the EEA is a member.

“Returning to school is important for the healthy development and well-being of children, but we must pursue re-opening in a way that is safe for all students, teachers and staff,” according to the statement, which came two days after President Donald Trump threatened to cut federal funding for schools that do not fully reopen in the fall. “Science should drive decision-making on safely reopening schools. Public health agencies must make recommendations based on evidence, not politics. We should leave it to health experts to tell us when the time is best to open up school buildings, and listen to educators and administrators to shape how we do it.”

Polito and Kuhar said the Erie School District is following the AAP’s recommendations as well guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies. They said the district needs all of its teachers to stay healthy along with its students.

“We can’t run out of adults,” Kuhar said.

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNpalattella.