By Mary O’KEEFE

At the last Glendale Unified School District board meeting the topic of reopening school for the fall was the major topic of discussion. The administration put forth a few options for reopening and spoke of plans for outreach to get opinions from all stakeholders.

There was one stakeholder group, though, that was not happy with the way the District had depicted how it had begun its outreach. Those stakeholders were teachers and, according to several who spoke, they felt left out of the process.

Alicia Harris, a teacher at Crescenta Valley High School and vice president of the Glendale Teachers Association, has been getting emails from teachers about what was presented at the school board meeting and the District’s outreach efforts. These efforts referenced an email that was circulating stating that the District had convened a Return to School Task Force comprising teachers, school and district staff and administrators, parents, students and community members. But many of the teachers who emailed Harris asked what the task force was and which teachers were involved. Harris knew nothing about the task force.

“There was no convening,” she said. “On Friday [June 12] from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. a [group] of teachers selected by the GTA and a [group] of CSEA [California School Employee Association] were presented a PowerPoint [presentation].”

Harris said teachers had a lot of questions about that presentation and they didn’t have much time – about an hour approximately – to go over the plans after they were presented. The teachers had several suggestions about the protocols for reopening in the fall but later found that only one of their suggestions was added to the protocols.

An email arrived shortly after the end of the PowerPoint presentation.

“At 3:32 p.m. the Superintendent [Vivian Ekchian] sent an email saying there was a collaboration [with the teachers],” Harris said.

Harris has found there was a survey distributed to about 90 teachers concerning “best practices.” The participating teachers were chosen by their principals and the survey did not include GTA input.

Harris said she felt the planning to reopen schools should have started a long time ago. She said she had been thinking about what needed to be done even before the decision was official to close school this year.

“The writing was on the wall. I didn’t think we were going to come back after spring break,” Harris said.

During spring break in mid-March she wrote to her students sharing an article she thought her students would be interested in. It was just a way to test the waters, to let her students know she was there for them, and see how they would respond to the correspondence. The reaction was positive so she continued the communication.

“To be honest, [teacher] concerns began at spring break. We [wondered] what is remote learning? There was so much back and forth, and so many things the District would send out to teachers,” she said.

Harris said communication has been a problem from the beginning. While she acknowledged that everything was in upheaval during the pandemic and that everything was changing from day-to-day she also wished that communication was stronger between GTA and the District so they could all be on the same page.

Teachers work under a specific contract that needs to be adjusted reflecting when they work from home and when they get back to their classrooms. Nothing is the same as it was, Harris said.

She wants the District to include the GTA in its discussions as they move forward and had hoped they first would have talked to all stakeholders before presenting reopening plans at the most recent meeting.

“It truly baffles me. If I want medical advice I go to a doctor; if I want advice about remote teaching I would go to the 1,200 people who just went through remote learning,” she said. “Your 1,200 teachers are experts.”

She added teachers are willing to share what they saw that worked and what didn’t in the recent remote learning. They want to share their experiences, like teachers who did not have space at their homes to teach remotely, like a teacher who spoke at another GUSD meeting who said he had to teach from a closet in his home because that was the only quiet place in his house or teachers who had to pay the cost of increasing their Internet services to cover the remote learning requirements.

“I wish someone would have started this [outreach] in March. I don’t blame anyone. We were all in this [new territory],” she said. “What should have happened was [GTA teacher representatives] would share their [opinions], parents share theirs, and students, then we all come together and prepare a plan that is then presented to the board … This would have presented a united front … We need to be a true partner.”

The District has sent out a survey to parents with information about the plans presented. GTA has also sent out a survey to teachers to get their opinions and will share that information with the board of education.

GUSD input will be featured in the July 2 issue of CV Weekly.

  Mary Okeefe