Heather Sorge, Campaign Organizer, Healthy Schools Now, WEC had an open conversation with Congressman Norcross to discuss school reopening and staff and student health and safety alongside Marie Blistan, President, NJEA, and Tina Dare, teacher and GR Representative, NJEA. School buildings must be safe for in-person instruction to resume. Watch the video here.
Child labor laws have been passed, a minimum wage has been set, overtime laws are in place, and there is a federal agency dedicated to occupational safety and health, OSHA. “So, what do we need unions for?” This is a common refrain uttered by opponents of unions as well as many workers who have never belonged to a union. Welcome to the pandemic terrordome. Read the entire op-ed here.
‘If you want to do it, do it right’ Last month, in conjunction with the Coalition for Healthier Schools, the New Jersey Work Environment Council (WEC) issued “The Pandemic vs. Schools,” a national call to action emphasizing the importance to districts of having a solid plan before reopening. WEC is a Trenton-based labor coalition that typically concerns itself with workplace health and safety issues. “Schools can either slow the spread of the virus or speed it up,” the report reads. “Right now, schools across the country are struggling to come up with these plans on their own,” a task, it argues, for which many are ill-equipped to respond on the fly. Healthy Schools Now campaign organizer Heather Sorge said an unprecedented absence of federal guidance for public school re-openings has resulted in uneven school re-openings across the country. She hopes that districts will take the time to create rigorous health and safety plans before returning to in-person instruction. “I know there’s a big rush to return to normalcy,” Sorge said. “However, if you want to do it, do it right. “We don’t want to go backwards, and we certainly don’t want to rush to find out that we were wrong, and that we started too [...]
There have been nearly 5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States, and this virus has no intention of going away anytime soon. As New Jersey plans to reopen schools, health and safety must be at the forefront. We cannot reopen schools without strong health and safety measures in place to protect our students and school staff. Given the lack of strong federal guidance, The New Jersey Work Environment Council, Healthy Schools Now coalition and the national Healthy Schools Network released A Call to Action. It calls on states to produce authoritative school infection, prevention, and control plans which local schools can adopt. This report, backed by science and developed alongside health experts, school advocates, and worker representatives is the first report that simultaneously prioritizes school staff and student’s health. Read the entire op-ed here.
With President Donald Trump calling for campuses to welcome students in the fall and numerous large school districts around the country announcing that online-only schooling will continue, risk management teams are grappling with how to safely proceed amid the coronavirus pandemic. While various studies have found that most children are minimally affected when they contract COVID-19, the safety of teachers and other school workers is a growing concern. The political controversy over school openings is taking place against a backdrop of surging infection rates in some regions and decisions by some states to dial back to previous shutdown levels. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on May 19 issued guidance to schools, which includes social distancing and cleaning protocols, but teachers unions have argued that the guidance may not be practical or is cost-prohibitive for already strapped school systems. For example, the CDC’s call for improved ventilation systems in schools poses a challenge, because many schools have outdated systems, said Heather Sorge, campaign organizer for Healthy Schools Now, an initiative of the New Jersey Work Environment Council in Trenton, which on Thursday released a statement calling for more guidance and resources. “By their nature, schools are an environment conducive [...]
School Buildings and Occupants Can Speed or Slow the Spread of COVID-19 Jul. 9, 2020 / PRZen / SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- As pressure mounts for schools to reopen this fall, awareness is growing of the need for specific plans on how schools will not just open, but stay open, by protecting the health of children and their families, teachers, administrators and school staff. By their nature, schools are an environment conducive to the spread of illnesses, including COVID-19. They are densely occupied for long periods and have a well-documented history of deferred maintenance which has resulted in well-known problems with ventilation and indoor air and plumbing, and challenges in cleaning. The virus is not going away. Moreover, the poorest communities hardest hit by COVID-19 also send their children to the poorest schools in the worst condition, making this a supremely challenging health and education equity and rights problem with no quick solution. Over 60 national public health and healthy school leaders joined the Coalition for Healthier Schools today to release a National Call to Action for state health agencies to provide an authoritative School Infection Prevention and Control Plan to all schools to adopt. The current piecemeal approach to no-plan-just-open, will clearly deepen the [...]
Because no one is really sure what the pandemic will look like in two months, the New Jersey Education Association is one of several groups backing a National Call to Action to raise awareness of the need for infection prevention and control plans with the goal of keeping schools open in the 2020-21 academic year. "The CDC guidelines are a minimum," Steve Beatty, NJEA secretary-treasurer, said in a Thursday afternoon Zoom call. "We're not going to have to be able to rely on state guidelines, and in talking about school districts, there can be no flexibility when it comes to the health and safety of our students and our educators and everyone in those buildings." The National Call to Action asks that public health agencies provide structured plans to protect not only students but the educators who interact with them — and everyone else who interacts with both groups outside of the schools. "As a parent, I should not be put in the position to have to choose between my child's health or attending school," Debra Coyle McFadden, executive director of the NJ Work Environment Council, said. "And as an advocate for worker safety, a worker should not have to choose between [...]
School districts have begun to hear from teachers who are requesting to retire early or refusing to return to the classroom during the coronavirus pandemic. Others are asking to teach only from home because they or one of their relatives have health problems. That is raising questions about whether there will be enough certified teachers to teach during the 2020-2021 school year under the state’s new rules limiting the number of students in each classroom, said Steve Beatty, secretary-treasurer of the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. “That is a real question of whether or not we will physically have enough educators that will return ... That is a growing concern,” Beatty said. The NJEA was among nearly a dozen state and national groups that released a report Thursday, titled “A National Call to Action,” calling on public health agencies to help states come up with more detailed plans to protect students and teachers as schools prepare to reopen. Read More Here
For Immediate Release: Thursday, July 9, 2020 Contact: Debra Coyle McFadden, Director, NJ Work Environment Council, 609-707-1320, [email protected] Claire Barnett, Executive Director, Healthy Schools Network, 202-543-7555 ADVOCATES RELEASE PLAN TO REOPEN SCHOOLS PANDEMIC V. SCHOOLS: A NATIONAL CALL TO ACTION School Buildings and Occupants Can Speed or Slow the Spread of COVID-19 As pressure mounts for schools to reopen this fall, awareness is growing of the need for specific plans on how schools will not just open, but stay open, by protecting the health of children and their families, teachers, administrators and school staff. By their nature, schools are an environment conducive to the spread of illnesses, including COVID-19. They are densely occupied for long periods and have a well-documented history of deferred maintenance which has resulted in well-known problems with ventilation and indoor air and plumbing, and challenges in cleaning. The virus is not going away. Moreover, the poorest communities hardest hit by COVID-19 also send their children to the poorest schools in the worst condition, making this a supremely challenging health and education equity and rights problem with no quick solution. Today the NJ Work Environment Council (WEC) and the national Coalition for Healthier Schools co-released a National Call to Action for state health agencies to provide [...]
Reality check: No one is safe from the ravages of COVID 19. After all, nurses, warehouse workers and celebrities like Tom Hanks alike are getting sick. Actually, if you work for low pay, are a person of color, or live in a crowded urban area, you’re more likely to get sick and less likely to be able to get the treatment you need. It’s no coincidence these people are the most vulnerable. The air is worse to begin with in struggling communities, causing pre-existing conditions that heighten susceptibility to the virus. No, this isn’t a “we’re all in this together moment.” Unfortunately, the coronavirus exposes our unpreparedness for a health disaster, and longstanding fault lines between the haves and have nots. Read the full opinion-editorial from the Satr-Ledger by Debra Coyle McFadden, executive director, WEC.