Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams issued the following statement as the United Federation of Teachers considers moving forward with a strike and as the Mayor and Chancellor continue to push for school buildings to reopen with in-person instruction on September 10, despite widespread opposition and safety concerns.
"Amid a flurry of last-minute strategies and hasty adjustments which place an impossible burden on schools and students alike, the city has just over a week to either ensure the safety of students and parents, teachers and staff, or to finally heed the urgent calls to delay in-person schooling and begin the year opening remotely, to implement one of the other viable plans put forth. In the spring, a delay in closing school buildings had devastating impact on the city. Now, a rush to reopen could have the same impact.
"No one knows their classrooms like teachers, and no one wants more to safely educate our city's students. That's why strikes are a last step, not a first option. But the city has not yet shown that to be possible, while clinging to a deadline it cannot meet and a plan that carries inordinate risk for insufficient benefit - we have reached that last step. Many parents, myself included, have already decided to keep our children home for their safety, and if the city cannot meet the safety needs laid out by its teachers and school staff, who are the lifeblood of our school system, then educators should themselves stay home. For the safety of themselves, their students, and the city, I support the calls for a teachers strike if the city continues to rhetorically hold up teachers as heroes while hypocritically holding fast to a plan that places them and their students in unnecessary danger."
Back to press reports