PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Teachers in Pinellas County say the school year is not starting off the way they’d been promised.
Instead of teaching virtually or face-to-face, many say they’ve been stressed out trying to juggle both forms of education simultaneously.
In addition, hundreds of teachers have reached out to their union representatives, saying they’re also more concerned about their health after the district began handling COVID-19 quarantine policies differently.
“They’re worried for themselves. They’re worried for their students,” said Nancy Velardi, President of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association.
Velardi says she’s being bombarded with calls and emails from teachers stressed out over simultaneous learning - trying to teach kids virtually and face-to-face at the same time.
“We thought we were on the same page when we said that there would be some teachers teaching online and some teachers teaching face-to-face,” said Velardi.
Velardi says they had an agreement with the school district that it would be one or the other.
Combining the two, she says, has been distracting, stressful, and likely ineffective.
Thousands of parents have signed petitions demanding better. Teachers have signed a similar one of their own. Each petition has gained over two thousand signatures.
“They feel defeated. They feel they are failing their students because they cannot pay complete attention to either group,” said Velardi.
Adding to teachers’ stress is an apparent revision in the way students are confined and quarantined if they test positive for COVID 19.
Velardi says early on in the policy process they were told entire schools would be closed.
Later, she says, that became entire classrooms.
Now, it’s a handful of those nearest the infected student or teacher.
“I feel that it’s possibly more politically motivated to lower the number of quarantine to make the numbers seem less frightening, perhaps,” said Velardi.
The school district says the policy shift to a more “targeted” approach comes from the Florida Department of Health.
Tom Iovino, a spokesman for the DOH, says the department's contact tracing decisions are made on a case by case basis.
We asked Iovino repeatedly whether there was any truth to the union’s accusation of whether they were politically pressured.
“I don’t sit in those meetings,” said Iovino. “All I know is that we, in our epidemiology program are the ones that are told that we have to conduct the client investigation, the contact investigations.”
Iovino says it’s more likely to quarantine an entire class at the elementary school level, where kids stay in the same room together all day. At the secondary level, where students change classes and spend only a few minutes near each other in the hallways, he says it’s more likely a targeted approach could be used.
The teachers’ union plans to meet with district leaders this coming Monday to try to reach a compromise on the simultaneous learning issue. They also plan to bring up the quarantine policy.
“We are hoping that they will be flexible,” said Velardi, “And that we will be able to work out some parameters that are workable for the teachers and the students.”