In a surprise move, the head of the American Federation of Teachers will call on public schools that were closed during the pandemic to be open in the fall.
“There is no doubt: Schools must be open. In person. Five days a week,” AFT President Randi Weingarten will say in a speech on Thursday, according to the New York Times.
Currently, about half of the public schools in the United States do not offer in-person learning five days a week.
“The United States will not be fully back until we are fully back in school. And my union is all in,” Weingarten is expected to say. She is also expected to acknowledge that long-term isolation is harmful for students and that online instruction hurts learning.
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Teachers unions have been one of the biggest barriers to returning to full-time learning in the classroom despite evidence showing that COVID-19 is rarely transmitted in schools.
The AFT has been no exception.
Although Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in early February that teacher vaccinations are not a prerequisite for reopening schools, the CDC’s guidance on school reopening later that month gave most public schools the option of maintaining a hybrid model of online and in-person instruction.
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Emails reported on by the New York Post showed that the AFT heavily influenced the CDC’s guidance.
