Currently, the Covid-19 numbers in Georgia are higher than ever before.  Fulton County Schools has mandated that students engage in Universal Remote Learning from home.  Teachers however continue to be required to teach remotely from classrooms.  Given the highly contagious nature of the virus, teachers and school staff will be at risk for infection in buildings often with over 100 people.  In addition, with Covid-19 testing taking between 7-10 days to come back, the district will have no ability to safely trace positive cases of the virus in our schools.

Many of these school staff members have young children at home with no other means of child care.  Fulton County has indicated that it is working on a plan to provide care for staff children, but no plan has presented itself yet.  While school employees are grateful for any sort of plan for their children, requiring anybody to be in the school building is dangerous and completely unnecessary.

Fulton Schools has publicly stated that all teachers must come into the building because some did not perform well enough in the spring.  Many would agree that any struggle with staff performance in the spring can be attributed to panic surrounding the pandemic; lack of time to adequately prepare; constantly changing district standards and mandates about platforms, expectations, and grading; and inconsistent district policies about student accountability for their work.  

A majority of teachers in the spring went above and beyond to create an engaging, seamless, transition into the unknown for students.

We hope that the district places safety in the midst of a pandemic as a top priority by allowing all school staff members the choice to work remotely from homes.  We ask that any issues with individual teachers be addressed on a case-by-case basis by providing any needed support to that teacher.  ALL teachers want to excel when property supported and valued.  

We hope that our leaders do the right thing.  In this very difficult time, we need strong leadership that trusts, supports, inspires, unites, and prioritizes life.  We are all on the same team.