Massachusetts continues to relax COVID-19-related public health measures like its mask order and indoor gathering limits. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education announced last week that all pandemic safety requirements will be lifted for the fall semester. The move includes dropping social distancing, and dictates that all schools must return to in-person education. Merrie Najimy is the President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, a union representing around 110,000 educators across the state. Najimy tells WAMC that her organization feels the move by Governor Charlie Baker’s administration is premature.
NAJIMY: The educators unions for the last 14 months have done everything in their powers to win the CDC guidelines for safe protocols inside of buildings. And we have been largely successful. It has not come without great struggle with the Department of Education and the Baker Administration. The Baker Administration has not centered the voices of the most hardest hit families and communities of color or the educators. And once again, with this new announcement of dropping all of the DESE requirements, it's more of the same.
WAMC: Reports have emerged recently of Mary Lou Sudders, the state's Secretary of Health and Human Services, making the decision to lift social distancing on school buses against advice from the DPH. I'm interested, have you seen that report? And do you feel like that's indicative of the broader attitude of the Baker Administration during this period?
I saw the news report. And it is indicative of the way the Department of Education and the Baker Administration have operated all through the pandemic. And what it really shows is they have not proven themselves to be trustworthy, so that families of color in low income communities who are hardest hit, feel confident that they're getting good advice that schools are safe.
The union has put out some guidelines that they would like to see in place for further reopening of schools. Can you break down for me what measures you feel like still need to be in place as we enter this transitional period back into some kind of normalcy?
Yes, absolutely. We have to bring our kids back to school in person, and we want to more than anything, but the pandemic is not over. We know that vaccination rates in hardest hit communities are continuing to be low, lower than the state average, particularly for kids between the ages of 12 and 19. And none of our students across Massachusetts who are younger than 12 are eligible to be vaccinated. So we have to improve vaccination rates in the hardest hit communities, have a flexible model for protocols in the classrooms, especially for kids under 12. And we have to take a wait and see approach. There are variables that are unknown yet, like how the pandemic will respond to flu season, how the variants might affect COVID. So it's premature to say we're dropping all DESE regulations. We have to take a wait and see approach and be flexible for our youngest and our hardest hit students.
Looking forward, what do you feel like the Massachusetts Teachers Association has to center in its mission that it's learned from the pandemic and from these frustrations you've detailed with how the state chose to handle the public health crisis in the schools?
We continue to center, we continue to shine a light on the structural racism on which public education has been built that has caused all of the problems with the ventilation systems, the lack of funding. These things have led to inequities in our communities of color. And we will continue to advocate for safe buildings and more funding.
What have you heard from teachers over the course of this most recent semester, as this period of some people going back to school, some folks staying remote, various guidelines coming and going, what were you hearing from the membership during that time?
Well, first of all, there is no doubt our educators love being with their students, and they are happy to be back in person. And it comes with trepidation. We are still worried that our students under 12 are not vaccinated. And it's been an incredibly hard year that- Things change rapidly without consultation, so it's constantly throwing educators into moments of uncertainty where they have to scramble to adapt. And that's just not good for students.
Any final words on the subject before we go, Merrie?
You know, we are we are coming into a point where people are feeling better and hopeful. And we should continue to feel hopeful, but we shouldn't let our guard down. The pandemic is not over. And we have to constantly center the voices from the hardest hit communities to get this right. We know how to do pandemic education safely as a result of COVID. We have to continue to follow good models.
