H eadlines
Teachers Continued from Page 1
the Philadelphia area,” said
Shira Cohen, a Jewish math
teacher at Feltonville School
of Arts and Sciences in North
Philadelphia who supported
the staff actions. “We’re still in
the middle of a surge.”
Superintendent William
R. Hite Jr. addressed the
reopening plan in a Facebook
Live announcement on Feb. 10.

“This has been a difficult week
for our school district,” he said.

“I understand and respect that
there are various points of view
about how and when schools
should open. As superintendent,
nonetheless, safety has been and
action, but there was no direct
follow-up from the district.

Teachers were ultimately not
mandated to report to schools
due to an arbitration agree-
ment announced by Mayor Jim
Kenney’s office.

Fanwick was frustrated that
the district directed her toward
social media for information
about the reopening rather than
reaching out to staff directly.

“That is not where I feel I
should be getting information
from my employer,” she said.

“They have my email address.

They knew exactly how to
email me this week when
they wanted to let us know
about disciplinary actions.

But on Facebook Live, they
complaints the Exponent wrote
to her about. She was unable to
respond fully by press time.

Amit Schwalb, a Jewish
science teacher at W.B. Saul
High School in Roxborough,
said previous experiences with
loose asbestos in his classroom
made him skeptical about
whether district buildings
really had been made safe.

He stands by his union,
PFT, and its decision that safety
conditions have not been met.

The organization is waiting
to hear the ruling of Dr. Peter
Orris, chief of occupational and
environmental medicine at the
University of Illinois, who the
city has brought in as a mediator.

Fanwick is aware that many
Students could still bring the virus home to their family members,
many of whom might be immunocompromised.”
SHIRA COHEN
Amit Schwalb teaches classes outside in South Philadelphia during the
Feb. 8 protest.
Photo by Rebecca Yacker
continues to be my No. 1 priority
in preparing to return staff
and students to buildings. Any
rumor or statement claiming
otherwise is just plain false.”
Cohen said it would be
irresponsible to open schools
before vaccines were widely
available to staff, and noted
that students and their families
would remain vulnerable even if
their teachers were vaccinated.

“Students could still bring
the virus home to their family
members, many of whom
might be immunocompro-
mised,” she said.

Joan Fanwick, a Jewish
special education teacher at
George W. Nebinger Elementary
School in South Philadelphia,
said the district reached out
to say there would be conse-
quences if kindergarten,
first- and second-grade teachers
did not report to the class-
room when called. Her union,
the Philadelphia Federation of
Teachers, then announced that
there would not be disciplinary
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM talked about how every teacher
returning would get tested
once a week, and I didn’t get an
email about that.”
Many of the district build-
ings lack functional heat,
ventilation and cooling systems,
Cohen said. She was told that
the district planned to install
window fans to increase venti-
lation. But that would make
the classrooms cold, and some
windows don’t open at all.

Fanwick could not find the
ventilation reports the district
claimed to have filed.

“If you look in the Google
Drive folder on the school
district’s website that claims to
have all the ventilation reports,
if you actually open the one for
my school, it does not have any
testing, it just has an estimate
of what the testing should say,”
she said.

School District spokes-
person Monica Lewis said the
reports did not look incomplete
to her, but was looking into it,
as well as the teachers’ other
proponents of reopening
schools argue that disabled and
marginalized students like hers
are disproportionately disad-
vantaged by a lack of in-person
instruction. She thinks their
physical health and safety
should remain the top priority.

“A lot of times, there’s an
ableist stretch of that,” she said.

“There’s a thought, ‘Oh, OK,
they need the education more.

And they need to conform to
society.’ And they can only
do that if they’re in school,
and learning how to conform
to society to make it easier
on the people around them.

But a lot of times, we’re not
thinking about what’s best for
them, both health-wise, and
educationally.” Schwalb thinks the fact
that Black and brown families
across the country have
opted to keep their children
at home at higher rates than
white families is being ignored
in arguments that marginal-
ized students who rely more
JEWISH EXPONENT
on school services should be
returned to the classroom as
soon as possible. On Feb. 1,
The New York Times reported
higher rates of Black families
opting for remote learning than
white families in Chicago; New
York City; Oakland, California;
Washington, D.C.; Nashville,
Tennessee; and Dallas.

He said the disruption of
changing learning models at
this point in the school year
will be detrimental to students,
who he believes often need
consistency and routine to
thrive. He has heard reports of
staffing issues and decreased
instructional time from
friends and colleagues in other
districts that have adopted
hybrid models.

Schwalb was among the
teachers conducting class
outside during the Feb. 8
protest, although he hasn’t
been asked to return to his
building yet. A friend who
owns a restaurant donated
outdoor heaters, and he rented
a pickup truck to distribute
them. Students, families and
neighbors also donated heaters
and generators.

“It was just really empow-
ering for me to see that, and
that’s what being in a union
and what social change is all
about,” he said.

He has reflected on the
work of Jewish labor activists
like Karen Lewis, president
of the Chicago Teachers
Union, whose death at 67 was
announced the same day as
the protest. He read her bat
mitzvah d’var Torah and
realized she was someone who
loved and lived Jewish values,
from her personal interactions
to her movement for educa-
tional equity.

“That’s a life of Torah, a
life of not just studying and
learning and loving Torah, but
really living it. And I aspire to
live up to that call,” he said. l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
FEBRUARY 18, 2021
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