Lawrence Educators Statement in Support of Schools Our Students Deserve

September 11, 2021

We, the BEU aligned staff of Lawrence School, are united in our commitment to ensuring that our students receive excellent instruction and services that are delivered under the safest, healthiest conditions possible. We stand behind our Covid-specific negotiations team that initiated the bargaining process on August 15 and were disappointed when the School Committee did not appear on the date they chose, August 25. Our negotiating team tells us that when they did meet on August 31, the school committee did not agree to safety protocols and benefits that are reasonable and fair. These include visitor protocols, minimizing unnecessary concentrations of people indoors, social distancing guidelines for unmasked times, a fair vaccination process, ventilation standards, and Covid sick time provisions. While other districts have already accepted such proposals, we were told we would have to wait until September 17 to revisit what our school committee rejected. With a month wasted, during which health and safety conditions could have been put in place, we are saddened but not surprised that Covid has resulted in the mass quarantine of a class of students. We call on the school committee to agree immediately to learning conditions that are safer and higher quality than this.

Unprepared for what could have been predicted, and without a plan in place for quarantined students and teachers, the district turned to colleagues of ours on Sept. 8 with the expectation that they would spend hours and hours scrambling to design and deliver remote instruction. That is not the quality education we have agreed to deliver. We expect we will not be put in this position again. We want the buildings safe and therefore open for teaching and learning in-person. We stand together in our insistence that the school committee negotiate a fair Covid agreement with strong health and safety provisions, and then go to the main table without delay to negotiate staffing and compensation that are needed to provide our students with the education they deserve.

Signed:

Jonathan Norwood

Joanna Lieberman

Rachel Keegan-McGlinn

Jen Sanders

Jessica Dubrow

Jeremy Ward

Brandon Chan

Terry Jewell

Abigail Thompson

Jon Mastroianni

Liz Exton