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
Kevin MacKenzie
Russell Morin
Susan Flegenheimer
Lea Di Miceli
Megan Hegedus
Charles Deily
Emily Kanzer
Jessica Gordon
Shannon Egna
Laura Basileo
Kayla Nicholson
Sara Gottfried
Henry Moche
Jillian Davis
Pamela Tully
Maggie Russell
Kathy Moriarty
Nora Carpenter
Carolyn Vanasse
Keryn Gannon Steckloff
Holly Ahearn
Miranda Tygert O’Connell
Dianne Muendel
Shaina Martinez
Shannon Cline
Erin Grogan
Gwen Vitti
Sarah Wolff
Justin Brown
Erin Vebber
Quhao Huang
Vicki LaRiccia
Caroline Lew
Christine Moodie
Laura Horst
Mary Lee Mastroianni
Sharon R Kiernan
Lara Miller
Katy McGraw
Diane Cornish Issa
Margaret Avakian
Katherine Grenzeback
Colin King
Jill J Puleo Demsey
Kris Frye
Suzanne Currle
Angela Lo
Lora Smid
Jon Weinberger
David Lamour
Debra Morales
Catherine Perakis
Kate Hollander
Rachel Dolan
Akiko Kawai-Marbet
Nana Wen
Danya Mavor
Patrick Brien
