President-Elect Joseph R. Biden has chosen Dr. Miguel A. Cardona to head up the US Department of Education, and that has Berkeley Unified teachers concerned.
Cardona has distinguished himself as a vocal proponent of reopening public schools as soon as possible. The Berkeley teachers’ union wants to delay until all risk is eliminated.
“We only got a 12% raise this year,” said union president and semi-professional polo player Penn Sion. “Our members can’t take on the risk of exposure for that low pay.”
BUSD parents have been sympathetic to this point and have proposed an additional tax to give teachers the same 75% raise enjoyed by the Mayor and Council.
Some parents even staged a rally to keep schools closed after vaccination reached 100%. “Sure, we will have beaten COVID-19,” said parent Ya Basik. “But another coronavirus will be along soon enough and I want my child to be ready to thrive with 1-2 hours of daily instruction.”
The Union’s Sion agrees and added that their proposal to the District calls for institution of virus readiness plans. “When the next virus hits, we need to have the plans in place to suspend education entirely for 6-12 weeks so that our members can come up to speed on the latest distance learning technology. How else can a group of highly educated adults be expected to master a widely available consumer-oriented software program? They’re teachers, not students!”
If Cardona does implement a reopening mandate persondate, Sion insists that teachers will need another 2 month pause to adjust lesson plans before returning to the classroom. “We need to ease into this,” they said. “These kids have their whole lives ahead of them, so what’s the rush?”