Thread by @CTULocal1

Our members been weighing in pretty clearly regarding CPS' and the mayor's plans to return students to unsafe school buildings in Nov. Remote learning isn't ideal, but it's safe as COVID cases rise, and parents, students and educators need to know they will be protected. #thread

This is feedback from many of our special education and early childhood educators...many of whom are also CPS parents. They have questions. Other parents have questions. And they all deserve the answers that will make them confident in what CPS and the mayor are mandating.

Mask wearing is a problem for students with cognitive disabilities, sensory needs, deaf and hard of hearing (mask hides visual clues), language deficits.

We need a way to have our mouths visible so we can provide adequate articulation therapy to our students with speech sound errors.

It is developmentally inappropriate to separate children to maintain distance, and physically impossible to keep surfaces and materials from being contaminated or from students infecting each other.

Students need supervision to ensure proper hand washing every single time they wash their hands. Experiences with other illnesses spreading in these classrooms indicates that if a child comes in with COVID-19, it will spread.

Little people DO want to hug, and they DO need a teacher’s touch. But we're in the middle of the COVID pandemic and guidelines say we must keep our distance. I’d rather send them videos of me acting hugs than telling them repeatedly not to touch me...that can be traumatizing.

Keeping preschoolers socially distant from one another will negatively impact students educationally, socially and emotionally. Right now, they are at home with parents and other family members who love, nurture and care for them.

What are we to do if a child takes the mask off and throws a tantrum, refusing to wear it?

Pre-school should follow an early intervention model and create individual family service plans for students that are implemented through home visits and work with caregivers.

No in-person pre-school classes where everything is “don’t”; CPS should provide families with the same kits with the same materials, and teachers can create lessons using those materials (i.e. markers, crayons, pattern blocks, paper, unifix cubes, collage materials, paint, glue).

It's not possible to stay six feet apart when providing hand-over-hand supports

Psych assessment requires close contact. We need plexiglass dividers.

We need more counselors to provide trauma support to ALL students in this time.

Special education teachers need assistance in making sure their non-verbal students don't have any symptoms.

IEP meetings cannot be held in with people crammed into a conference room; we should not be sharing pens and passing around sheets to be signed; parents must wear masks and gloves; these meetings MUST be held virtually or in a classroom with distancing.

Need PPE for teachers working in therapy situations or with students who do not comprehend social distancing.

Keeping students with autism or cognitive disabilities six-feet apart will be a problem.

Special education at times requires hand over hand, or a teacher setting up a student's work area. None of that can be done safely, even with proper PPE.

Teachers providing push in and pull out services increase interactions between different sets of students and increase their own exposure.

There are SPED classrooms which were inappropriate even before COVID, and especially now—tiny and windowless rooms with asthmatic students and students with weakened immune systems.

SPED resource teachers are in and out of multiple classrooms, potentially cross-contaminating environments.

These are just some of the concerns. There are dozens, if not hundreds more, and educators deserve to have their voices heard. The backlash is swift and severe because CPS and the mayor continually shut those voices out of their planning. But the cries will only grow louder.

At the end of the day, this isn’t a popularity contest. This is about a virus that has killed nearly a quarter of a million people in the U.S. (including some of our own members) and the health and well-being of every educator and every student and family member they serve.