Newsroom
CFT Checklist for Safely Reopening Schools and Colleges
Key checkpoints for physical reopening in the time of the coronavirus
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools and colleges across California were shuttered to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. Staff remaining on campus performed the challenging duties of distance learning support, meal preparation and pick-up, and deep cleaning to maintain educational services during shelter-in-place orders, as well as prepare for eventual physical reopening.
In the union’s document, Checklist for Safely Reopening Schools & Colleges, the CFT does not encourage the physical reopening of school sites until it is safe to do so. At a minimum, the CFT recommends coordination with state and local public health guidelines on every checklist item in this document to help prevent further spread of the coronavirus.
CFT says “Tax Billionaires”
We can’t cut our way to the economic recovery our students deserve!
As we navigate the global COVID-19 pandemic, Californians are experiencing crises that reach far beyond the immediate public and personal health emergencies. The poorest Californians, disproportionately people of color in the service, hospitality, and healthcare sectors, have either lost their jobs, resulting in a spike to unemployment unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes, or are risking their health performing essential frontline services.
How to avoid catastrophic cuts to education and vital social services
OPINION: Tax the super rich
By Jim Miller, AFT Guild, Local 1931
The COVID-19 crisis and subsequent economic collapse along with the national uprising against police brutality and systemic racism have cast a glaring light on the nature of American inequality on the healthcare, criminal justice, and economic fronts. It has never been clearer that as most Americans struggle, the elite thrive.
“Let’s have our voices count!” urge CFT Black leaders
Avalanche of protests call for racial justice following murder of George Floyd
For days, hundreds of thousands of people have filled the streets of 160 cities across the country, even during the coronavirus pandemic, expressing their outrage and grief at the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Two Black leaders of the CFT, with long histories of fighting for racial equity, say they could not help being profoundly moved by the murder itself, and the outpouring of rage in response.
State Superintendent releases guidelines for reopening K-12 schools
For local discussion on safely reopening the education workplace
On June 8, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond released guidance for reopening K-12 schools — Stronger Together: A Guidebook for the Safe Reopening of California’s Public Schools.
This guidance was created through the statewide reopening schools task force that fostered a collaborative process for educators and stakeholders, including the CFT.
Tell Congress to pass the HEROES Act!
Invest now to get America safely back to school and back to work
COVID-19 is triggering state and local budget crises across the nation. State and local governments are incurring huge new costs as they seek to contain and treat the coronavirus and respond to the virus-induced spike in joblessness and related human needs. At the same time, they are projecting sharply lower tax revenues due to the widespread collapse of economic activity brought about by efforts to contain the virus’ spread.
Social worker’s outreach during pandemic leads to district-wide change
“We’re not just trying to teach — we’re in the in business of love and care…”
Leslie Hu, a social worker at San Francisco’s Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, thinks that during a global pandemic, when many students are seeing their communities directly affected, isn’t the time for business as usual.
Tightrope Walkers: Teaching and parenting at the same time
Faculty parents share stories of teaching from home during shelter-in-place
By Katharine Harer, San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1493
You’re teaching all your classes online, providing support to freaked-out students and dealing with a flood of emails every day, while at the same time, and often in the same room, hour after hour, your children need you to be present and available. You can’t send them to school or childcare or to the grandparents or to play at their friends’ houses. You can’t send them anywhere. Will lack of sleep, personal space and time make you trip and fall, and if so, who will catch you?
College students staying positive through the pandemic
Union presidents surveys students for newspaper column
By Mark James Miller, Part-Time Faculty Association of Allan Hancock College
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought its own unique challenges to every facet of society. Everyone has been seriously impacted by the virus, and students in higher education are no exception.
Nationwide, students are delaying their education until the pandemic is over and colleges return to the traditional classroom approach instead of the online model being used in its place. Some are simply uncomfortable with online learning, and others are fearful that the education they receive remotely is not of the same quality as what they get in the classroom with the instructor present.
Now – yes, now – is the time for contingent faculty to organize
If we don’t fight now, we may not get another chance
By Josh Brahinsky and Roxi Power, UC-AFT Santa Cruz
When graduate-student workers at the University of California at Santa Cruz voted overwhelmingly in December to reject their statewide union contract and follow the West Virginia teachers’ model of a wildcat strike, the precarious lives of academic workers became a news story once again.
The task of reopening brings challenge and hope
By Jeffery M. Freitas, CFT President
In my communications with CFT members about school closures and sheltering in place during the past two months, I have often signed off, “Stay safe and take care.” For me, that is more than a convenient turn of phrase.
As we enter into the third month of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are in the midst of a crisis unlike anything most of us have experienced in our lifetimes, and when this story is retold years from now, I have no doubt it will be recorded as a turning point in history. I know most of you are, like me, tired, stressed, and worried.
Dedication to students helps teachers make huge shift online with grace, diligence
Distance learning demands hard work, extra hours — and good internet
Since schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and instruction moved online, Jessica Hoffschneider, a resource special education teacher at Soquel High, has been busy. A site representative for the Greater Santa Cruz Federation of Teachers, she spends her days trying her best to help her students with mild to moderate disabilities.