April 2021 Advisor

ADVOCATING

APRIL 2021 CEA ADVISOR 7

DUAL TEACHING MUST END, EDUCATORS TELL LEGISLATORS Connecticut teachers have described 2020-2021 as the most difficult school year of their careers not only because of the stress of the left out. Creating lessons for both fall, her family decided to keep her home. I had “WE MUST NOT LET OUR CHILDREN DOWN BY

nurse at Natchaug Hospital, admitted a patient who tested positive for COVID two days later. Mesloh contracted COVID and ended up in the hospital with pneumonia; his organs began to shut down. “I’ve been dealing with this every single day since,” he said. “Breathing is a struggle. Without supplemental oxygen, I wouldn’t be here.” Mesloh described how unfair it is that he hasn’t been able to receive workers’ compensation benefits after contracting COVID at work. “I need to be able to pay my bills, and I don’t know where else to go.” The proposed bill would be retroactive, qualifying workers infected by COVID-19 at any point during the public health emergency. It would also prevent employers from disciplining workers who file for workers’ compensation, dissuading workers from filing, or misinforming them about how to file. The raised burial benefit would be retroactive for essential workers during the public health emergency. CEA is also advocating for legislative measures to improve indoor air quality in schools. See last month’s CEA Advisor for details and check cea.org for updates. Denise Barrett has also been teaching under a hybrid model this year. “I have to say that within my 10-plus years of teaching, this past year has been the toughest in my entire career,” Barrett wrote. “It doesn’t matter how much I modify an activity or how creative I try to be with a lesson; the students are just simply not engaged. They do not talk to one another anymore. They would rather type their responses and communicate that way.” Fellow Ridgefield teacher Megan Osimanti has experienced remote learning as both a teacher and a parent. “When schools are deemed safe enough for students to be there at full capacity, distance learning should not be an open option for students to still access,” she told legislators. “My own children try to access other entertaining devices, like their phones, Nintendo Switches, etc., out of view of their teachers on screen. They often hold onto questions or concerns about what they are learning, avoiding what they determine to be the awkward unmuting option. Their teachers sometimes aren’t able to respond to a chat message or email in real time, and then they are left to move on without clarity.” Osimanti concluded, “We must not let our children down by perpetuating a system of learning that has shown us more flaws than benefits.” SPREAD THE WORD CEA has launched a campaign to end dual teaching, which some legislators want to continue into the next school year. Watch your mail for postage-paid cards to send to your lawmakers. Sign your name and tell your story.

remote and in- person learners also means teachers have had to double the amount of time they spend planning. “On a daily basis I have approximately eight students in front of me and about 12 or so at home,” wrote Elsa Batista, a Newington world language teacher. “At times, I catch myself just talking and looking at the students logging in from home (so I am looking and talking to a computer). As soon as I realize this is happening, I find myself just looking at the students in my class and not those on my computer screen. It is a constant back and forth, and somewhere in between that game of ping-pong, I find that I lose some of my students’ attention.” CREC teacher Cathy Lee finds inequities and their effect on student learning have worsened under virtual

PERPETUATING A SYSTEM OF LEARNING THAT HAS SHOWN US MORE FLAWS THAN BENEFITS.” Megan Osimanti, Ridgefield teacher

made a connection as she sat in front of me, but the connection has since disappeared,” Lee reported.

pandemic and its toll on students, but also because of the impossibility of teaching students simultaneously online and in-person. Testifying on Senate Bill 977: An Act Concerning Virtual Learning, teachers described their experiences with a system of dual instruction that fails both teachers and students. “Over the past year, I have had to teach a dual classroom,” Joel Barlow High School teacher Angela Staron explained to legislators in written testimony. “I have had students in front of me and students on the computer at home. It is truly a nightmare to do this at the same time. Students suffer, and teachers suffer. There is absolutely no conceivable way that this is manageable as a method of course once we have the vaccine underway.” Other teachers shared that pivoting from remote to in-person learners and back creates an impossible scenario where one group of students is always

would help injured workers as well their families. “Too often, injured workers are left holding the bag with current laws the way they exist,” he said. The bill would also increase the funeral allowance, which has remained the same for 34 years and, at $4,000, is far below that provided in neighboring states. At a news conference preceding the Labor Committee hearing, several essential workers spoke out about their experiences contracting COVID on the job and failing to receive workers’ compensation benefits. Some workers who contracted COVID nearly a year ago are still waiting for the benefit. Sean Howard, a correctional officer, described a heart condition he will likely have to manage for the rest of his life as a result of contracting COVID on the job last July. “I can’t play with my young son like I used to,” he said. “My colleagues in corrections used their own sick, personal, and vacation time while recovering from COVID, even though they clearly got COVID on the job,” he continued. “We can and must do “I know nothing of one of my students aside from that he logs in late and will respond in the chat when I call his name for attendance. I have not been able to form a connection with him, and his algebra skills are suffering because of this. As many teachers around my school, district, state, country, and world will attest, this is inhibiting the education of special education students the most. I cannot color-code notes or write concrete steps next to problems for students to follow, and I often cannot connect with students to create a relationship so that I can better understand how to help them.” Plainville teacher Amanda Lynch described how dual teaching is harming both students and educators. “Doing two jobs at the same time is impacting the emotional health of teachers and the quality of their teaching. Teaching both in person and livestreaming is ineffective, as a teacher cannot give 100 percent to each group. Teachers are feeling like failures, and student academics are being put at risk.” Lynch wrote that every day she has a single lesson interrupted five or six times for a technology issue. Multiplied by a minimum of five lessons daily, the technology-related interruptions are constant. Ridgefield High School teacher

learning. Despite her best efforts, she has been unable to make connections with several of her students who are learning remotely, and their learning has consequently suffered. “One child began the school year in person, but after she was sent home to quarantine in the

Bloomfield teacher Mary Kay Rendock and her students know firsthand the pitfalls and immense challenges of a dual teaching setting.

FOR TEACHERS BATTLING COVID, CEA FIGHTS FOR WORKERS’ COMP Essential workers have been busy on the frontlines keeping Connecticut running throughout the pandemic, yet when they’ve led to slaughter.” “In the past year, I have spoken to more than 150 members of our medical conditions from being shared, making it much more difficult to prove. Shafner said the proposed bill better by all frontline workers.” Last March, Scott Mesloh, a

organization who have suffered and continue to suffer from the effects of the coronavirus and resulting illness,” CEA Legal Counsel Melanie Kolek told legislators. “Nearly every one of them got sick from a known positive contact at their school, with no exposure at home or in the community. And almost every case involved the teacher spreading the virus to family members. Only a handful of claims were accepted and deemed compensable by the workers’ compensation insurer; the rest were denied, or their doctor was reluctant to establish the requisite causation based solely on the history provided to them by their sick patient.” The effects of COVID can be long-lasting, necessitating long-term care and costs not covered under health insurance, as well as the loss of considerable time from work. All of these would be covered by workers’ compensation if a claim were accepted, Kolek explained. Attorney Nathan Shafner pointed out that, unlike a worker struck by a brick at a construction site, employees who contract COVID on the job can have a hard time proving where they contracted the virus. Privacy laws can keep other workers’

contracted COVID-19 on the job, they’ve frequently failed to receive the workers’ compensation benefits they deserve. That’s why essential workers and a coalition of labor unions who represent them, including CEA, testified in support of a bill that would make the workers’ compensation process fairer to employees. The bill would help essential workers by creating a presumption that they got sick on the job. Their employers could still contest their workers’ compensation, but the burden of proof would fall on management. State Senator Julie Kushner, co- chair of the legislature’s Labor Committee, said that the signs many people displayed early in the pandemic thanking essential workers were important and heartwarming. “But when it comes down to it,” she continued, “we have to make sure that appreciation and thank yous are not just words. It has to translate into economic support for these families.” The committee’s co-chair, Rep. Robyn Porter, added, “We don’t get to call them essential workers and treat them like sacrificial lambs being