Teachers want increased transparency around facility walkthroughs.
Last month, D.C. schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee visited schools to see how they were set up to keep students safe.
The teachers union said school community members should be allowed to verify facilities are ready to reopen.
In a statement, the union said teachers recognize that many students have struggled to adapt to distance learning.
“Reopening our schools won’t be a return to normal,” the union said. “We are committed to finding ways to best support our students who have struggled the most during the pandemic.”
In a statement, Mayor Muriel Bowser said in-person learning is the best option for students.
“We are proud to have worked collaboratively with the Washington Teachers Union on an agreement that represents our shared commitment to ensuring students have the high-quality education and supports they need to thrive,” schools Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee said in a statement.
DCPS will send union members a survey asking whether they want to teach in-person or continue virtual instruction. Additionally, the agreement includes increased transparency for facility safety walk-throughs performed by Local School Advisory Teams and other school community members.
The agreement comes after months of union protests and petitions, as well as a labor board ruling in October that directed DCPS to start bargaining with the WTU for a plan to bring students back to the classroom.
The coronavirus closed schools. Our diseased politics is keeping them closed. Alexander Nazaryan
WASHINGTON The other day, I listened to my daughter’s first lesson of the day, which is conducted over a video feed, like every lesson of her day has been since last March. She sat in our dining room, at a relatively clean table where only a few remnants remained of the previous night’s dinner: a stray strand of spaghetti, a dusting of grated parmesan.
As a former public high school teacher in Brooklyn, I wanted to see if remote learning had improved since last spring, when it was widely considered to be a disaster. Back then it was just as widely believed that, come September, children would be back in the classroom, remote learning all but forgotten by the first frost.