OEA, citing data, calls for school districts to issue temporary mask mandates
“We are now seeing a record numbers of kids with COVID-19 and hospitalized in ICUs throughout Ohio and the nation,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “It is clear from the data we have gathered that the Delta variant poses far greater risk for our students, especially those who have not been vaccinated,” he continued, adding that more than half of all Ohio students aren’t even eligible for vaccinations.
Across the state, there are a growing number of districts in which large numbers of students, teachers, and staff – even entire grades have had to stay home from school because they have contracted COVID-19 or must quarantine due to their close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. However, Ohio Department of Health guidance allows for unvaccinated individuals to remain in school if they have consistently worn a mask and maintained social distancing. Therefore, had there been a mask wearing policy been in-place at the time of these exposures, it is likely that many of these quarantines could have been avoided.
On September 2, the state reported 4,446 new COVID-19 cases among Ohio school students, and 873 cases among school staff. So far this school year, there have been 7,705 cases involving students and 2,254 cases among school employees. The number of cases is increasing daily.
“We want in-person learning to continue unabated,” DiMauro said. “However, without widespread student vaccinations, the only way for that to happen safely for students is temporarily requiring masking in schools.”
COVID-related school disruption data compiled by OEA show that 16 of the 17 disruptions OEA has tracked were in districts that made masks optional. Delta has hit districts of all shapes and sizes from Huber Heights in Montgomery County to Shelby City in Richland County to Bethel-Tate in Clermont County. Typically, when these spikes do happen, districts immediately call for masking. Unfortunately, that may be too late to slow the spread of the incredibly contagious Delta variant.
“No one. And I mean no one wants to be back to normal more than our educators, students and parents,” DiMauro said. “But this pandemic is not over yet. Temporarily requiring masks in school buildings will allow in-person learning to continue.
“Our focus is to ensure students remain learning in school the whole year,” DiMauro said. “We believe the data show that mask requirements give us the best chance to see that happen. Without them, we fear we’d be looking at another school year of disrupted learning for an entire generation of Ohio students. And no one wants that.”
Ohio Education Association urges all Ohioans to participate in public redistricting reform hearings
“OEA urges members of the Commission to live up to the spirit of these reforms with a transparent and bipartisan process,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “Fair districts are vitally important and Ohio citizens should be provided with ample opportunities for meaningful input in the process.”
“Earlier this year, OEA sponsored a contest for K-12 students to develop fair maps and we had dozens of children who were able to do so on a tight deadline. Certainly, state leaders can do the same. For too long, partisan gerrymandering has subverted our democracy. OEA urges our members, contest participants, and all concerned Ohioans to participate in these public hearings.”
OEA Statement on Latest Mask Wearing Guidance
As a result, our educators, students, parents, school districts and communities are being forced to grapple with how best to limit the potential lethality of these new variants.
“Educators want nothing more than to return to full, in-person instruction this fall,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “But we want to make sure that when we do, we do so safely for our kids and communities.”
OEA urges communities and school districts to use every tool at their disposal to ensure the safe return to in-person instruction this fall. The recent spike in COVID infections, driven by the highly infectious Delta variant, is especially concerning because the variant is more deadly to students and a youth vaccine has not yet been approved for students younger than 12. This means that most students will remain unvaccinated, for at least the first half of the coming school year.
However, that doesn’t mean our schools have no protection from these new variants. The science is clear that masking, appropriate ventilation, social distancing, handwashing, and vaccinations — all in combination — is the best way to keep students, families, and educators safe and keep community transmission rates low.
“Our members’ primary concern is for the health and safety of their students and the potential danger the fast-spreading Delta variant could pose for their communities and families,” DiMauro said. “We know that mask wearing has been scientifically proven to be effective in slowing the spread of COVID infections and should remain a key tool for avoiding further, unnecessary learning disruptions.”
DiMauro urged leaders to follow science, not political rhetoric when making these decisions.
“Local decisions about mask wearing need to be made based on science and not politics,” DiMauro said. “These decisions should made solely in the best interest of protecting the health of educators, students, and their families.”
DiMauro is especially concerned about politicians limiting the ability of school districts and communities to protect their kids from these new, more lethal COVID-19 strains.
“The best way to ensure a safe return to in-person learning this fall is to follow the science and listen to the medical experts.’ DiMauro said. “We can’t let politicians substitute their political ambitions for public safety when our kids’ health and safety are at stake.”
OEA thanks Superintendent Paolo DeMaria for his long service
“Paolo deserves a lot of credit for the way he has brought people from divergent perspectives together to work toward bettering the lives of Ohio’s students,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “His leadership on the strategic planning process and commitment to equity and inclusion deserve high praise. He has set a high bar for the next person to hold the position.”
OEA and all Ohio taxpayers also owe DeMaria a debt of gratitude for his department’s investigation into the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), which revealed the largest taxpayer fraud in the state’s history. The school eventually shut down in 2018 after DeMaria’s department had revealed ECOT had been paid at least $80 million to educate students the school didn’t actually educate.
“Paolo showed courage taking on ECOT – a school that had long been held unaccountable by policymakers,” DiMauro said. “Revealing the taxpayer fraud that school perpetrated sent an incredibly important message that continues to resound in Ohio’s education community.”
DEADLINE EXTENSION: Students, educators can now enter Ohio Education Association’s redistricting contest through June 1, 2021
“These district maps play a fundamental role in the strength of our democracy, but for too long, gerrymandered districts have allowed politicians to choose their voters, not the other way around,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said. “Thanks to reforms approved by voters like requirements to keep 65 of Ohio’s 88 counties whole and only let five counties be split more than twice, the redistricting commission is being held to new standards to ensure districts are politically competitive and elected leaders must represent the interests of all of their constituents, not just their favored few. Ohio’s students and educators have a chance to show them how that’s done.”
The Design Ohio’s Future contest is open to all Ohio middle and high school students as well as all OEA members. Entrants can design their maps using the free community webtool at https://districtr.org/, click the ‘share’ button, and submit their map’s URL on the OEA website at https://www.ohea.org/design-ohios-future-contest/ Full contest rules are on the submission page. All entries are due no later than June 1, 2021.
Winners will be selected for creating Ohio House, Ohio Senate, and Congressional District maps in the following categories: Most Politically Competitive, Fewest Community Splits, and Most Creative. All map entries must include districts that have roughly the same population size and are contiguous, and all entries except those in the Most Creative categories must adhere to redistricting requirements Ohioans voted for. The full requirements and a tutorial video can be found on the Design Ohio’s Future page of the OEA website.
A middle school student, high school student, and OEA member winner will be chosen in each of the nine categories. The winners will receive a special commemorative plaque and have their maps featured in the Ohio Schools magazine and on the OEA and All in for Equal Districts websites. The maps will also be shared with the state officials responsible for redrawing Ohio’s maps.
“What happens in our classrooms depends so much on what happens in our Capitol buildings,” DiMauro said. “Our current system is broken, and if we’re going to fix this mess, we need non-partisan, independent redistricting that ends map manipulation. We’re asking Ohio’s students and educators to lead the way.”
Ohio Education Association and Ohio Federation of Teachers Oppose Legislative Attack on Trans Students
“These bills — HB 61 and SB 132 — are not just a sports ban, this is part of a coordinated national attack on the safety and lives of trans students. As educators, we are speaking up because we know that our students don’t thrive when they’re not safe and healthy, and because every student deserves respect and equal opportunity.
HB 61 and SB 132 are a bad solution in desperate search of a problem. The Ohio High School Athletic Association has already implemented a detailed policy that ensures that trans students have equal opportunity while maintaining fair competition in women’s sports. Efforts to throw this policy out in favor of widespread discrimination of trans athletes are just mean-spirited attempts by some politicians to wage a culture war in our schools rather than addressing the real problems that Ohioans face. While these bills won’t address any needs in our schools or any real issues with school sports, they will send a harmful message to trans students that they are not welcome and that it is not safe for them to be themselves in our schools.
Multiple studies have shown that trans youth attempt suicide at much higher rates than their peers. The existence of these bills and the vitriol that they spark are exacerbating factors that will put our students at greater risk. Over the past year, we stood up for commonsense COVID precautions in our schools because part of our job is keeping our students safe and that’s also why we are strongly opposed to HB 61 and SB 132.”
Ohio Education Association launches redistricting contest for students, educators
“These district maps play a fundamental role in the strength of our democracy, but for too long, gerrymandered districts have allowed politicians to choose their voters, not the other way around,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said. “Thanks to reforms approved by voters like requirements to keep 65 of Ohio’s 88 counties whole and only let five counties be split more than twice, the redistricting commission is being held to new standards to ensure districts are politically competitive and elected leaders must represent the interests of all of their constituents, not just their favored few. Ohio’s students and educators have a chance to show them how that’s done.”
The Design Ohio’s Future contest is open to all Ohio middle and high school students as well as all OEA members. Entrants can design their maps using the free community webtool at https://districtr.org/, click the ‘share’ button, and submit their map’s URL on the OEA website at https://www.ohea.org/design-ohios-future-contest/ Full contest rules are on the submission page. All entries are due no later than May 1, 2021.
Winners will be selected for creating Ohio House, Ohio Senate, and Congressional District maps in the following categories: Most Politically Competitive, Fewest Community Splits, and Most Creative. All map entries must include districts that have roughly the same population size and are contiguous, and all entries except those in the Most Creative categories must adhere to redistricting requirements Ohioans voted for. The full requirements and a tutorial video can be found on the Design Ohio’s Future page of the OEA website.
A middle school student, high school student, and OEA member winner will be chosen in each of the nine categories. The 27 winners will receive a special commemorative plaque and have their maps featured in the Ohio Schools magazine and on the OEA and All in for Equal Districts websites. The maps will also be shared with the state officials responsible for redrawing Ohio’s maps.
“What happens in our classrooms depends so much on what happens in our Capitol buildings,” DiMauro said. “Our current system is broken, and if we’re going to fix this mess, we need non-partisan, independent redistricting that ends map manipulation. We’re asking Ohio’s students and educators to lead the way.”
OEA welcomes CDC’s school reopening guidance, calls for federal support
“The CDC guidance generally reflects what OEA has been saying since last summer about the conditions under which in-person instruction can be achieved safely. The level of community spread is the key factor in deciding the education model for students to continue receiving a high-quality education, in-person or online, and the science-based CDC guidelines recognize the absolutely necessity of mitigation measures like masks, social distancing, and sanitization procedures. Emphasizing the importance of COVID testing further strengthens these safety norms,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said.
The CDC’s guidance also calls for prioritizing school instruction over extracurricular activities and sports, echoing OEA’s Putting Education First policy which asked Ohioans to avoid non-essential activities to limit community spread of the virus to enable school buildings to remain open for in-person instruction. The full Putting Education First policy can be downloaded here.
“OEA is pleased to see leadership from the CDC on this issue and to see the importance of equity in the federal policies to direct resources to communities that have been hit hardest by the pandemic, including many communities of color or those with high-poverty, where actions like updating ancient ventilation systems in schools or addressing the digital divide have thus far felt out of reach,” DiMauro said. “It is now up to U.S. lawmakers to follow through on these promises and pass President Biden’s COVID relief package, which will include over $130 billion in targeted support for PreK-12 schools, about $4 billion of which would go to Ohio.”
“It is simply not possible to follow the CDC’s rules without the resources to do so,” DiMauro explained. “More than 60 percent of Ohio’s teachers are already teaching in person – some are doing so at risk to themselves. But they shouldn’t have to. Our members want more than anything to be in their classrooms with their students when it is safe, and we are all counting on Congress to deliver what we know is needed to make schools safe now.”
OEA applauds resolution on use of state testing data, but urges further action
“Teaching never stops; learning never stops. However, we must be mindful of the fact that the pandemic has, as Dr. Collins put it, ‘affected every student in Ohio, disrupting the structure of teaching and learning’ this year,” OEA President Scott DiMauro said. “Dr. Collins’ calls to lower the stakes for state testing and ensure the results are appropriately labeled to reflect the circumstances under which testing is occurring this year are an important step in safeguarding our students, educators, and communities from unfair punishments as a result of this spring’s tests.”
Even so, OEA maintains a much more important measure would be to suspend standardized testing altogether, especially since they must be administered in person, even to students who have been learning remotely all year. Therefore, OEA urges lawmakers to quickly approve House Bill 67, bi-partisan legislation that would waive state testing requirements for the 2020-2021 school year and require the Department of Education to seek a waiver from federal testing requirements.
“While we certainly would prefer that tests not be given this year, given the yawning disparities in educational delivery the pandemic has created between districts, we deeply appreciate Dr. Collins’ efforts to minimize the harm these tests will thrust upon our students and fully support her resolution,” DiMauro said.
OEA urges passage of Fair School Funding Plan in light of new revenue estimates
“Our students can’t afford to wait any longer for Ohio’s leaders to do the right thing,” said OEA President Scott DiMauro. “The state can no longer justify its failure to act. The money is there to finally deliver on the promise of world-class education for all Ohio students once and for all.”
The Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP), which was passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support in the Ohio House during the last legislative session, would enact a student-centered school funding formula that is equitable, adequate, predictable, and that ensures that all students have the resources to succeed regardless of where they live or their family’s income. The FSFP would provide an additional $1.99 billion in state aid when fully phased in and provides about 70% of the increased funds to the poorest urban, small town, and rural districts in the state. Importantly, it would finally fix the state’s broken funding system, which was ruled unconstitutional decades ago by the Ohio Supreme Court in 1997’s landmark DeRolph v. State of Ohio ruling.
The Ohio Senate refused to consider the FSFP legislation in the last legislative session, and Gov. DeWine refused to include it in the executive budget ‘blue book’ released earlier this week. Instead, he punted the issue back to the legislature.
“We’ve had three generations of Ohio students go through an unconstitutionally funded school system, leaving them victims to a scheme that has never accurately reflected the true cost of educating kids in this state. Legislators can easily end that seemingly ceaseless cycle by passing Speaker Cupp’s school funding plan,” DiMauro said. “The time for excuses is over. The time for action is now.”