73 Percent of US Teachers Do Not Believe Their Schools Should Reopen This Fall

Safety protocols are not inspiring confidence. JL

Juliana Kaplan reports in Business Insider:

Three out of four teachers don't think their states should reopen for in-person classes. It's not that teachers don't miss the classroom; the prevailing sentiment seems to be more one of maximum safety. 88.68% of DC teachers did not support returning in-person — and they're joined by 86.05% of teachers in Florida and 83.96% in Maryland. 51.35% in North Dakota said they thought the state should reopen with in-person classes. Oklahoma and West Virginia rounded out the top three states where teachers are the most willing to return, at 44.38% and 39.33%, respectively.

Around three out of four teachers don't think their states should reopen for in-person classes, according to a survey of 5,673 teachers by the app Fishbowl.

The survey also looked at a breakdown of teacher sentiment along geographic lines. Over half of respondents — 51.35% — in North Dakota said they thought the state should reopen with in-person classes. Oklahoma and West Virginia rounded out the top three for states where teachers are the most willing to return, clocking in at 44.38% and 39.33%, respectively.

Conversely, 88.68% of DC teachers did not support returning in-person — and they're joined by 86.05% of teachers in Florida and 83.96% in Maryland.

Many teachers have already been outspoken around their concerns returning to an in-person classroom. On August 3, teachers in cities around the country participated in a national day of action, where many advocated for schools to remain remote. 

In Chicago, for instance, teachers and their union helped push the city to keep Chicago Public Schools (CPS) remote in the fall — backtracking on CPS' original hybrid-reopening plan.

"We shouldn't have had to fight for our students' lives," Sarah Chambers, a special-education teacher at Chicago's Alcott High School, previously told Business Insider. "There are teachers writing their wills."

And it's not that teachers don't miss the classroom; the prevailing sentiment seems to be more one of maximum safety.

"The state needs to be providing more clarity, so we can have some consistency," Amie Baca-Oehlert, the head of the Colorado Education Association, told Chalkbeat reporters. "There is no place that educators would rather be than back in our classrooms, but we want to do that when it's safe."