When schools open later this month, its disturbing that local school districts will not be covering the COVID related medical costs of their teachers and support staff.
All local districts are using a reopening scheme that has some component of at-home and face-to-face instructions. Locally, districts have taken many steps to reduce the risks of infection for students who attend face-to-face classes, but little attention is given to the adults who face the highest risk.
While the number of COVID cases in Louisiana has reached a plateau, our area of the state, Region 8, is still a hot spot. Our COVID cases are not declining but increasing. It also means we are most vulnerable to the virus.
Teachers and support staff are being sent into a war zone to face possible sickness with little thought about the health and safety of teachers and staff. Like good soldiers, teachers are returning to help the children. Unlike soldiers, the local districts refuse to cover their medical expenses if they get sick or die because of their dedicated service.
City school board president Betty Ward Cooper made an astonishing statement this month as she explained how the Monroe school district has chosen the most effective way to teach children. Still, she acknowledges that it’s not the safest way.
That is a jaw-dropping position that all local districts have taken; they require teachers to serve, without assuming any responsibility for their sicknesses or deaths.
Even state Legislature passed a special law that shields school systems from civil suits relating to deaths and sicknesses of students or school staff. In effect, the state joins districts in support of the death march that is to come, removing any civil recourse for parents or staff.
We think districts that choose any form of face-to-face instruction should also dip into its reserves and guarantee that its professional staff has appropriate medical care.
Here’s what teachers and support staff will face. CARES ACT will cover the first ten days of a COVID related illness. After that, teachers must use their sick days. Teachers must pay for their COVID tests and those of their family members. No district is requiring regular testing which exposes teachers and their families to higher risks and costs.
Local school districts are not putting up one dime of their own funds to protect the teachers. If there are no government funds, then tough luck.
What could districts do?
The closest plan to perfection is the one that teachers, the school superintendent and the district, have hammered out for the Duval County Schools in Jacksonville, Florida. The Superintendent, Diana Greene, is a bold African-American woman who recognized that teachers and staff are most vulnerable to the COVID virus. They have devised a plan in which the district assumes the medical costs of its staff since it is the district’s decision to open in less than safe conditions.
Under their plan, the school district will cover the cost of employees, including educators, paraprofessionals, district personnel, and others. All out-of-pocket medical services related to COVID-19 will also be covered entirely. This includes co-payments, outpatient services, non-hospital treatment, lab testing, surgery center visits, observation, home healthcare, and respiratory therapy.
It goes even further; the district will also cover employees’ family members that are listed under their insurance policy. The district will also provide rapid testing for employees at no cost.
It’s the best thing on the table, but it’s not comprehensive. The district provides no coverage for teachers not covered by the district’s insurance plan.
The public knows that public school as we have known it won’t happen this school year. Since it won’t be anywhere close to the same by any method chosen, it makes more sense to take the suggestion of City School Board member B.J. Johnson, and begin with all virtual instruction for nine weeks, and then check to see if it’s safe to return to normal.
For the city schools, that shouldn’t be hard. Over 5000 of its 8,400 students have already signed up for virtual instruction.
If boards choose to reopen, they should also prepare to assume the cost of sicknesses, deaths, and funerals of every teacher and staff exposed to possible contagion.
We can’t send soldiers into the war and then make them pay for their own medical treatment if they fall victim to the enemy.
In Duval County, Florida, that decision will cost them $8 million. They have 129,000 students and 150 schools. It won’t cost our local schools that much, but it may be time to tap sizeable “rainy day” funds to cover reopening costs.
The Coronavirus has announced, “The rainy day has arrived.”
