04/01/2020
👏THANK YOU to SISD Board Trustees Paul E Garcia and Paul Guerra for advocating for our #TeamSISD Teachers.
✊🏽Please share with #TeamSISD #SocorroAFT
✊🏽Socorro AFT President Veronica Hernandez will be meeting with Dr. Espinoza tomorrow.
Statement to SISD Board Meeting
March 31, 2020
President Najera, Dr. Espinoza, Members of the board-
My name is Veronica Hernandez and I serve as President of the Socorro American Federation of Teachers.
I can’t speak for each of you or any other teacher organization but, the cell phones and emails of my organizers and myself have been blowing up since the Borrego email this afternoon outlining expectations for teachers during the Covid-19 hiatus from the classroom.
I do not know of a single teacher out of thousands or, an organization president who was consulted or contacted or allowed input into the Remote Learning Academy guidelines.
The admonition in the email to be caring and solicitous of parents and students and their families was admirable. The attention to their stress levels and learning curves in these trying times is appropriate.
However, not a word about these very same stresses, worries and concerns of our teachers?
SISD is expecting teachers to:
Contact every parent and teach them to be teachers, facilitate their grasp of technology and give them a shoulder to lean on. That could be hundreds of parents!
Contact every student, every week. Interact with them virtually and then document that interaction. Some teachers have over one hundred students!
You can require teachers to prepare and present material but, you cannot require parents to speak with or, be available to speak with teachers.
You cannot simply publish a long list of available websites and expect parents or students to access them, navigate them and make use of them.
You can require teachers to call every student but, you cannot require the students to be available or willing to speak with teachers.
All the while teaching and parenting their own kids, caring for their own parents or neighbors and dealing with the emotional/social/medical ramifications of this pandemic.
Teachers realize that there must be accountability for the paychecks they earn but, I urge you to be sensible in your expectations and work together with the people you NEED to accomplish the task at hand.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Thank you.
Veronica Hernandez
Socorro AFT President
Response by SISD Board Trustee Paul Garcia:
From: Paul E. Garcia
Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2020 5:13 PM
To: Espinoza, Jose A - Superintendent Of Schools, Office Of Superintendent
Cc: Veronica Hernandez, Socorro AFT President
Subject: Re: District Policy
Dr. Espinoza
I have also received feedback that the current teacher expectations that is consistent with the remote learning is causing much hardship for SISD teachers. Simply put: Socorro AFT would like to be involved in the discussion regarding the current teacher expectations. I encourage SISD administration to engage in thoughtful discussion with associations.
thanks
Paul E. Garcia
Socorro American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a Union of Professionals.
