Re-elect Senator Ed Markey

It was disclosed that DESE has no formal process to track or report coronavirus outbreaks in our schools. Massachusetts will not be able to safely return to in-person learning without effective disease testing, tracing, and tracking in our schools.
AFT Massachusetts President Beth Kontos sent a letter to urge DESE to take steps to ensure that Massachusetts is able to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks when we return to the classroom.
“We’re concerned about the health and safety of our students and our educators, and that’s paramount in our minds. We believe it’s imperative to assess the health of our buildings before we return to the classroom; the ventilation systems must be evaluated and improved. We need the water in our bathrooms to be at 100 degrees at all times; I’m not sure that’s happened at any school I’ve worked at,” said AFT Massachusetts President Beth Kontos. “Our families need assurance that these health and safety checks have happened and will be maintained throughout the school year. We’re doing this because we care about the children and the families they go home to.”
“The current plan is backwards. We cannot bring all of our students back in person in September on the first day of school as much as we want to,” said Boston Teachers Union President Jessica Tang. “What we need to do is have a thoughtful approach where we have to get remote learning right…It’s likely there’s going to be another surge, and we cannot just scramble overnight to try to get remote learning right like we did in the spring.”
“Protecting the health and safety of our students and their families is our top priority as educators, and DESE’s guidance needs improvement in several critical areas. From expecting students to provide their own masks, to addressing how students will travel to school safely, to recommending only a 3-foot minimum physical distancing requirement, this guidance doesn’t adequately reckon with the realities, or the added costs, of reopening schools in the communities we represent.
“This guidance may work for a few of the wealthiest suburban districts, where families can afford to purchase their own protective equipment, where students are generally driven to school, and where local taxpayers can provide the additional funding required to open safely. But DESE’s guidance discounts the needs of high-poverty districts in our Gateway Cities and Boston, which have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and were already deeply underfunded before this crisis began."
Join us for our Summer Leadership Institute, a series of virtual workshops for local leaders and members to refine their leadership skills as well as to promote participation and initiative in our union! We will still be socially distancing for much of the summer, but with this institute we aim to come together across the state for conversation and learning.
We have a range of different classes, including a training on the new Connect 2.0, information about the para to teacher pipeline and increasing power in your local through building representatives. We also have a series on the role of elected leadership in the union presented by our colleagues at AFT national.
AFT Massachusetts is excited to welcome two great new members to our statewide Executive Board! This month, Amrita Dani of the Boston Teachers Union and Patty Myers of the United Teachers of Lowell joined the board, which represents the 23,000 AFT members statewide.
“I’m thrilled that these two great local union leaders will join the AFT Massachusetts Executive Board as we work to ensure that safety and equity are at the forefront of Massachusetts’ plan to reopen schools this fall,” said AFT Massachusetts President Beth Kontos. “Their experience engaging members and organizing to protect public education will be critical as we work to ensure our schools have the federal and state funding they need, and as we advocate for our most vulnerable students who are most at risk of falling behind during school closures.”
The AFT Massachusetts has announced our endorsement of Ed Markey for re-election to the United States Senate – the latest labor endorsement for a champion of public education and working people. We encourage all AFT Massachusetts members to cast their vote for Senator Ed Markey on Tuesday, September 1 (Primary Election Day) and Tuesday, November 3 (General Election Day).