Parents of Color Say UTLA ‘Can’t Speak for Me’ on School Reopening
/
Michelle Corbin to UTLA: “You can’t speak for me unless you have spoken to me.”
Parents hoping to get their kids back to school this spring went from celebration to deflation this week after United Teachers Los Angeles threw cold water on the school reopening deal announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom Monday, the same day that teachers started getting vaccinated for COVID-19 en masse at SoFi stadium in Inglewood.
“I feel like I’m on a roller coaster,” said Maggie Pulley, a teacher and mom of three kids from mid-City, including a 6th grader at LAUSD’s Girls Academic Leadership Academy. “I’ll get excited, and then I hear what UTLA said, and I’m like, ‘Oh, there’s no hope.’”
Pulley is one of a growing number of LAUSD parents of color who are publicly calling for schools to reopen for families who want and need in-person learning options. She was upset after hearing UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz say in a Facebook live broadcast Monday evening that “wealthy white parents” are the ones who want their kids in school.
“The reality is the affluent white kids are back in school all over LA County, and LA Unified kids aren’t,” Pulley said. “I’m Black. My kids are Black. I’m an educator. UTLA is not advocating for what’s best for kids. Sitting at home and languishing on Zoom is not what’s best for kids.”
Parents also took exception to Myart-Cruz claiming that she’s protecting children of color and that UTLA "must be the voice of our students and their families.”
“Speaking on my behalf? I don’t like it at all,” said Michelle Corbin, a mom to three Black children: a 3-year-old, a 16-year-old at King Drew Medical magnet and a 6-year-old in kindergarten at Purche Ave. elementary in Gardena. “You don’t know my struggles. You can’t speak for me unless you have actually spoken to me.”
Corbin and her husband want schools to reopen because they both work outside the home and cannot supervise and support their kids during remote learning. Their high school daughter, often charged with caring for her younger siblings while their parents work, is getting Ds and Fs.
“She’s completely struggling,” Corbin said. “My youngest, her teacher has the nerve to say she was recommending her to repeat kindergarten,” when she’s only been getting 1.5 hours of instruction online per day.
Meanwhile, Compton Unified announced Tuesday it would reopen its doors to elementary school students starting next week. Corbin says she wishes her kids had the same option.
“It’s definitely not just rich white families that want their children to go back,” she said. “I want mine to go back because they would benefit more from being in the classroom. I don’t want my children to suffer.”
Maggie Pulley says UTLA is gaslighting families of color.
Ana Lemus, a Latina mom from South LA, also said “I absolutely do not agree” with UTLA’s claim that parents of color do not want their kids back in school. Her two kids attend a charter school that shares space on an LAUSD campus, which the school has been unable to access to reopen during the pandemic.
“If anyone needs their kids back, it's people of color and communities with low incomes,” she said. “These shutdowns are disproportionately hurting kids who are in low-income communities, the majority who are people of color.”
Pulley said UTLA’s argument that it’s protecting kids of color, rather than harming them, feels like “gaslighting.”
“I’m very worried about the majority of kids in our city who need to be in school,” she said. “It’s just beyond crazy to me. I’ve seen UTLA advocate for themselves at the expense of students time and time again. It could not be more obvious. They’re standing against all reason and all rationality keeping kids out of school.”
The state legislature is expected to pass a school reopening bill Thursday that marks a compromise between the governor and legislative leaders. It does not mandate reopening but provides financial incentives to districts that open for TK-2 and high-needs kids by the end of the month if counties are in the purple tier, and TK-6, plus one upper grade, in the red tier. If the current trend continues, Los Angeles is expected to move into the less restrictive red tier by next week.
While the statewide teachers union expressed support for the deal, UTLA’s president said the governor’s plan was “deeply flawed” because it allows schools to reopen in the purple tier before teachers get their full second-dose immunity. After pushing for teachers to get priority access to vaccines, the governor came through with enough doses to vaccinate all LAUSD elementary school employees within two weeks.
The first shot confers 85% immunity within two weeks, but Myart-Cruz complained that teachers getting vaccinated created pressure for schools to reopen, and she said educators were being targeted and asked to “sacrifice ourselves.”
While the state bill does not require districts to reach collective bargaining agreements with their labor unions, Myart-Cruz said it “does not supersede our legal right to bargain working conditions.” She also pushed back on LAUSD’s targeted reopening date of April 9, calling it “arbitrary.”
LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner, however, said he’s “committed to that time frame,” and he thinks UTLA will be on board.
“I expect we’ll have an agreement,” Beutner said. “We still have to make sure that all of the final pieces of bargaining are completed, but we expect to do that in time to be able to welcome students back to campus in the middle of April... I’m absolutely certain they’re going to be with us. We’re going to have staffed schools, smiling faces, everyone excited to be back in school.”
Ana Lemus: “I absolutely do not agree” with UTLA’s claim that parents of color do not want their kids back in school.
Many parents remain skeptical after seeing the goalposts move many times before. “Every time I get hopeful, I know this beast, and I just don’t trust it,” Pulley said.
But Alberta Moore, a leader of Speak UP’s African American Parent Advocacy Team, senses a shift. “Within the next month, things will change,” she said. “Things are rolling.”
Many families will undoubtedly choose to keep their kids home anyway.
Irma Villalpando, a former LAUSD teacher from Bell with two high school students at MaCES magnet, where she also works on campus as an aide, said she won’t be sending her kids back to school -- but not because she thinks it’s unsafe. By the time high schools reopen, she believes the school year will be almost over, and she’s worried about disrupting her kids’ AP classes by making that change at that critical time late in the year.
Nevertheless, Villalpando is disappointed that LAUSD has not already managed to open the schools, and she believes that kids in her community would be safer if they were in a controlled school environment.
“A lot of our students and children, their parents have to go to work,” she said. “Students who are not [supervised], they are out, they get together. They're gathering in large groups. No one's monitoring them. In my opinion and from what parents have been telling me, they are more prone to get infected being at home, not being allowed to go to school.”
Villalpando has been working on campus for months, helping families with technology needs and distributing textbooks. “I feel safe,” she said. “I keep hearing the union saying our children are first. I don't see that. I feel they’re putting their own personal needs ahead of our children.”
