To the editor:

CDC data recently supported the potential safety of schools being open full-time, but the school districts have to have a plan to make it safe. The obvious: masking, physical distancing, hand and surface hygiene, and violators referred back to online learning. One of the Journal-World’s recent articles had the local teachers union president suggesting that the union’s priority was what is in the best interest of the membership teachers, namely, keeping limited school closures and advocated for extended limited school closures. The downsides of this “hybrid” model are self-evident: diminished academic skills, delayed social development, increased psychological disturbance, and adverse effects disproportionately affecting black and Latino students. Is this what the teachers union stands for? If so they are on the wrong side.

The teachers union will survive this but not the same as before. There has been knee-jerk criticism of the union from the political right for over 30 years. What is different now is that parents and advocates for public education now know that what’s best for the teachers today no longer lines up with what’s best for public education.

David Peaco,

Lawrence