Richland school leaders are ignoring teacher safety and training concerns, says union

Richland teachers are concerned the school district isn’t ready to bring more students back safely.

Richland Education Association Vice President Ken Hays described a district that’s more concerned about looking prepared than being prepared to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“We want to reopen schools. We miss our students,” said Hays. “We look forward to seeing our students and interacting with them, teaching them. But we want schools to reopen safely for the benefit of students and employees.”

The Richland Education Association and the school district are continuing to negotiate around the return of middle and high school students. They met Monday and were expected to meet again Tuesday.

Hays called the district’s preparation to bring students back “woefully inadequate.”

“While district administrators hide in their new multi-million dollar administration building in West Richland in order to escape scrutiny and criticism, employees make do in their respective buildings,” Hays said.

The news about anxious and concerned teachers comes a week after middle school students returned to classrooms and a week before high school students are supposed to attend in person again.

School officials said they understand the anxiety felt by some of the teachers and are committed to finding solutions.

“The district continues to engage with school staff on how to make schools safe for them and for students as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the community,” Communications Director Ty Beaver said. “We have worked collaboratively with staff representatives on COVID-19 issues, and we will continue to do so.”

The district has hired a third-party consulting firm, NV5, to review the district’s safety procedures and tour the buildings.

Steven Bump, who has led those tours, has expressed confidence in the district’s safety measures.

The district had four cases of COVID reported last week, including staff members from Hanford High, Enterprise Middle School and Jefferson Elementary School.

By comparison, Kennewick had three cases in the same period and Pasco had 28 cases, according to each district’s online COVID dashboards.

Negotiation problems

The union and district have been in near constant negotiations since Gov. Jay Inslee shut down schools across the state in mid-March, Hays said.

Until recently, those negotiations have gone smoothly they said.

The first round of talks to reopen high schools and middle schools took about a week and a half, but when the union’s team brought the agreement back to association leaders, they rejected it, Hays said.

Among their listed concerns were class sizes, social distancing, access to protective equipment and training for the new technology.

Their next meeting with the district was “not cordial,” Hays told the Herald. Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Tony Howard was reportedly upset about the list of concerns.

On Friday, Hays said a handful of concerned Richland and Hanford high school employees were told the district would only provide “the minimum required” safety and health protections.

“We’re anxious for the safety of our students and ourselves as the District has shown, and now openly stated, they will provide only the MINIMUM REQUIRED safety and health protections,” Hays posted.

Hays said there are reasons to be concerned. While the district had from spring to prepare to get students back, masks, face shields and Plexiglas wasn’t in buildings until the day before buildings reopened for special education students in October.

More recently, the district spent $800 per classroom to buy cameras so teachers could live stream instruction to students who weren’t comfortable returning to class.

The problem was they didn’t get training or support in setting up or using the new technology, they said.

“Many teachers realized they didn’t even have the requisite cables to connect the new cameras,” Hays said. “That’s been the district’s approach since last April. Hence the sense of abandonment many teachers are feeling.”

This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.