April 6, 2021
Trustees of the School Board,
As teachers, our passion and duty is to provide education, care, and stewardship to the children in our charge. It was exciting to re-engage in that core mission as some students have been able to return to Albany campuses. ATA members have been working feverishly for the past two weeks to prepare our classrooms to provide a safe learning environment for Albany’s students. For the children and teachers who have been able to return in person, it has been a joy to be back in school.
However, the rush to reopen has caused serious problems and added additional stress to Albany’s already overloaded teachers. The lack of adequate ventilation in some rooms, lack of soap in some bathrooms, inadequate internet infrastructure at the middle school which caused an outage; these are serious problems that impede our efforts to provide a safe and equitable learning environment for our in-person and at-home students. These problems will eventually be solved. Yet the rush to reopen has forced us to compromise safety for speed. The expertise of teachers and administrators was waved away in an effort to hurry things along. The membership of ATA finds this wholly unacceptable.
It’s too early to assess all of the takeaways from this unprecedented school year. And we need to acknowledge that we’re all doing our best. But we must also acknowledge that we have to do better. Especially when it comes to this school board working WITH our education professionals. We are your strongest allies in the effort of education.
Moving forward, ATA hopes that this board can commit to a collaborative relationship where we can implement and honor solutions that work for the entire Albany Unified community. We ask that prior to wholesale changes to schedules, programs, and safety measures, that you seek out, hear, and listen to the expertise of your committed educators and administrators. We have a deep understanding of these issues, it is our life’s work, and ignoring our expertise does disservice to students and teachers alike. When we work together during these immensely challenging times, we give Albany students our best.
We look forward to rebuilding this relationship together.
Sincerely,
Chris Knight & Stephen Naiff
ATA Co-Presidents