'We're team school': Columbus students, parents fret online classes even as they back teachers' strike
By Eric Bradner, CNNUpdated: Wed, 24 Aug 2022 20:34:43 GMTSource: CNNStudents and parents in Ohio's largest school district say they are dreading a return to online learning -- even if they suppo
By Eric Bradner, CNNUpdated: Wed, 24 Aug 2022 20:34:43 GMT
Source: CNN
Students and parents in Ohio's largest school district say they are dreading a return to online learning -- even if they support the teachers' strike that stopped them from returning to school for the first day of classes Wednesday.
The Columbus Education Association and the Columbus City Schools Board of Education were meeting Wednesday afternoon as they remained at odds over a new contract for teachers and school workers.
Teachers were seeking 8% pay raises, as well as commitments to improve heating and air conditioning in dilapidated buildings, smaller class sizes and more. The district had offered 3% pay bumps and had balked at including language on school improvements in its contract with the union.
The school district was relying on substitutes to lead virtual classes Wednesday with about 4,500 teachers, librarians, counselors and other school workers on strike.
Outside the Barnett Community Center, one of nine locations open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. that the Columbus Recreation and Parks Department has designated as support centers for students to complete their online work, three students said they hope the return to early pandemic-era virtual classes is short-lived.
"We're team school. We don't want to go back to virtual," said Coreaa Taylor, who is set to start 9th grade at Walnut Ridge High School.
"It's boring," Jamaal Reed, who is starting 8th grade at Sherwood Middle School, said of virtual learning. "We want to see our friends. We still want to do stuff at school. It's like a bond with friends that you don't see unless you're at school."
"I really don't want to be virtual," said Linwood Allison, who is starting 12th grade at Walnut Ridge.
"When you're at home, you're not going to have that same ambition. At home, you want to be lazy," Allison said. "Some people, they feel motivated by their classmates, or their teacher might help them out a lot."
However, despite disliking remote learning, all three said striking teachers made good points about overcrowded classrooms and heating and air conditioning problems.
At Walnut Ridge High School, where Columbus City Schools completed HVAC work in 2018, classrooms remain unreasonably hot, Allison said.
"They're saunas," he said. "Ridge needs a lot of work -- like, a lot of work."
Jazmyne Collins, a construction worker who was picking up a Chromebook for her 9-year-old daughter, said classroom conditions were "just as bad" when she was a student in Columbus City Schools.
"Sometimes you have to stand for something," Collins said of teachers. "It's a great cause. They're asking for reasonable things for these children. I stand with the teachers -- I'm all for it."
However, she said child care will be a strain for many parents -- including her -- and said even those who have relatives or other child care options aren't prepared to teach students.
"Right now, I'm supposed to be at work," Collins said. "How do you just call off work? How do you just not go?"
Near Livingston Elementary School, Kelley Freeman, whose 5-year-old son Arthur Freeman Green is set to enter kindergarten, said she is frustrated and blames the board of education for the impasse.
"He hasn't really had an opportunity to be in public school before and I don't think that virtual school with substitute teachers is an acceptable option," she said of Arthur. "He deserves teachers who get fair pay who have safe and healthy classrooms with heat and air conditioning and not black mold."
Freeman said she and her husband are "not going to cross the picket line" -- meaning that they do not plan to have Arthur log on for virtual classes. But she acknowledged that, because she is self-employed and her husband works from home, "not every parent has the same kind of flexibility that we do."
Tags:Columbus,
