CHARLESTON – The president of the state’s largest teachers union says it will file an injunction in the coming days challenging continuing changes made to the state’s color-coded school re-entry map.
“Our members have watched the constant manipulation of the map,” West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee said. “As each rendition failed to provide the desired results sought by our state leaders, additional changes were made. The map manipulation has gone on long enough. Citizens and educators have lost confidence and trust that the changes made to the map are in the interest of safety and public health.
“It has compromised the safety of the students and employees in our public schools.”
Lee
Lee said the only way to restore confidence and ensure safety is to adopt a new system from independent experts recognized in the fields of infectious diseases and public health, such as the original Harvard map.
The current plan is a color-coded county-by-county system that measures, in general, a county’s daily average of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents. Each Saturday, the statewide map is locked in for schools for the following week. Counties with the lowest cumulative average of active cases are labeled green, followed by yellow, gold, orange and red. It has been modified numerous times in the last few weeks.
Currently, most counties on the state map are green. Meanwhile, the Harvard map still shows most counties yellow or orange.
“The latest changes to the map simply go too far and the illusion of a ‘green map’ does not mean it is safe to return to in-person learning in many of our counties,” Lee said. “We know how important it is for students to be back in classrooms working with their teachers. No one wants in-person education more than our members, but they no longer feel safety is the top priority for our state government’s leadership.
“We have educators all over the state who have lost confidence in the governor and his statements regarding his desire to keep them safe.”
Lee said the state’s focus “clearly” has been on getting school athletic teams on the field and students back in classes.
“The changes in the calculations, we believe, are being manipulated,” Lee told The West Virginia Record. “We’ve agreed that people should be tested. But, we know of people who are being tested every day and going to multiple sites to be tested. That’s a manipulation of the numbers.
“You have a board member in Putnam County who posted on social media about doing that. He said he’s already went twice, and he said he’ll go back every day if that’s what it takes. So, for them to say these numbers are not being manipulated? Come on. Justice said if coaches are doing this or encouraging others to do this, then they shouldn’t be coaches. What about board members?”
Lee did not name the Putnam County board member, but Christian Wells made the comments on posts on Facebook.
The bottom line, Lee said, is that working conditions for educators inside schools haven’t changed.
“There are still places where you can’t do the required social distancing,” he told The Record. “Even the mask requirements are different in different counties of different colors on the map.
“If a county was too dangerous to go to school with 50 cases at the start of September, how is it now safe to go when there are 60 cases?”
Lee also said the recent allowances made for private schools in Kanawha County aren’t fair. The governor is allowing those schools to open if every student and staff member are tested.
“If that’s what it takes, why aren’t we doing that in our public schools?” Lee said. “The governor, in his press conference today, accused us of being political. I can assure you that this is not political at all. It’s about the safety of our educators, our students and their families.”
