AFT President Randi Weingarten has reached out this week by formal letter to Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel A. Cardona and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky about the CDC’s revised guidance reducing physical distancing in K-12 schools from six feet to three feet.
“Our concern is that the cited studies do not identify the baseline mitigation strategies needed to support 3 feet of physical distancing,” Weingarten writes in her letter, dated March 23. “Weakening one layer of layered mitigation demands that the other layers must be strengthened.”
She goes on to raise a series of “immediate logistical questions” pertaining to whether teachers are able to move about their classrooms, the proper distancing between students and bus drivers, and the expected timeline for implementing the CDC’s changes.
“We ask that the Education Department, in conjunction with the CDC, release a national checklist outlining the enhanced mitigation strategies that must be in place if we move to 3 feet physical distancing, and provide details about how to ensure that 3 feet of physical distancing is implemented properly,” she writes.