Colleagues,
As you may recall, on August 12, 2020, the Rochester Teachers Association and the Rochester City School District reached a Memorandum of Understanding (see attached) to reopen the current school year fully virtually. That negotiated agreement included the following provision: “The Parties agree to meet (a) two weeks prior to the end of the first marking period to extend or adjust the provisions of this Memorandum of Understanding and/or (b) to consider plans for reopening of schools at any other time.“
In preparation for that, we conducted a survey last week to determine your experience with remote teaching thus far and to elicit your views about the potential transitioning to a hybrid model of teaching and learning. More than 1600 teachers responded to our survey and offered valuable comments on the questions posed. The cumulative results are summarized in the second attachment below. Major finding: more than 81% of respondents believe the the RCSD should continue the remote only model for at least another quarter of the current school year. We are still tabulating the many free response comments and will soon communicate to you a summary and general patterns.
We do not yet know whether the District will determine to continue the fully remote model or to transition to a hybrid model that includes in-person teaching and learning. Nor do we yet know what such a hybrid model would entail. We expect to find out, though, on or before October 30th. We will definitely let you know as soon as we know and we will continue to keep you informed about the progress of our efforts on your behalf.
Thank you for responding to the RTA survey and especially for all that you continue to do every day for our students.
Adam Urbanski, RTA President