Your voice matters. At last Thursday's HISD Agenda Review Meeting, “parents and teachers in one-minute bursts told of family and friends already lost to COVID-19 and fears that they or their children would be infected and become seriously ill or die."

The Houston Press has more here.

Speak at the HISD Board meeting this Thursday (10/8) to demand a safer reopening. The board heard 30 teachers and parents speak out last week. The deadline to sign up is 9:30 am on Thursday. Read more here about what to say and how to sign up or email [email protected] for help.

Tell HISD to commit to 6 foot social distancing and small class size; to invest in COVID testing; and to widely publicize to parents that they can change to virtual at any time. Sixty-one percent of HISD parents have chosen virtual and some schools are at just 25% in-person. But HISD needs to tell parents the truth-that students will be sitting behind plexiglass in classrooms with poor ventilation, on a computer just like they would at home.  Smaller face to face numbers ensure a safer reopening and will save lives. 

While the governor is to blame for denying funding to school districts who do not reopen, we must hold our district accountable for the lives of students, school workers and families.

The safety and well-being of students and their teachers is also a racial justice issue. The CDC recently reported that almost all of the 121 US kids and teens who've died from COVID-19 from March-July were Latinx or Black. The CDC report further stated that "food and housing insecurity, wealth and educational gaps, racial discrimination and lack of access to health care all also likely play a role in the higher rates of death in Black and brown children."  These deaths are "tied to systemic racism that puts their health at risk, by subjecting children to different living conditions than their white counterparts."

RSVP here for CVPE Meeting this SATURDAY

The meeting is on zoom from 11-12:30 on Sat, 10/10. Learn how to organize people, write a 1 min elevator speech and phonebank voters for State Board of Education candidate Michelle Palmer and others. It's a membership dues meeting too. Here is the link to donate at houstoncvpe.org/donate

CAR CARAVAN PROTEST for SAFER WORKING AND LEARNING CONDITIONS

The Houston Federation of Teachers is holding a car caravan protest at Hattie Mae White HISD on Saturday, Oct 17 from 10:00am-11:30 am. Protest unsafe conditions for students, teachers and other staff.  Everyone is welcome to help save lives.

Click on photo for story.