Maplewood Teachers Ordered To Report To School; Union Responds

MAPLEWOOD, NJ — A New Jersey Superior Court judge has ordered teachers in the South Orange-Maplewood school district to report back to the buildings soon to teach sixth and ninth graders, the district said in a letter to parents on Tuesday afternoon. The students will now return starting Monday.

The majority of students in the district have been on remote learning for a year. However, kindergarteners through second graders returned this past Monday, and special needs students returned earlier this month. (See timeline below.)

The schools were originally supposed to reopen for in-person learning in November, but ventilation issues pushed the reopening to January. That month, schools reopened for a week, then closed again, with teachers citing safety concerns and a need to be vaccinated.

The district sent out this email on Tuesday:

<blockquote>

"Dear SOMSD Community,

"Today, the Court heard the Board’s application for temporary restraints to require all SOMEA staff to report to District facilities for in-person instruction consistent with our Phase 3 reopening plan. While the Court denied the overall request finding that the extraordinary remedy of temporary restraints should not be ordered, the Hon. Jodi Alper entered an Order compelling SOMEA 6th and 9th-grade teachers to report for in-person instruction as early as Thursday, March 18, 2021, to rooms that assigned by the District that were previously identified as having passed SOMEA’s unique standards. It is notable that the District had made this offer to SOMEA several weeks ago, but it had been refused. We are thankful that the Court was willing to Order the return for our 6th and 9th-grade students and families.

"The District will prepare for the resumption of in-person learning for our 6th and 9th graders, which will begin on Monday, March 22. There will be follow-up correspondence as we make classroom assignments, transportation arrangements, and prepare for in-person learning.

"Additional communication will be sent to families and students that will be returning.
This is an important and critical step in the right direction as we resume in-person instruction. The legal significance of the Court’s Order is to ensure that our community is not faced with another work district-wide interference with the return of Phase 3 in-person learning. Another court date is scheduled for April 19. We will continue to work toward greater availability of in-person instruction over the coming weeks as we target April 19 for our next phase."

</blockquote>

The union sent out this statement on Tuesday after the ruling:

"Following the hearing today, March 16, before the Honorable Jodi Lee Alper, Presiding Judge of the Chancery Division, Essex County, Superior Court of the State of New Jersey, the association is pleased with the results and looks forward to a safe return. In the decision, it was affirmed that the association’s actions to remain remote did not count as a strike, and indeed, Judge Alper agreed with SOMEA that its members 'are working harder than ever.' "

The union added, "In addition to denying the district’s requests for injunctive relief, the Court ordered the district to 'assign classrooms to sixth and ninth grade teachers' based on SOMEA’s determination of fit classrooms following its walkthroughs, and that district comply with the terms of its Sidebar Agreement with SOMEA. The association’s members look forward to seeing their students and colleagues."

The union published results this past weekend of a walkthrough to assess the safety of the buildings (linked here).

A SOMA parent group has a counter on their webpage that says that it's been approximately a year since the last in-person class for all students.

Last week, some students and parents staged a sit-in meant to urge for schools to open five days a week.

Last Friday morning, April Mason, a spokeswoman for one of the parent groups that has formed in response to the delays, said, "Our hope is that all the kids can go back five days a week as soon as possible. My kids are in fifth and eight grade. They have not been back even one day or one hour in a year. They haven't met their teachers in person. They have no relationship except through a screen. It has impacted their learning."

Timeline

The 2020-2021 school year in Maplewood so far has been riddled with setbacks:

• The Maplewood Board of Education announced last Wednesday that it was withdrawing from mediation with the teachers' union, an ongoing process meant to help both parties determine when the students would return to in-person learning.
• The union said they would honor a commitment to return to K through 2 classrooms this week.
• The teachers' union also issued a fact sheet after the district withdrew from mediation. Read the fact sheet and union letter here.

Earlier:

• On-site learning was to begin in the district in November, but problems with the ventilation system put those plans on hold until January.
• The schools opened for a week in January for certain grades and special needs students, but went remote again when teachers cited unsafe conditions.
• A snowy nor'easter caused schools to go remote for several days after that.
• The teachers' union sent a new letter to the district in February saying they were concerned about conditions in the schools and needed to get vaccinated. READ MORE: Maplewood Schools Are Now Remote Indefinitely
• The district responded later that day, "We are in receipt of SOMEA’s email indicating that they are once again refusing to report to the school buildings. As per the Community Reopening Update of only a few hours ago, the district was making progress in its Phase 3 reopening with no evidence of in-school transmission. We felt that the Sidebar Agreement with SOMEA was working as intended..."

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