Education Week - August 26, 2020 - 5

Teachers With COVID-19 Health Risks:
Who Gets to Stay Home?
By Madeline Will
As school buildings in some states
begin to reopen in various capacities, many teachers who are at higher
risk for severe complications from
COVID-19 are hoping they won't have
to go back.
But there are big questions around
who qualifies for a medical exemption from returning to the physical
classroom.
People who are older than 65 are
at higher risk for serious illness due
to COVID-19, as are those who are
obese, have serious heart conditions,
or have Type II diabetes. The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention
says that people who have immune
deficiencies, have asthma, have Type
I diabetes, are smokers, or are pregnant might also be at increased risk
for serious illness, although the evidence is more limited.
Districts are now tasked with deciding which conditions to prioritize
and trying to accommodate as many
teachers as they can while still maintaining staffing levels for the students
who are on campus. In some cases,
that has proved to be impossible, and
district leaders have had to either decide to keep school buildings closed or
find alternate ways to accommodate
teachers without keeping them home.
In the meantime, teachers who have
a high-risk condition or are otherwise
vulnerable, and those who live with
someone who is high-risk, are left waiting anxiously to hear how they will be
protected when they go back to school.
So far, about half of the 600 districts
in Education Week's database, which
is not nationally representative, have
opted to provide some form of in-person schooling this fall, including five of
the 25 largest districts.
"I've been holed up in my house
since March and have been very
careful," said Margee, an 8th grade
teacher in Colorado with asthma. "It
just made me very, very nervous to
think I'll be exposed to 120 students
and their families."
Margee, who asked that her last
name be withheld, got a doctor's note
for her asthma and requested to work
remotely. Her district, which plans to
begin in-person instruction in October, approved her request. She will be
working from home the whole year,
teaching the students who opted to
stay home. She'll be delivering instruction on a new platform, but she's
relieved to not have to worry about
potential exposure.
"I'd rather deal with unfamiliarity
than feeling unsafe," she said.
Forty-three percent of teachers said
they personally have a physical condition believed to make people more
vulnerable to the effects of the coronavirus, a nationally representative
Education Week Research Center survey found. And an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that
about 1.5 million teachers-nearly one

in four-have health conditions that
put them at higher risk for COVID-19
complications.
In New York City schools, the nation's largest district that is set to
welcome students back into school
buildings on Sept. 10 for a few days
a week, about 15 percent of teachers
have applied for medical exemptions
to work from home. The district is still
finalizing staffing details.
For some districts, requests for accommodations have created staffing challenges. In Elizabeth, N.J., for
example, more than 400 teachers-
about a fifth of the district's workforce-reported that they needed special consideration for health-related
risks and could not teach in person.
The sheer volume of accommodations forced the school board to vote
to begin the school year remotely.
"There would be insufficient staff to
open safely in person with that many

tion they request. If the requested accommodation would pose an undue
hardship-defined in the law as an
action requiring significant difficulty
or expense-the employer must try to
identify another way to accommodate
the employee.
Kaitlyn, an elementary teacher in
Texas who asked for her last name
to be withheld, has a rare blood disorder and had her spleen removed at
a young age, leaving her with a compromised immune system. Her school
district is starting the school year remotely but plans to begin in-person
instruction in September.
Due to health concerns, Kaitlyn requested to be in as little contact with
students as possible, hoping to work
remotely. But her partner teacher is
also immunocompromised and requested to work from home as well.
Administrators said both of them
couldn't be remote, and since Kait-

option educators are being given when
the accommodations are being denied
is to resign," she said. "They are being
asked to make the choice between
their safety and their careers."
There are especially few options for
teachers who have a high-risk family member, Morgan said. The ADA
does not cover employees who live
with someone who has a disability or
high-risk condition. Forty-six percent
of teachers said a member of their
household has a physical condition
that puts them at risk, according to
the EdWeek survey.
District leaders say they will try
to accommodate those employees
if possible. Many districts have created tiered systems for requesting to
work from home-priority is given to
those who are at high risk, followed
by those with high-risk family members. Teachers who feel uncomfortable returning are then given exemp-

They are being asked to make the choice between their
safety and their careers."
LISA MORGAN
President, Georgia Association of Educators

teachers unavailable for in-person
instruction," said district spokesman
Pat Politano in a statement provided
to NJ.com. "It became a mathematical
impossibility."

Modifying the Job
The Americans with Disabilities Act
requires an employer to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified
individuals with disabilities, unless
doing so would cause undue hardship.
Reasonable accommodations entail
modifying or adjusting the work environment to allow the individual with
a disability to perform the essential
functions of the position or allowing
the employee to take earned paid
leave or unpaid leave.
For teachers who have a disability
that puts them at higher risk for serious illness due to COVID-19, which
could include conditions like asthma
or diabetes, reasonable accommodations could mean smaller class sizes,
receiving access to N-95 masks, being
reassigned to a position that involves
less contact with others, being given
temporary leave, or working remotely
altogether. What's reasonable will depend on what a teacher's individual
condition requires, says the National
Education Association, the nation's
largest teachers' union, and for many
high-risk teachers, remote work is the
safest option.
However, employees aren't guaranteed to get the exact accommoda-

lyn's partner teacher submitted her
paperwork first, she is the one who
will be teaching remotely.
Instead, the district is giving Kaitlyn a teacher's assistant and an office.
Kaitlyn will teach in person for half
the day and teach via webcam from
her office for the rest of the day, while
the assistant will be in the classroom
with the students to facilitate and
manage behavior.
"It's going to be a little weird. ... I
would prefer it if everyone was online
for quite a while," she said.
Still, the district has "reduced our
class sizes as much as they can, and
they've been very accommodating,"
she said. "They're doing the best they
can to help me be healthy, which I really appreciate."

Up to Districts
In Georgia, where schools across
the state have already started the
year with mostly in-person learning,
some districts have told teachers that
letting them work remotely would be
too great of a burden on their operations, said Lisa Morgan, the president
of the Georgia Association of Educators, a professional group of teachers
in the state.
"Educators are being asked to come
back into the classroom in what is
in many cases an unsafe situation-
masks are not required, social distancing is impossible because class sizes
have not been reduced, and the only

tions if there are still spots available.
Also, a health condition that puts a
teacher at higher risk for COVID-19
complications isn't always the same
as an ADA-recognized disability,
which means it's often left up to the
district to decide how to handle those
requests for accommodation. For example, simply being older than 65 is
not a disability.

Pregnancy Concerns
Pregnancy itself is also not considered a disability, although conditions
resulting from pregnancy, such as
gestational diabetes or preeclampsia,
may qualify as disabilities under the
ADA. About 77 percent of teachers are
women, and many are in prime childbearing years.
Much remains unknown about
COVID-19 and pregnancy. One study
found that pregnant women with
COVID-19 were more likely to end up
in intensive care units and need ventilators than non-pregnant women, but
they were not more likely to die.
Dr. Aparna Sridhar, an associate
professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California Los
Angeles' school of medicine, said in
an email that at this time, all pregnant
women, regardless of trimester, should
take precautions to prevent infections.
She said pregnant teachers who have
additional risk factors should consult
their obstetricians for accommodation
guidelines, and those should be com-

municated to school management.
In some cases, teachers who have
not been able to secure an accommodation are considering not coming
back to work at all. Some are retiring
early, resigning, or taking unpaid leave.
Some districts have also offered
their teachers an unpaid, job-protected leave of absence. For example,
the Springdale, Ark., school district
offered any employee who was uncomfortable going back to school the
opportunity to take an unpaid leave of
absence. Forty-eight employees accepted that option, which guarantees
them a job next fall. Of those, 26 were
certified staff, including teachers. The
district has 2,950 total employees.
The Family Medical Leave Act also
allows employees who have been at
their jobs for at least a year to take up
to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected
time off. This can be used if the employee has a serious health condition
that makes it impossible to perform
the essential functions of his job, or
if the employee needs to care for a
spouse, parent, or child with a serious
health condition.
However, FMLA can only be used
once in a 12-month period, so employees who already used it-or are planning to use it-to care for a new baby or
other family member will be ineligible.
Employees who are quarantined
based on either a government order
or the advice of a healthcare provider and those who are experiencing
COVID-19 symptoms are eligible for
two weeks (up to 80 hours) of paid
sick leave under the Families First
Coronavirus Response Act.
That federal law also gives employees two weeks of paid sick leave at
two-thirds pay if they need to care for
someone who is quarantining. Employees can also take up to 12 weeks
of paid leave at two-thirds pay to care
for a child whose school or child-care
provider is closed or unavailable due
to COVID-19. (These leave provisions
are set to expire on Dec. 31.)
However, the reduced pay will be
a barrier for many teachers. Morgan
said that in one Georgia district, more
than 700 teachers initially expressed
interest in the extended family leave,
but when they learned the details,
only one teacher chose to apply.
"Most people can't afford a 33 percent cut in pay," she said.
Teachers who feel like their request
for an accommodation has been unfairly denied also have the option to
file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
or with their local union, the NEA
says, adding that there could also be
grounds for possible litigation.
The NEA has also recommended that
local affiliates with collective bargaining rights add language to their contract about ensuring teachers' safety,
and that educators in states without
collective bargaining rights form health
and safety committees to try to add
similar language to school policies.

EDUCATION WEEK | August 26, 2020 | www.edweek.org | 5

http://www.NJ.com http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - August 26, 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - August 26, 2020