(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Teachers and students of the Salt Lake City School District gather at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, February 24, 2021.
Teachers in the Salt Lake City School District backed Wednesday with a rally against legislature efforts to control how and when they return to the classroom during the pandemic.
Dozens of educators stood on the steps of the Utah Capitol holding signs promoting local control and urging lawmakers to “stop the attack.” And they sang together: “Ho, ho, hey, hey. Stay Away From My LEA, ”an abbreviation for“ Local Education Agency, ”another way of referring to a district.
The protest comes after lawmakers first threatened to withhold from district educators rewards offered to all other teachers across the state to work in the midst of the coronavirus. A senator later also drafted a bill to reclaim funding for Salt Lake City schools. Both were an attempt to pressure the district to reopen personally to students this semester.
The district was previously the only one in Utah to stay fully online when classes resumed that fall. The district school board had decided to stay virtual and come back face-to-face when the virus transmission was better under control.
But following state demands – including Governor Spencer Cox’s disapproval – the board agreed to reopen last month when teachers received the vaccine and about two-thirds of the students have returned. The bonuses are back on the table and the bill that would have penalized the district has been reformulated to beat that language.
Still, educators said Wednesday it wasn’t fair for legislation to force a district to return or to expose teachers to the risk of contracting the virus. They argued that decisions should be made at the local level.
James Tobler, president of the Salt Lake Education Association, the teachers’ union that organized the rally, said the state had effectively bullied the district.
“We all want to get back to personal learning as soon as possible, but the health and safety of students and educators must come first,” Tobler said in a statement. “We oppose legislative attempts to usurp the authority of a locally elected school board to make decisions in the best interests of those they serve.”
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