The Lafayette Parish School Board is set to discuss the administration's back-to-school plan tonight at 5:30 p.m.
Ahead of that meeting, the parish's largest teacher group, the Lafayette Parish Association of Educators, issued a statement providing results from a poll of its membership.
LPAE reprsents more than 1,000 of the school system's approximately 4,000 employees, including teachers, support professionals, bus drivers and administrators. The group, and it's state parent organization, have been involved in back-to-school plans across the state.
"As part of those efforts, we have polled our membership about their worries and concerns around returning to school," says the statement from LPAE president Julia Reed.
Here are the results:
• 49.6% of our membership self-identified as high risk or increased risk for COVID 19 complications.
• 64.7% of our membership felt it would be safest to return 100% virtual.
• 78.2% support pushing back start of school to after Labor Day.
• 72.4% support committing to virtual for the first 9 weeks.
“While we remain committed to working with the school system no matter what the return to schools looks like, our membership has made it clear they feel unsafe returning to school at this time. We applaud the school system’s commitment to re-evaluate the plan in the event the COVID situation changes," Reed said.
The poll results have been shared with the LPSS administration and the board, she writes.
