Striking San Francisco teachers have demanded parents avoid homeschooling their children to help support their push for higher wages and better conditions.
More than 50,000 children were kept home on Monday and Tuesday after teacherswalked off the job and joined picket lines, demanding a nine per cent raise over two years and subsidized family health care, which the cash-strapped San Francisco School District claims it can’t afford.
And with the strike set to drag into a Wednesday, local parents are now fuming after teachers emailed them and asked them not to encourage any home study.
The district — which says it could lose millions in funding each day the strike goes on — offered homework packets that include “five days of independent study work and practice in both English Language Arts and in Math,” according to its website.But teachers claim in messages they sent to parents that the packets were a ploy to ensure the district continues to receive funds during the strike, meaning the district would be able to avoid caving to the union’s demands.
“If many families participate in independent study, it reduces pressure on the district and can prolong the strike,” read a screenshot shared on social media. “If you are able, we ask that you do not participate in the independent study provided by the district.”
”If you are able, we ask that you do not participate in the independent study provided by the district.’
Tech worker Nadim Hossain, who has a child in elementary school, described the email as ”messed up.”
”Strike if you must but it’s diabolical to say ‘don’t do independent study while we shut down the school for a few days,'” he wrote on X.
The email sparked argumentson social mediawith one pundit equating the homework with “crossing the picket line” – while others blasted the union for appearing to discourage children from keeping up with they studies during the strike.
”The district providing packets like this that the teachers themselves did not put together – which is in their statement that you quoted – is essentially the same as using scabs,” one parent claimed.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
