CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — You may have seen a post from the president of the Corpus Christi American Federation of Teachers Union circulating on Facebook lately.
Union President Dr. Nancy Vera had some strong words for parents and the district administrators -- urging parents to keep children home from school.
Dr. Vera alleging some schools were not given adequate supplies of personal protective equipment and that teachers were given contradictory directives when it comes to cleaning classroom toilets.
Dr. Vera said that mask wearing is not being enforced across the board while on campus. Our Michael Gibson reached out to the Corpus Christi Independent School District for answers. He learned that the answers are not so clear.
"We can protest for example which is something I've been thinking about seriously in front of the school board presidents house and have like a train or cars and vehicles going around her neighborhood and asking her to do better and exude some leadership skills and help teachers," Dr. Vera said.
Dr. Vera is talking about holding a protest in front of the home of school board president Janie Bell. She's also considering having another drive-by protest in front of the home of Superintendent Roland Hernandez.
This, after she fired off a Union Advisory Notice, advising parents to keep their children home from school. According to Dr. Vera, teachers she represents are concerned that the CCISD buildings are not safe.
She said her union members have been sending photos from their schools and pointing out problems ranging from the distribution of PPE, recordings of back to school messages and showing school leadership not wearing masks over their noses.
"People in the schools or in the school setting have not been wearing their mask or have been wearing them inappropriately," Dr. Vera said. "Just yesterday, I was with the principal, who in a meeting covered her mouth, but her nose was not covered by the mask and personally I felt that was dangerous and I didn't want to be in that room."
For the second straight day, we asked CCISD officials to comment on camera over the teacher union claims and for the second straight day they declined.
They sent us another general statement that did not address the specific concerns of the union.
CCISD's Statement
"In consultation with local and state authorities, as well as other Texas school districts, Corpus Christi ISD worked throughout the spring and summer to create a comprehensive reopening plan, which is available here. The plan includes best practices for disease prevention that follow CDC guidelines as well as industry standards for cleaning supplies. Our district advisory groups, which include employee organization representatives, were included in the planning process."
The district did not comment on the specific safety concerns.
"We are also prepared not to work on Saturdays or Sundays and we're certainly prepared to say we're not gonna work after six and if we have to have a sick out, so be it," Dr. Vera said.
By the way, Dr. Vera estimates that her local union is made up of close to 1,400 CCISD employees. An organization which sounds as if it's leadership has declared war on CCISD and it's back to the classroom plan