About 4,500 teachers in Columbus, Ohio, have been on strike since Monday over guaranteed air conditioning and heat, “appropriate” class sizes, and full-time art, music, and physical education teachers in elementary schools. Some teachers were attacked by pellets Tuesday afternoon outside Indian Springs Elementary in Clintonville, The Columbus Dispatch reports.
Victoria, Br.Col., 2012. (Christa Boaz/iStockPhoto)Columbus police dispatchers said a male in a bronze car shot a pellet gun several times at the picketers around 2 p.m. No serious injuries were reported, and this was the first violent incident reported in connection with the strike.
The strike comes two years into the coronavirus pandemic and amid what some educators have described as a nationwide teacher shortage. The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher union organization, has said the country is facing a massive teacher shortage; about 300,000 vacancies exist nationwide. Other education experts have argued, though, that there isn’t a “nationwide shortage” of teachers, because
- some types of teachers are experiencing more demand than supply right now, but the effect doesn’t apply to all types of teachers, and
- some districts are simply hiring more teachers right now, which inflates the demand beyond education schools’ ability to increase the supply.
In Columbus, one picketer’s sign read: “Columbus students deserve: Rodent-free classrooms! Working HVAC! Qualified administrators! Modern schools! No more black mold!!!” The strike marks the first such event since 1975, the Dispatch noted.
The school board announced it had met for several hours Monday and expected more information to be released “soon”: “Our board fully recognizes this disruption and concern felt for by our children and families across our city,” the Dispatch quoted Jennifer Adair, school board president, as saying. “And to our school community … we are extremely saddened by the start to the school year.”
Classes are officially set to start Wednesday, but no additional negotiations are scheduled before that. If the strike goes into a third day, students will begin the year virtually, logging in to be counted for attendance, instead of reporting to their school buildings. The district will distribute meals at pre-arranged meal-delivery locations. Columbus City Schools serves about 47,000 students in 112 schools.
