Dear Superintendent Lewis and NOLA-PS Board Members,

Today we are writing to share our concerns about when and how we will resume in-person learning. We support the decision that NOLA-PS made to pivot to distance learning the week of January 4th. However, even in the short time of in-person learning (Jan. 4 - 5), Morris Jeff Community School experienced our first case of in-class, student-to-student COVID-19 transmission. Read the full letter here.

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January 4th, 2021- Today New Orleans Public Schools announced that all schools should move to virtual-only learning by Thursday of this week. 

This is an important policy change that will help protect the health and safety of students, teachers, and all New Orleans residents who interact with those in our schools. Less than a week ago, the district had decided to insist upon in-person learning, but this caused an outcry from concerned educators, parents and students. The United Teachers of New Orleans published an Open Letter to the Superintendent and School Board outlining these concerns on January 1st, and in the subsequent days, several individual schools determined that they could not safely resume in-person learning at this time and decided to transition once again to virtual learning. MORE

Local 527 membership elected Mr. LaCour vice-president in 1969 and then president in 1971, a post he held until he was promoted to a position in the American Federation of Teachers in 1998. He transformed Local 527 from a relatively small group of mostly segregated teachers into the largest local in the state. In 1972, amidst top-down faculty desegregation, Mr. LaCour helped orchestrate a merger with the mostly-white NEA local to form UTNO: The United Teachers of New Orleans. The merger was unprecedented:

In Mr. LaCour’s words: “I think UTNO was really the first institution in New Orleans to

October, 2020

United Teachers of Franklin stands in full support of Franklin’s on going commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. These values lie at the heart of our organization:

• ➢ We support diversity, as it embodies our mission to fight all forms of bias in education.

• ➢ We support equity, as it forms the foundation of our collective, democratic process.

• ➢ We support inclusion—not only because we are a union, but because we are teachers.

We work hard every day to create environments for students to thrive. If we are not fighting for students to express their authentic identities in the