Questions and Concerns about the Employee COVID Accommodations Survey
Recently, MNPS HR emailed a survey to staff asking them to “Please complete this survey only if you are in a high-risk category as defined by the Centers for Disease Control”. Since that time, we have been inundated with questions and concerns about the survey from educators.
Yesterday we compiled a list of nearly 60 questions or concerns related to the survey. We have read them all and condensed them down to 10 questions/concerns. Today we met with Dr. Battle and her team to ask HR to respond to the questions/concerns. Dr. Battle has directed HR to do so, and we will post answers here and on our social media as soon as we have them, hopefully by the beginning of next week.
Questions
The email only mentions specific health conditions but the survey talks about the need for child care and other conditions not listed in the email. Many people might not answer the survey because those things were not made clear in the email.
What if a teacher has a serious health condition that is not listed?
What if a teacher or their dependent develops a serious health condition after they respond?
Is the purpose of the survey to just get an idea of how many teachers would prefer to work online versus at school, or will people be locked into a decision based on their answers from this survey? How specifically is the information being used?
How might someone's answer impact their employment? Is there a possibility they might lose their current position and be reassigned somewhere else?
If too many people have conditions that make them unable to work in person, is there a possibility that the district might lay people off?
Will the information about health conditions be kept confidential? Who will have access to the information? Will the information potentially impact health insurance?
What if someone has a condition that makes them high risk but they prefer to teach in person?
What if a teacher is not good at teaching online and is worried their lack of technology skills will impact their evaluations?
If a teacher gets reassigned because of staffing needs during COVID, will that reassignment be permanent or will they be able to return to their original position when things go back to normal?