-
Let me play out the scenario of a rapidly detected infection or contact traced quarantine, for the non-hypothetical case of a dual-career faculty parent with a medically vulnerable household member… chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-Teach-Remotely-/249035On twitter.com
♻️ 1 Retweets Mood -4 🙁
-
University contingency plans are relying on the fact that infected students can be rapidly identified and quarantined in designated dorms.Permalink On twitter.com
-
But for an dual-career family instructor who is contact traced, quarantine means taking them out of their home. It's not clear that universities are providing a destination for this.Permalink On twitter.com
-
Even if so, quarantining one university teacher means removing one half of the caregivers from a home w/ child or children and a medically vulnerable individual.Permalink On twitter.com
-
And potentially depriving their spouse of the split in caregiving time required to do their teaching and research job. Again, this is just for contact tracing.Permalink On twitter.com
-
Now imagine one faculty parent is infected. Technically, the infected parent is isolating and the uninfected one is quarantining. Neither can do so in their house, though they could do so together if willing to risk double infection.Permalink On twitter.com
-
But now they need a space to quarantine, a caregiver for their child(ren), and a caregiver for the medically vulnerable individual.Permalink On twitter.com
-
Depending on the regional severity of the pandemic, these sudden caregiving needs may be costly, logistically challenging, unavailable, or prohibited by shelter-in-place requirements.Permalink On twitter.com
-
Also, under most hybrid campus models, quarantining instructors would also have ongoing remote teaching obligations.Permalink On twitter.com
-
Going back in time for the moment. In the interim between infection and detection / contact tracing, there is a risk that the medically vulnerable individual gets infected, despite never having left the home.Permalink On twitter.com
-
All of the above supports a simple standard: family members of medically compromised individuals need to be able to opt to work from home.Permalink On twitter.com
-
Here's the case that this is legally protected, especially at schools that moved classes online in the spring. chronicle.com/article/Can-Faculty-Be-Forced-Back-on/248981 Apparently, some university administrations already disagree: chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-Teach-Remotely-/249035Permalink On twitter.com