Teachers in the West Contra Costa Unified School District have been voicing concern over COVID-19 safety protocols since school began this year.
Now, if an agreement isn't met between the local teachers union, United Teachers of Richmond, and the district on Friday, the union may vote to authorize a strike, according to a statement UTR posted on Facebook earlier this week.
"Last week the majority of members shared they were ready to strike if safety demands were not met. This weekend, the UTR Executive Board voted to give our UTR President the authority to call an official strike vote based on the unsafe conditions if an agreement is not met by this Friday," wrote UTR in the post.
The union has met with the district a couple of times over the last week to negotiate. Over social media, teachers have made their demands quite clear. In several Facebook and Twitter posts on Thursday, teachers called for high-quality masks to be provided to everyone, weekly testing provided for everyone, qualified adults to be present in every classroom, and testing provided twice a week in classrooms where three or more positive cases are identified, with an option to shift temporarily to independent study during the quarantine period.
The district has advocated for keeping schools open amidst the omicron surge, as students and teachers tested positive.
"We have seen that students are better off in school than in distance learning," County Superintendent of Schools Lynn Mackey said in a press release earlier this month. "The county office of education continues to work with the health department and our school districts to maintain in-person learning and do it safely. The safety of students, staff, and families remains our top priority during this pandemic."
The union hopes that an agreement can be met. "We expect that WCCUSD will take action to meet the very reasonable health and safety demands elevated by our students, educators and communities," UTR wrote in a Twitter post earlier this week.
UTR and WCCUSD did not respond to KCBS Radio's request for comment at the time of publication.
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