BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - The teacher's union at Buffalo Public Schools has officially sued the district in a last-ditch effort to prevent the school from reopening this Monday.
The lawsuit, filed Friday evening, aims to continue teaching under the remote model given the possibility of safety issues at some of the schools. Buffalo Schools plans to open Monday for Pre-K through second grade students, high school seniors, and up to 100 students of highest need at each school.
"The District opened the 2020-2021 school year without any in-person instrution and severely limited the physical attendance of its employees because it could not provide a safe and healthy school atmosphere during the COVID-19 pandemic," the lawsuit read. "There can be no doubt that (the district) knew their school facilities were not safe."
Teachers cite Superintendent Kriner Cash's December 9 comments where he said "I'm not sending our children and our staff into the mouth of the volcano."
In an interview with WBEN ahead of the lawsuit's filing, BTF President Phil Rumore said teachers went inside the building ahead of reopening and gave the district examples of things to fix.
"The district has started fixing and making some of the changes and fixing the things that are needed to be done, but they haven't yet done all the buildings as they should be," Rumore said. "We had a meeting with them (Thursday) and there were still some major problems that hadn't been corrected. We tried to give the district as much time as they could."
Rumore said teachers want to be back with their students, but they want to do so safely.