EXCLUSIVE: Teacher 'emotionally blackmailed' into not self-isolating by school

A teacher claims she felt pressured into continuing to go to work instead of self-isolating after being in close contact to a person who tested positive for Covid-19.

The teacher claims the institute left the decision of whether to self-isolate or not up to the staff.

In an exclusive interview with Radio Clyde News, she said: "We felt emotionally blackmailed.

"That was just not supposed to be our choice to make.

"The school should have taken responsibility for everyone’s safety."

She added they felt guilt-tripped into continuing to work instead of abiding by the Scottish Government guidance to quarantine for 14 days.

She said: "They played with our sense of guilt.

"If we decided to stay home as we were supposed to, we knew that the school and the kids would have been left without teachers.

"But it would have also been seen as us admitting to not complying to social distancing, which was not the case.

"If we needed to self-isolate, it would have been a sign that we didn’t do enough to keep everyone safe."

The teacher continued working for over a week before being contacted by NHS Test and Protect and being asked to self-isolate for the remaining days.

She said: "You would think that the school had to accept the situation - but they still tried to convince me to come back earlier because I had no symptoms, even when the 14 days period was not over."

The teacher says she believes the only way to protect everyone’s safety is to embrace blended learning or to go back to online teaching.

She said: "I think the fact that the reopening of schools coincided with the rise of cases again speaks for itself.

"I believe measures should be taken to ensure that everyone is safe, including teachers.

"I don’t understand why everything else is closing and schools are not.

"Sometimes it feels like the Government thinks that teachers are invincible, that we are superheroes.

"But in reality, we are just humans and we risk our lives everyday by doing our job, just as much as anyone else."

Seamus Searson, General Secretary of Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, says they have received many similar complaints from their members – some of whom had underlying health conditions or were pregnant.

Mr Searson said: "We feel that schools are finding it very difficult to try and keep everybody in school.

"They’re often believing that they should keep schools at all costs so they’re not necessarily protecting the teachers as well as they should be.

"We have heard of teachers whose kids are self-isolating and they have to choose between their own and their loved ones’ safety and being paid."

The Scottish Government says it will consider closing schools if necessary but keeping them open through all the 5 levels of tiered restrictions is a top priority.

A Glasgow city council spokeswoman said: "The health and wellbeing of our staff and young people will always be our first priority and our schools offer support and advice to staff to anyone identified to self-isolate by test and protect or staff who feel they are a close contact of a positive case in school.

"At all times we follow the Scottish Government’s advice and guidance to help suppress the virus and we have a robust process in our schools that’s been agreed with our public health experts to help keep everyone safe.

"We are sorry that this teacher feels that she’s been given no support and we would like to help but can only do this if she lets us know how we can get in touch – this could be by contacting head office or via her union rep – so that we can offer any support and alleviate any distress."

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