The new year brings a ray of hope for California parents like Kate Gude, who has watched with mounting worry as her four kids suffer social isolation and reduced instruction time from online learning.
The first COVID-19 vaccines were given to health care workers a month ago, teachers whose safety fears have blunted reopening efforts are next in line, and the governor has a new $2 billion plan aimed at getting kids back into classrooms over the next three months.
“I’m an eternal optimist,” said Gude, of Los Gatos, as she joined a demonstration outside her district’s shuttered high school. “In lots of other districts, kids are going back already. Other schools have proven it’s possible to do this.”
California’s schools have been among the slowest in the country to reopen, frustrated parents observe. But is it realistic to expect wide-scale reopening this spring — particularly if educators haven’t started getting vaccinated?
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “Safe Schools For All Plan,” announced Dec. 30, says yes. It’s a package of incentives for districts to throw open classroom doors as early as February, and will be submitted to the Legislature as an adjustment to the state budget. It aims first to bring back students from transitional kindergarten to second grade; those with special needs, such as English learners; and those who are homeless, in foster care or low-income. Other elementary school students would follow shortly thereafter, with a goal to be “back on track across the spectrum by spring 2021.”
The plan addresses many concerns teachers unions have voiced, providing some $450 per student for cleaning, masks and ventilation, as well as regular COVID testing for students and staff.
But while some parents rejoice, Newsom’s plan has received a chilly reception from school districts and teachers unions, who say it leaves far too many questions unanswered.
“COVID-19 in the community is, in effect, at the front door, and the front door’s locked right now because it’s at dangerous levels,” said Austin Beutner, superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District, recently. “If it’s too dangerous to come in the front door at this time, we can’t have students, and we don’t want our staff, on campuses.”
Fails poor kids?
Beutner and superintendents from six other large school districts registered their objections in a letter to the governor last week. Five of them — Los Angeles, Long Beach, Fresno, San Diego and Sacramento — currently have higher COVID case rates than what Newsom proposes as the upper limit permissible for schools to reopen.
“While pleased that ‘Safe Schools for All’ prioritizes the reopening of public schools with substantial funding, we cannot ignore that the plan fails to address the needs of the urban school districts that serve nearly a quarter of California students, almost all of whom live below the poverty level,” says the letter, also signed by Jill Baker, superintendent of Long Beach Unified.
“The plan does not address the disproportionate impact the virus is having on low-income communities of color. It leaves the definition of a ‘safe school environment’ and the ‘standard for reopening classrooms’ up to the individual discretion of 1,037 school districts, creating a patchwork of safety standards in the face of a statewide health crisis. And it also reverses a decade-long commitment to equity-based funding.”
Los Alamitos Unified Superintendent Andrew Pulver said that while he supports the plan’s efforts to open schools safely, he sees “more questions than answers,” especially when it comes to funding for testing. School administrators have said the $450 per student allocation would cover testing for only 11 to 16 weeks if it’s required weekly for students and staff, Pulver said.
Complicating matters is that many school districts already have decided to remain closed through the rest of this school year. In the Inland Empire, where the virus is spreading at alarming rates, that includes Morongo, Val Verde San Bernardino City unified.
“We continue preparing our schools physically for reopening when our Board deems it safe to do so,” said Maria Garcia, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino City Unified School District, by email. “A lot would have to change in our local context to make it safe for the San Bernardino City Unified School District, students, staff and families. While we all want to be back in the classroom with our students, we may not be in that place on the Governor’s schedule.”
In the Riverside Unified School District, officials say they are “eagerly awaiting” additional clarity from the governor.
Lowering the bar
Last summer, the state established a color-coded plan to guide the reopening of schools, businesses and other services. The purple tier — where much of the state currently finds itself — is the most restrictive, requiring schools to close when new daily case rates hit 7 per 100,000 people.
Newsom’s new plan would allow schools to reopen at new daily case rates up to 28 per 100,000 — four times larger.
“I’m in no position to justify why it was safer when we fell below seven cases, and now it may be safer when we’re below 28 cases,” said John Malloy, superintendent of the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. “As educators, we’re not scientists, nor are we doctors. I really prefer listening and responding to the experts.”
Many question the science behind relaxing the standard, and they worry.
“We need to be guaranteed safety,” said Ann Katzburg, president of the teachers union in San Ramon Valley.
“It definitely feels rushed at this point, especially given our local area is experiencing a spike right now,” said Maimona Afzal Berta, a middle school teacher and union leader at Alum Rock Union School District in San Jose.
But even with the bar so low, most urban counties still wouldn’t be able to reopen in the short term.
As of Friday, Jan. 8, the new case rate far eclipsed 28 in California’s big counties: 107.9 in Los Angeles, 122.8 in San Bernardino, 107.2 in Riverside, 74.8 in Orange, 47.9 in Santa Clara, 37.1 in Contra Costa and 35.5 in Alameda, according to state data.
“For a reopening to be possible, we need a comprehensive plan from state and local leaders to bring this virus under control and to vaccinate teachers, school staff and essential workers as soon as possible,” said Katie Braude, founder and CEO of Speak UP, a parent advocacy group that for months has urged Los Angeles Unified to allow more students back onto campus for in-person instruction as soon as it’s safe.
“Given the latest surge, we also want to ensure that the state and district improve distance learning and bridge the digital divide for the majority of kids who are likely to remain at home learning online for many months,” she said. “And we want to make sure that any reopening plan does not perpetuate or even exacerbate the inequity we are seeing across the state, with more affluent children often having an option to return to school in person, while most low-income children do not.”
Wrong measure?
Orange County has been famously impatient with state restrictions. In August, the Board of Education sued the governor, asking the courts to toss his order to start fall classes online and allow “in-the-seat” learning on physical campuses.
The suit wasn’t successful, but about one-third of students have been learning on campuses in O.C., at least part-time, without significant outbreaks, officials said.
The Newport-Mesa Unified School District is one of them. Elementary schools are open, and its COVID dashboard currently tallies 79 cases among more than 19,000 students and staff.
In October, the Palo Alto Unified School District welcomed 2,100 elementary students back to classrooms in a hybrid model, and it has “experienced zero spread” of the virus “from student to adult, adult to student, or student to student,” Superintendent Don Austin said.
That has largely been the experience in New York City as well. Reopening schools — particularly elementary schools — doesn’t seem to trigger spiking case rates, studies suggest.
“There’s so much anxiety at this point, real paranoia and unreasonable fear,” said Ken Williams, a longtime member of the Orange County Board of Education who’s also an osteopath. “The science and data show that serious cases among kids are very rare. Everyone recognizes that in-person learning is far superior to online learning, and it’s long overdue.”
While the governor’s new plan is a good start, it’s only just a start. Newsom’s metric for deciding when to open and close schools — the aforementioned case rates — is all wrong, Williams said.
“It shouldn’t be case numbers — those will keep going up and up,” he said. “It should be hospitalization rates. How many people are seriously ill? So many of these cases, especially among kids, are mild. If you use case numbers, you’re going to be locking down the total economy.”
Moving forward
It helps that Newsom has pushed teachers toward the front of the vaccine line — but that line remains long.
In front of them are some 3 million health care workers and long-term care residents in “Group 1A.” Teachers fall into “Group 1B,” along with law enforcement, food workers and those aged 75 and up. Teachers comprise about 316,000 of the 8 million people in this group.
And the rollout is slow. Of the 2.3 million vaccine doses that have arrived in California, only 528,173 — less than 23% — have made it into people’s arms, according to federal data.
“Vaccinations are obviously a step in right direction, but a lot is unknown about the timeline,” teacher Berta said. There are also concerns for custodians, food service staff and students, who — though not as susceptible to illness — can transmit the virus. That can be a particular worry in districts like hers, with many multigenerational households. A teacher already succumbed to the disease, and vaccines are not yet approved for children.
And while more expansive testing for staff and students sounds great, it ushers in enormous challenges.
“Adding the burden of turning schools into testing and health care centers is unrealistic,” said Austin, superintendent of Palo Alto Unified, where 250 employees are tested weekly through a partnership with Stanford University. “Adding thousands of students is a massive logistical issue and will immediately exceed testing capacity from providers.”
At the same time, some districts that have started a testing and contact tracing program support remaining in that role, and have offered to serve as vaccination sites — though they want assurance they’ll be properly reimbursed.
“State funds should be made available directly to school districts to cover these costs — in the same way and at the same rate as other municipal agencies and providers,” the seven superintendents representing large, urban districts wrote in their letter.
While Newsom pushes districts to open in the spring, the reality might be different: He proposed $4.6 billion for summer school and extra learning time to address academic setbacks in the budget released Friday. And that might be exactly what’s needed.
“Distance learning really hasn’t been working out for a lot of kids,” said Julien Lafortune, a research fellow specializing in education at the Public Policy Institute of California. “The number of low-income kids and Black and Hispanic children who are not participating in online learning is exacerbating long-standing educational divides. It’s a hole we’ll be trying to dig ourselves out of for years to come.”
Peggy Cheng of Irvine knows. Her 10-year-old son, usually eager, left his first Zoom class of the fall angry and frustrated. “I don’t like school,” he told her. Her 13-year-old son was lured by digital distractions, logging on to video games and YouTube during class time.
The family decided to switch the boys into Irvine Unified School District’s hybrid learning program, where they attend school twice a week in person and study online the rest of the time. “They are more focused,” Cheng said. “The fact that my kids are able to see their friends twice a week also helps fill that bucket for them and makes it much easier for them to take on other challenges.”
Parents like Gude hope schools give Newsom’s plan a chance. “There’s a way to do it,” Gude said. “It’s time.”
Source: Orange County Register
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