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The California Department of Public Health on Monday released a comparison of its guidelines for school reopenings with those issued Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It shows that on several significant criteria, California is more cautious in allowing students back in the classroom during the Covid pandemic.
Both the state and CDC cite the same research studies to explain their conclusions. Although they use different colors schemes to define levels of infection risk — CDC’s high-risk “red” tier is comparable to California’s most restrictive purple tier — both the state’s and the CDC’s recommendations are strikingly similar.
Both also recommend vaccinating teachers as a priority but not a precondition for reopening schools, and both cite the benefit of extensive testing for Covid infections among people who show no positive symptoms but don’t endorse requiring them to reopen. (The California Teachers Association demands both vaccinations and asymptomatic testing of staff and teachers as prerequisites for a return.) And both agree that a web of safety precautions — among them strict masking, 6-foot social distancing and extensive contact tracing to determine origins of transmissions — must be in place before sending students back to class.
But on levels of community transmissions permitting the return to school, the CDC’s recommendations are more permissive:
The distinctions are important because that boundary is becoming the battleground over reopening in California. The CTA, which enthusiastically agreed with many of the CDC’s guidelines, opposes reopening in any district where the caseload is in the purple tier — 7 or more positive cases per 100,000. In the fall, before the dangerous post-Thanksgiving Covid surge, some districts negotiated agreements not to return to school until caseloads reach lower infection tiers of red, orange or yellow.
Critics of Newsom demanding to open up schools sooner than the state recommends can point to the less restrictive CDC guidelines. Newsom, in turn, can argue that employee unions that are refusing to reopen elementary grades in the purple tier are inconsistent with the CDC’s definition of safe, as well as the state’s.
There is a second measure — the percentage of tests with positive Covid results — that the California Department of Health and the CDC use to determine risk of reopening schools. The state’s comparison doesn’t include that but, like the caseload measure, the CDC’s is less restrictive than the state’s.
Legislation that would remove one of the last tests teachers are required to take to earn a credential in California passed the Senate Education Committee.
Part-time instructors, many who work for decades off the tenure track and at a lower pay rate, have been called “apprentices to nowhere.”
A bill to mandate use of the method will not advance in the Legislature this year in the face of teachers union opposition.
Nearly a third of the 930 districts statewide that reported data had a higher rate of chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 than the year before.
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Lira 3 years ago3 years ago
I hope that schools do not reopen because I will have to walk home alone. It’s not really a bad thing but I am scared of kidnappers and stuff.
T. Weller-Curtner 3 years ago3 years ago
Regardless of the vaccine issue, buildings need to be “up to Code” before staff, teachers, and students return . .. Cal OSHA needs to be involved in these older urban and rural school facilities now, if it has not been already … LA Unified are you listening . ..
SD Parent 3 years ago3 years ago
It is clear that CTA is making its own demands for reopening schools, which is trickling down to individual school districts and preventing schools from reopening. This morning, Dr. Fauci said on CBS This Morning that it was unrealistic to expect that all teachers would be fulling vaccinated before reopening a school. But last night, San Diego Unified Board President (who is also the former Secretary/Treasurer of the San Diego/Imperial County Labor Council) … Read More
It is clear that CTA is making its own demands for reopening schools, which is trickling down to individual school districts and preventing schools from reopening. This morning, Dr. Fauci said on CBS This Morning that it was unrealistic to expect that all teachers would be fulling vaccinated before reopening a school. But last night, San Diego Unified Board President (who is also the former Secretary/Treasurer of the San Diego/Imperial County Labor Council) Richard Barrera said, “We believe that educators should be vaccinated” before in-person learning occurs beyond a voluntary return for some of the most disadvantaged students” (currently less than 3% of the school district’s population for appointments).
According to the San Diego Union Tribune, Kisha Borden, president of the San Diego Educators Association, wants teachers to get both doses and achieve immunity before returning to campuses. The latter means that, regardless of what narrative the district is spinning about future increases in students on campus in “learning labs and classroom labs” (both of which are just voluntary, supervised, online learning pods), there is very little hope for actual in-person instruction for San Diego Unified students before this school year ends.