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A growing number of school districts in California are moving toward reopening campuses, but the process has been complicated, in some cases resulting in districts near each other operating on vastly different reopening schedules.
Most schools in Los Angeles Unified are closed for in-person instruction, but many in nearby Orange County are open. Elementary schools in Piedmont — a small city in Alameda County — are open but in adjacent Oakland they’re closed. In the Central Valley, Merced High School is open but Turlock High, just up Highway 99, is mostly closed.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed an incentive plan intended to prod schools to reopen, but superintendents and school boards in each district must also answer to teachers, parents and local public health officials — many of whom have competing demands.
“It’s been incredibly challenging,” said Alameda County schools superintendent LK Monroe. “Superintendents get into this field because we want to solve problems and make things better for kids. But this is a time when it’s really difficult to know if you’re making the right decision. … And the stakes are very high.”
The decision to reopen campuses lies with district superintendents and school boards, who rely on federal, state and county public health data to determine when and how it’s safe to reopen. They also have to consider a wide array of safety measures: masks, plastic shields and hand-washing stations; Covid testing for students and staff; the availability of vaccines; classroom disinfecting; social-distancing protocols and upgraded ventilation systems.
Teachers can also play a major role in the decision to reopen campuses. In some districts, teachers unions have the ultimate say because their membership has to approve changes to their contracts that would allow for in-person working conditions. In other districts, teachers have limited input or options about returning to the classroom because changes in their working conditions don’t require changes to their contracts.
Researchers at the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington have been studying school reopenings for months, and noticed some patterns across the country. So far, campuses in large urban districts are most likely to be closed, small rural districts are most likely to be open, and suburban districts are most likely to be offering a hybrid model, meaning that students divide their time between virtual learning at home and attending school in person.
The amount of resources in a district has so far has not been a factor, researchers found, except that suburban districts might have more staffing and space to implement a hybrid model, and newer buildings that have modern ventilation systems.
“The biggest pattern we’ve noticed is that reopening plans tend to be very much based on locale,” said Alice Opalka, a research analyst for the Center for Reinventing Public Education. “But it’s tough. There’s state guidelines, county guidelines. Districts feel they’re going at it alone.”
Opalka and her colleagues have been tracking 477 districts across the country, examining trends in how schools are providing instruction during the pandemic. They’re also tracking schools that have opened but then rolled back in-person instruction due to an outbreak at school or when virus rates spiked in their communities.
But conditions change by the day, Opalka noted, and are likely to continue changing as more people get vaccinated and variants spread throughout communities. Infection rates have been falling in most areas, but may begin rising if variants spread faster than people can get vaccinated.
Opalka and her colleagues have several theories as to why many large urban districts have remained closed, including:
Los Angeles Unified, the largest district in the state, won’t reopen elementary schools until all 25,000 school staff members are vaccinated, said Superintendent Austin Beutner. The district has already upgraded school ventilation systems and implemented a testing and contact-tracing system.
“As difficult as the decision was to close school classrooms, reopening is even harder,” Beutner said last week. “We cannot — and will not — compromise on health and safety.”
Meanwhile, in Fullerton School District in nearby Orange County, elementary and middle schools have been open for in-person instruction since October, with students having an option to continue with distance learning if they choose. Capistrano Unified, Orange County’s largest district, has a hybrid model for high schools while elementary students are attending in person. Neither district is requiring vaccinations for school staff.
Mary Barlow, Kern County superintendent of schools, said the experience of reopening schools is like “running a multi-national corporation,” balancing a constant stream of data and guidelines.
“One day I was on one call, texting with someone else, a second phone was ringing, and I’m trying to watch the governor on TV issue new guidance,” she said. “It was chaos. But as frustrating as it can be, I feel like we’re continually improving.”
It’s helped that Kern County had already implemented a countywide education task force that included all 47 K-12 districts, community colleges and Cal State Bakersfield. School officials were already meeting regularly and had developed good working relationships, she said.
“It made a world of difference. We were able to pivot quickly, and discuss data as it came up, going beyond whatever guidance we were getting from the Centers for Disease Control and California Department of Public Health,” she said.
Kern County schools represent the full gamut of pandemic learning. Smaller districts, like 16-student Blake Elementary, have been open for months, while Kern High School District in Bakersfield, with more than 41,000 students, remains closed for in-person instruction.
“It’s been very challenging because people don’t understand why some districts are closed while a neighboring district might be open,” Barlow said. “We tell them that each district needs to decide what’s best for the kids in that community. … We’re all trying very hard to put measures in place to get schools reopened as soon as possible.”
The system has enrolled more in-state residents, but not enough to meet targets set by the state.
Two prominent organizations say the proposal would dismantle progress made to improve reading instruction for those students.
Fresno City College professor Tom Boroujeni is unable to fulfill his duties as academic senate president while on leave, the latest update reads.
This is a continuing EdSource series on proven innovations in higher education that relate to the problems facing California’s higher education systems.
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Gloria 3 years ago3 years ago
That’s suicide sending the kids back without a vaccine. Orange Unified School District is one of them. Why can’t they leave it as is? The kids are well aware what’s happening in the world with racism and now we have to worry about ours kids being attacked because they are biracial. They are not protected by the schools. Leave it as is and stop thinking about dollar signs over our kids heads! Also the alternative … Read More
That’s suicide sending the kids back without a vaccine. Orange Unified School District is one of them. Why can’t they leave it as is? The kids are well aware what’s happening in the world with racism and now we have to worry about ours kids being attacked because they are biracial. They are not protected by the schools.
Leave it as is and stop thinking about dollar signs over our kids heads! Also the alternative virtual homeschooling they still have to go in person once a week. It’s not a good choice either. Kids are terrified of returning back to school and getting bullied again from kids and teachers. Online/distance learning so much better.
marco 3 years ago3 years ago
Seems pretty clear that we're here in large part because the state, especially Secretary Thurmond's Department of Education, failed to provide any leadership or useful information to districts to help them plan for re-opening, leaving things entirely in the not-always-capable hands of a thousand mostly small school districts. There are enough open districts around the nation, and even in California, that CDE could have compiled a database of "what school districts are like," "how have they … Read More
Seems pretty clear that we’re here in large part because the state, especially Secretary Thurmond’s Department of Education, failed to provide any leadership or useful information to districts to help them plan for re-opening, leaving things entirely in the not-always-capable hands of a thousand mostly small school districts.
There are enough open districts around the nation, and even in California, that CDE could have compiled a database of “what school districts are like,” “how have they re-opened,” and “how has it worked out,” so that other districts could have some reference points. Without that, every district is acting as if it’s going to be the first district in the world to re-open and has to invent everything itself and has to err on the side of safety because so little is known. Ridiculous; so much is known, if only CDE had bothered to compile and share it.
SD Parent 3 years ago3 years ago
I suspect that bullet point number one is the major factor in California that is preventing large numbers of students – particularly the most disadvantaged students – from returning to classrooms. The large, urban school districts have large, strong teachers unions, who have endorsed and funded the political campaigns for the majority of these school districts' board members (and have even helped get their members elected to neighboring school district boards). How many of … Read More
I suspect that bullet point number one is the major factor in California that is preventing large numbers of students – particularly the most disadvantaged students – from returning to classrooms. The large, urban school districts have large, strong teachers unions, who have endorsed and funded the political campaigns for the majority of these school districts’ board members (and have even helped get their members elected to neighboring school district boards). How many of those districts are providing in-person learning for significant percentages of their students?
In San Diego Unified, the San Diego Educators Association (SDEA) has not only endorsed every single board member elected since 2008 but has also funded their campaigns either directly or via PACs (which spent $300,000 in the 2020 election cycle). When SDUSD surveyed parents, only 11% of the 76,000 parents who responded indicated that they wanted just distance learning for their children in 2020-21; the rest wanted in-person or a hybrid. SDEA wanted to do only online instruction. Since then, SDEA has added demand after demand – far beyond CDC and CDE guidelines – including most recently that all school employees have the opportunity to be fully vaccinated before in-person instruction can occur.
SDUSD Board President Richard Barrera, a Labor organizer, was elected in 2008 with SDEA support and was supported again by SDEA in 2020. When he says “we” at Board meetings, in press releases, or in interviews in regards to school sites reopening, he generally speaks for the employees of the school district, not the parents and their children. As such, SDUSD has yet to bring back more than 4% of the district’s students on campus, even for just an appointment (which is under an agreement that is merely voluntary for SDEA members).
Replies
Amelia 3 years ago3 years ago
I agree with SD parent that by and large it is the unions in larger cities that are keeping campuses closed. I understand that there are safety protocols to consider as well as more complicated logistics; however private schools are not unionized. Staff have gone back to in-person instruction with few issues and few cases of Covid. So much for students first. Who’s advocating for them?