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When Santa Clara County students return to schools this fall, they will enter their campuses through designated, supervised routes. Elementary school students will stay in the same classroom with the same teacher for the entire school day. Middle and high schoolers will be required to wear face masks inside and outside of the classroom. All students and staff must be screened for COVID-19 symptoms daily. There will be no choir, band or cheerleading.
These are among the requirements the Santa Clara County Public Health Department released on Tuesday for reopening K-12 public, private and charter schools. The 23-page document, which was developed in partnership with the County Office of Education, works to balance two competing interests: the benefits of in-person instruction and the potential health risks of offering it.
“We know that distance learning is not an equal substitute for in-person education,” Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools Mary Ann Dewan said during a press conference on Tuesday. “We encourage the implementation of an education model that recognizes that in-person instruction is essential to supporting the academic and social development milestones that are crucial to academic progress.”
The guidance includes both mandates and recommendations for schools and “was designed to provide clear direction while allowing schools appropriate flexibility based on their own constraints and resources,” it states.
The county acknowledges that reopening campuses is dependent on local public health conditions, including the number of current COVID-19 cases and the degree to which schools are contributing to the spread of the coronavirus in the community. Schools are also being asked to prepare for the possibilities of a hybrid model that includes distance learning and either a temporary or long-term return to fully remote teaching and learning.
But the message to local schools is to plan for in-person education “to the maximum extent practicable,” Dewan said.
The county guidance notes that school closures disproportionately harm disadvantaged students who might not have access to technology or internet service at home or whose parents are essential workers.
“School closures magnify socioeconomic, racial and other inequities among students,” the guidance states. “Disruption of normal childhood social interactions also have a profound adverse impact on students’ social and emotional well-being.”
Santa Clara County Public Health Officer Sara Cody said the guidelines were informed by an evolving understanding of the role children play in transmission of the coronavirus, including that children are less likely to spread the virus to each other as well as to adults. It’s more likely that an adult would spread the virus to a child, Cody said during the press conference. COVID-19 disease prevalence is also lower among children than in adults.
“Young children aren’t the engines of transmission as they are with flu,” she said.
Teenagers, however, are thought to transmit the coronavirus more similarly to adults, meaning the county’s guidance for middle and high schools is different than for elementary schools.
The public health department will require elementary school students to stay in “stable cohorts” with the same classmates and teachers for the entire school day. The direction acknowledges that it’s less feasible for young children to wear face masks and always adhere to social distancing to minimize the risk of spread, Cody said. There is also a “greater need” for in-person interaction with younger students, the guidance states.
It is recommended but not required to have stable cohorts of students at the middle and high schools, which could include rotating teachers into classrooms to teach different subjects.
Classrooms at all levels will have teachers’ and staff’s desks at least 6 feet away from students. Students will have assigned seating to “ensure that close contacts within classrooms are minimized and easily identifiable,” the guidance states.
All adults must wear a face covering at all times, except while eating or drinking. Students of all grade levels will be required to wear masks while arriving and leaving schools, in any area outside of the classroom (except when eating, drinking, or engaging in physical activity) and while waiting for or riding on a school bus.
Elementary school students won’t be required to wear masks in the classroom but middle and high schoolers will, even if they’re in stable cohorts.
The county also recommends staggered use of restrooms, libraries and playgrounds. Meals should be served in classrooms or outdoor spaces, the guidance suggests but doesn’t require.
PE classes should take place outdoors “whenever possible” with social distancing, though students won’t have to wear masks during exercise. Guidance on school athletics is forthcoming.
The public health guidance is requiring symptom screenings — not just temperature checks — which parents can do with their children at home before going to school. Cody said a visual symptom check is “much more likely to identify a student or staff member who may be ill.” Symptom screenings do not need to be performed by a nurse or other health professional.
Public health and elected officials emphasized on Tuesday that the reopening of schools is dependent on a collective commitment to reducing the spread of the coronavirus through the wearing of masks, social distancing, limiting interaction with people outside of one’s household and frequent hand-washing.
“The virus has done a great job adapting to us and moving in stealth fashion though our community. It is up to us to adapt to this virus and do everything possible to suppress the levels,” Cody said. “The better that we do that, the more sure we can be that schools can safely reopen for in-person learning.”
Shortly after Santa Clara County released the schools guidance Tuesday, the Palo Alto school district published its own plan for reopening schools in August. The district will bring elementary school students back to campuses in two alternating cohorts, while middle and high school students will primarily learn online but go to school in person for small-group activities.
Superintendent Don Austin said the county public health department’s guidelines were mostly expected.
“I don’t think there is anything in there that was a real surprise or creates any barriers for us that we weren’t already planning to deal with,” he said.
The district plan is subject to approval by the school board, which will discuss it at a special meeting on Wednesday, July 1, at 6 p.m.
The public can access the meeting via Zoom by going to https://pausd.zoom.us/j/94835656660 or by calling 669-900-6833 (enter Webinar ID: 948 3565 6660, then press #). If asked for a participant ID or code, press #.
Find comprehensive coverage on the Midpeninsula’s response to the new coronavirus by Palo Alto Online, the Mountain View Voice and the Almanac here.
Good to know. It is time for fleeing from Palo Alto. It is not true that they think in kids first. Online instruction has been a hell and students are isolated and sad. It is ok to have extra curriculum activities (because they are from external parties and they pay for them). It is ok to have summer camps, to have restaurants, offices, even shortly cinemas or gyms… but OMG how our teachers would be supposed to begin to teach again!!!
I have a kid who is 8 years old and she is an English learner. She wasn’t able to follow the power points because she doesn’t know english. We looked for help with her teacher and the answer was… “yes it is a very difficult time for everybody! We can not do anything! We will continue to have no classes at all (just a power point with 6 slides everyday!).
I understand though why they don’t want to go back to work. Who will want? I would also prefer to receive my salary without working! Could we ask the Costco employees if they would prefer to stay at home and be paid? Uhmmm I guess that they would agree that they prefer to stay at home… or IKEA workers, or waitress and waiters … need I to continue? No, kids are not in the center of anything. Teachers and unions are! At least tell the true.
I am proud of Dr. Austin and the district for the way they navigated this perilous pandemic the last month. They took ample time to listen to stakeholders and analyzed that information quickly enough to give everyone about a month and a half to prepare for next year.
I also agree with the district’s decision to have secondary students start with distance-only learning. No teacher gets into the profession and the classroom thinking, “I would rather do this from home.” But ultimately, protecting my health and the health of my family while providing instruction online is the best solution to the intractable problems this pandemic presents.
I know that many teachers, including me, see the clarity of this decision as a green light to prepare how we can best serve and teach students come August.
Oh wow look @ the first gloating parent to post! They bent for your demands and will open the school doors and teachers will now get sick and possibly die! Sweet Victory!!! Oh and also teachers loved ones and families will now be at risk also. Sweet Victory!!!! Also, no masks for elementary school kids because they didn’t want to fight that battle either with you all. That sounds really safe and healthy for everyone. Congratulations to you today! It’s so funny how you mention restaurants, gyms, offices, and summer camps but don’t mention how the pandemic is actually worsening because everything started opening up again. You conveniently don’t mention all the news about having to partially shut California’s reopening back down because of increasing cases in our state? Oh. I guess that’s not the PA bubble and I guess that’s ignored because you got “your way.” I wish you would volunteer to go into a classroom first, but let’s wait and see exactly how much the kids don’t spread it when they come home to you in the evening and possibly bring Covid back into your own home. Enjoy your little victory today as the district bent for parent demands and placated you, but good luck to you in the fall. Hope YOU don’t get sick. Ummmm….need I continue?
@Susana—it is IN person instruction for your eight year old.
Really wish Sequoia Union High School District next door in San Mateo county followed the plan Palo Alto High schools are taking. SUHSD is forcing teachers to teach in person in classrooms, some with no ventilation. No stable cohorts. Lots of mixing of students. And no way for staff to enforce social distancing before during or after class. Before all this, they couldn’t stop kids from vaping or having sex in the bathrooms. I’m 100% confident there will be groups of high school students at Menlo Atherton HS who will not adhere to the rules. It’s easy to predict what’s going to happen.
This report is crystal clear that in-person school is essential and must resume for the well being of the future generation. It’s a shame that so many anti-science vigilantes continue to insist that everything shut down in the face of clear evidence and expert opinion otherwise. Science has spoken and the schools will open.
You are so right! Look at these latest headlines. California smashes state coronavirus record with over 8,000 confirmed cases/We Have To Enforce, And We Will’; Newsom To Enact Stricter COVID-19 Enforcement, Roll Back Reopenings/Oh and this quote from UCSF Dr. Wachter, “The message from the governor was crystal clear: if we don’t turn things around, we may find ourselves back to widespread shelter-in-place soon.” You really have a good handle on this. Those crazy anti-science vigilantes! Totally alarmist. If the pandemic worsened due to business reopenings why would it not worsen again due to school reopenings? We will soon really find out if kids spread it or not. Hopefully the science they are quoting here is actually correct. They were placating you by opening the doors due to your various protests about distance learning. You all got your way so gloat now but remember that unfortunately, the virus is still here circulating in our community and school doors won’t be able to keep it out. Soon it will be in our homes. The pandemic is accelerating.
Yes @interesting. My 8 year old daughter would return to school twice a week I assume but I have a son un 6th grade and a daughter in 8th grade that are not going to have this possibility, but anyway I am not talking about my kids, I am talking about what anybody want to face. There is not a clear (or near) exit of this pandemic and we need to life with it. If live with it means to go to the school or to the gym taking new safety measure, we should do it.
Teachers are not best than other people who need to go to work everyday… it is really sad to listen that they have families who are going to die!! Because the rest of the world who need to go working don’t have families? Because there are going to be people with 10 year old kids who will need to go work and left their kids alone at home… uhmmm … again it doesn’t look that we are putting kids in the center of nothing… kid centric education? Really?
But everything have consequences at the end of the day.
Reopening had consequences: there are going to be people who are going to be infected… yes, for sure… are they going to die? … some of them sadly… as happens with the flu or other diseases every year. Reopening have consequences but not reopening have also consequences.
It is going to have consequences even in things like gender equality. Who is going to teach kids when they are at home? Do you think that both parents could go to the office (yessss there are still offices where people need to go for working) if they have a 6 year old kid who goes to the school two days a week? Who do you think is going to resign? Father? And obviously this is going to produce more inequality, because all of us go to demonstrations (are they safer than schools?) against racial inequality, but who really cares for kids who are not going to receive a proper education because either they don’t understand English or are left alone at home because both their parents need to go to work?
Everything has consequences and it is going to have consequences even in economy, because we are used to see rental / selling prices skyrocketing in Palo Alto… uhmmm i guess that with just one job it is going to be harder to pay this kind of prices…
I think that we are naive if we just think that we can wait and pause our lives till everything is over… because we don’t really know when is it going to be orne en if it is going to be.
Distance learning is NOT working.
As a Professor myself I am absolutely in favor of in person learning because you are not just taken out fro students their right to have a good education but specially their right of having friends, interact with other people, get in love… at the end of the day you are taking them out the possibility of grow in a proper way.
Sadly as it is, everything has consequences and kids are going to suffer most of them
Happy to confirm you ok with teacher deaths:
Teachers are not best than other people who need to go to work everyday… it is really sad to listen that they have families who are going to die!! Because the rest of the world who need to go working don’t have families?
Reopening had consequences: there are going to be people who are going to be infected… yes, for sure… are they going to die? … some of them sadly… as happens with the flu or other diseases every year. YOUR words. It’s NOT a cold or the flu.
Yes it is not a flu or a cold… but it is not going to magically disappear… we NEED to learn to live with it.
I am not in favor of people dying but it happens and living in a bubble doesn’t help.
We need to return to live our lives being as careful as possible but without leaving kids behind … and this is what we are doing: We are leaving kids behind!
But facing a simple question: why are safe enough summer camps and not schools? Because the instructors of the summer camps don’t have unions and the teachers yes…
Simple questions… simple answers…
Summer camps are mostly outdoors not in a congregate setting and some summer camps have been shut down in other states due to Covid already these last few weeks. Try again. That’s exactly why teachers have unions to protect them in dire circumstances such as this. Simple questions..simple answers Professor. I just REALLY hope it doesn’t come to you.
I am not going to continue this discussion. But I think that we need to think what kind of live we want to live for now on:
1) this pandemic is not going away magically, it could take a lot of months or years (it looks like nobody wants to face it)
2) we need to take measures: more instruction outdoors, wearing face masks, more cleaning …
3) we need to continue ke our lives and kids deserve to have a proper education and the education that the pausd have given them since March was a nightmare.
4) kids are in a critical period of their lives where they are growing and they need to develop their personalities and socialize with other kids… that is pet of what the school is about
5) i can get coronavirus, I hope not and I am taking all the measures for preventing infections but we can not live worrying about it all the time
6) new normal is going to be imperfect but we cannot hide ourselves and refuse to take the risk of living
7) do you think that teachers have more right to not get infected than instacart drivers?
Nevertheless as I told you before everything has consequences. My university is offering blended approach because we really need that our students need it but also because people are not willing to pay for low quality online education. Even when the pausd is a public institution, I could bet that the enrollment will go down and the voluntary amount of money given by families to the schools is also going to go down and it would have consequences for the teachers.
Good luck maintaining the high standard of education that Palo Alto was famous for because if we also fail in that there is not going much to be left… tech companies closing offices, middle and high schools not even reopening. Sadly hard times are coming but not only about the health pandemic.
Susana thank you for standing up for kids and speaking some common sense about the need to learn to live with this virus.
You got credit for such brave posts tonite! You and I will not agree and that’s ok. Your 7 points are too long for me to go through 1 by 1. I truly believe parents should have been on board with keeping schools closed this fall and winter for safety purposes, as IMPROVED Distance Learning would have kept everyone safe and perhaps bought time for some medical advances to happen. The pandemic is currently accelerating. I truly believe(in my opinion) the doors will open and then have to shut back down again almost immediately due to outbreaks. That being said, I actually can handle your take on the situation a little bit better now that I know you are going to be on the front line in your own classroom with the hybrid model. I can at least say you are truly backing up your beliefs about the situation by putting yourself on the frontline of the virus as a professor unlike the rest of the complainers in this forum that demand a pound of flesh from everyone but would never go in there themselves because they aren’t brave enough. I was going to zing you with a Zoom joke but that isn’t the case for you. Stay safe!
The distance learning offered for high school students from March to June was so minimal & unimpressive. PAUSD better really up its game on distance learning if HS students are to do distance learning only in the Fall again. I remember at one point Austin said that distance learning provided would be “best in class” or something to that effect. They have a long way to go. Hopefully they have not squandered the summer months to make the distance learning a much better experience for students.
@Susana-
You are a professor. What percentage will you be physically in the classroom next year?
@teach
Me? I will be 100%, the student will be the ones who are going to rotate. We are going to have small cohorts and in live transmit the classes to the ones who are not in class.
It is my job and I am proud of doing it, just as doctors or nurses or instacart drivers are doing it. Why I should be different? We need to take as much precautions as possible but it doesn’t mean not doing my job.
I am scared. I am scared everyday when I need to go to ikea or piazza. But we cannot live scared. We need to go back to our lives, try to take safety measures and be as careful as possible. And yes… it means that we need to return to our jobs and at some point face the possibility of being infected.
I don’t know if there is going to be a second wave or not, I don’t know if they are going to find an effective vaccine anytime soon but I know that kids deserve also some kind of normality and for them it means to go to school. And my main concern is not academically because Kahn academy is good enough, my main concern is about their mental health. I don’t know if the best solution is going to school outdoors, 1 day a week or 5 days… What I know is that they need to have HOPE, to laugh again and to have peers around.
I was at school with my child the one day JLS opened for materials drop off and pick up. It was a grim scene. Teachers tried their best to make it warm and upbeat from behind their masks. Kids barely said hi to friends thy have not seen in 3 months. They were anxiously glancing left and right as they tried to back away from anyone getting too close, tried to remember not to touch surfaces or their faces, etc. The mental health impact from that kind of an environment maybe worse than not being in a restricted school environment. They have been quite happy playing board games online with friends and going on the occasional masked and socially distanced bike ride
@ Susana, I am proud of you to speak your mind and stand up to do what you think is best for your children. I agree that kids need to be kids and I am concerned too for their socio emotional wellbeing. But I still believe that the plan PAUSD is coming up now for reopening is not well thought and it will become a mess a few weeks into reopening. Reasons being:
Parents still have to step up in teaching because of the confusing hybrid plan.
Child care with mixed schedules will be a nightmare for some families.
No guarantee with the rising number of infections schools won’t close again completely. Does the District have a plan for that scenario?
How would we manage to isolate or keep older children (siblings) and elderly in the house away from our little ones who attend school? Each day would be a nightmare, parents would literally be doing contact tracing in their minds and worry about safety of the entire family.
How are we safe guarding the teachers and their families? They have to be there all day everyday within confined classrooms with no proper ventilation and children cross contaminating everything and bringing more stuff from their families. I really from the bottom of my heart appreciate the frontline workers, the doctors, nurses, delivery person, grocery store workers and all essential workers but those cannot be compared to what teachers have to do when they are in direct contact with students including their families(students are asymptomatic carriers) for at least 6 hours/day every day and support students socio emotionally, when the teachers socio emotional wellbeing is jeopardized and over all of this asking them to still teach with fidelity, how is that possible? With this plan keep in mind that teachers also have to focus on cleaning and disinfecting surfaces regularly. How will there be continuum of lessons when the A/B groups switch to distance learning when they are at home? Do the same teachers who provide in person also provide for distance learning material?
PAUSD should have in person games, social groups for all ages of students including high schoolers with very well – planned small rotation of consistent staff and students to provide for maximum safety for all. Keep it short and safe for all involved parties and move academic confined in class instruction to very well organized Distance learning model. This is doable. I think this option would be cost effective for the District as well, since majority of the students under the current proposed plan will still be Distance learning at some point.
Now about conducting lessons outdoor, that will be feasible for only a small proportion of the time the students are at school for many reasons (weather, materials, safety of the little ones). How would teachers meet requirements for students with special needs and address their many issues and day to day activities with keeping themselves and the students safe, be it both indoors or outdoors? PAUSD failed to mention anything in their plan about how they are going to support the SPED population.
Above all of this the plan also mentions that if parents choose elementary online for fall, then there is no guarantee that the child’s physical spot will be held at the same home school. How is that even fair to the families? Does PAUSD not care about their teachers, families nor their students and is focusing only on their budget?
@Susana,
You are ultimately the person responsible for your children’s well being and education. Time to step up and stop looking to other people in a time like this.
“The county guidance notes that school closures disproportionately harm disadvantaged students… School closures magnify socioeconomic, racial and other inequities among students.”
Yes then by all means we should open the doors of all the schools and sacrifice the health of everyone to soothe the liberal consciences of a few. And when the teachers and doctors start dropping like flies, and the high achievers and contributors to society suffer the same fate at least we can say what? What exactly is the point? That everyone was deliberately put at a disadvantage? Pure genius. Regardless, just one student or teacher dies and the whole plan will come apart. No one will risk another death. Well, ok, maybe Susana might argue so.
Finally, a parent with a good heart. They are doing almost nothing to safe guard staff or families. No masks required for elementary students? Really? It’s also a false notion to think schools can “protect you and your families.” Any language regarding reopenings uses weak language like to “slow down the spread” or to “mitigate the risks.” That language is likely designed to protect schools from law suits due to possible Covid Illness or death from reopenings. You are now, as a parent, making a safety decision if you decide to send your child back to school. Someone posted in the other article that 3/4 of parents demanded schools opened back up. So there’s your answer on why school doors are opening. Intense parent pressure in PA.
Here’s some data coming out of Florida:
Here’s the latest about Covid from Florida: Infants and young children are rapidly catching the coronavirus and increasingly ending up in the hospital this month, according to an analysis of data from the Florida Department of Health. Since June 1, more than 1,100 children ages 4 and younger have been diagnosed with the coronavirus — accounting for 70% of the total cases in the age group.
While more testing has been opened up to younger people this month, emergency department visits and hospitalizations have dramatically increased in June. More than half the total reported emergency department visits for the state’s youngest have come this month. And 40% of the hospitalizations of children up to 4 have come since June 1. Florida hospitals are reporting about 34% capacity of their 620 pediatric intensive care unit beds, according to Florida Agency for Health Care Administration data Friday afternoon.
Kids don’t get it though…they are immune. Sure.
Exactly “Uh Huh.” I called her out on it last night also. It’s unreal you have parents here ok with death of staff just so that their children can be back at school to satisfy their needs. Very cold. Someone in the article stated 3/4 of parents wanted those doors back open with a web link. The simplest solution would be to improve Distance Learning so that the community can stay safe. No one can predict the future obviously, but based on everything that’s happening, things are actually getting worse now in California with Covid. Once things started opening back up Covid started spreading like wildfire. We are now reporting 8000 cases a day in California. I don’t think it’s such a crazy leap in logic to say once school doors open they will have to shut down almost immediately due to Covid spread based on the fact schools are congregate settings. Also, by time fall comes around there is a good chance staff members would walk into work possibly unknowingly infected with Covid if they choose to have fun this summer. I also think that the 3/4 think it won’t “really affect them” since they aren’t the ones in the classroom(so what, it’s only the teachers!) but are in denial about the fact that students can go to school pick up the virus and bring it home to them. This is an impossible situation but everyone (or at least 3/4) wanted and DEMANDED to go back to their default of the old normalcy when that is old normalcy now gone.
Clearly, new challenges for parents but a tremendous opportunity to evolve towards web based learning. So many really excellent education resources on the internet offering the best talent to millions, mostly free, creating an opportunity to break free from the centuries old classroom model. A chance to break free from the cartel grip of school boards, teacher’s unions, and the high cost/low return school system. A chance to replace that with a new generation of professional mentors from all walks of life who can spend more time working directly with students.
Unfortunately, ‘in-person instruction’ today increasingly means indoctrination in the new religion of social activism and cultural marxism which is rapidly metastasizing. Parents concerned about this have much better options to participate and understand what is being taught in a web-based scenario.
All in all the unexpected risk of Covid provides a terrific opportunity. Certainly, there is work to shape content into coherent curricula and establish a new profession of mentors but both offer great benefits.
I read John Hick’s comment above that society’s well being must be taken into account when determining when to go back to school. The problem is that there’s not good evidence that virus transmission would significantly drop if schools remain closed, particularly the elementary schools. Child to adult transmission is rare–for a variety of interesting biological reasons–even more rare with low virus prevalence and mitigation. The public health experts and medical professionals like the American Academy of Pediatrics factually disagree with Mr. Hicks. Closing schools hurts families, worsens other society problems, and stunts the development of the next generation. Schools can be reopened in person with a series of mitigation steps that dramatically reduce community risk–not eliminate it. The rise in reported mild pediatric cases is driven by testing and dozen and dozens of other viruses are more of a risk to their health. As an essential worker maintaining strict and careful distancing policies at work, I’ve seen a semblance of normalcy without documented spread. These “it’s better to be safe than sorry” strategies are not equitable and hurt those families who can’t be home every other day with their children. It is not equitable and removes that function of education of leveling the playing field in the US. PAUSD plan to minimize in person teaching is going to have unintended consequences that are as many as they are predictable.
@Brendan-You were polite and it’s totally fine that you disagree with my viewpoint. You made some good points yourself. I would just warn that it’s very early to jump to any conclusions about the role of children in this pandemic. I also ask, will children be able to “follow the rules” like you do at your job? Wear a mask, social distance and make no physical contact with their friends. What if our kids were actually shielded BECAUSE of the school closings. I totally disagree with the AAP as you stated. They aren’t the authority on the virus in my opinion. A lot of them are parents too that want things to go back to normal and are worried about their own mental health. They also are trying to find a balance between health, economy, and children needs. In an interview about that guidance today one of the pediatricians stated: I do think it’s a balance. I’m not going to come out here and say on June 30 that everything is going to be perfect in the coming school year. There will be cases of Covid-19 in schools even where they make their best efforts. But we have to balance that with the overall health of children. Reopening schools is so important for the kids, but really for the entire community. So much of our world relies on kids being in school and parents being able to work.
So, In my opinion, adult staff members will be in grave danger. Someone posted this link about new evidence about children and Covid in an another article here today in this forum. It’s the total opposite of what the pediatricians said even though it was a small sample size. I’m not saying this one is correct and the ultimate authority either. I just say going back to my point, a lot of people are making assumptions about Covid and children very early in this pandemic even if they are Pediatricians.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/status/1278439392407883776
Read the comments below it also.
I’m a teacher who experienced ten weeks of very positive online education with middle-school students. In fact, contrasting effective virtual classrooms with the proposed “Covid classrooms” makes it clear to me that online education is actually superior. Why? Zoom classes offer a full complement of classroom strategies, lots of teacher/student interaction (including one on one), and lots of small-group and partner work. In addition, students can fully engage with each other socially since they can see each other’s faces and full complement of reactions/expressions. In a physical school compromised by pandemic safety regulations, students and teachers are masked, prohibiting full human connection/expression. We are also six feet apart, drastically altering what can be done to support learning. Effective partner/small-group work is severely compromised, students can’t stand next to each other at the board, and active educational “games” are limited as well. When students “socialize” outside of class, they have to stay six feet apart and masked, and they can’t play their usual games like basketball. (Nor can they do their favorite activity — standing in huddled groups while sharing cell phone screens!) IMPORTANT: I’m talking about virtual classrooms, with the students learning synchronously with their peers. This allows for best practices that enable both academic and social progress. Obviously this is not something that would work with very young children, nor would it work when the students or teachers lack access to the relevant technology.
I forgot one key reason that virtual classes result in a superior education when compared to the “Covid classroom” model: Unless teachers can see ALL of the students enrolled in their class at one time, they have to either do a hybrid model or severely shorten the class periods (and teach more sections). Both of these compromises drastically effect what teachers can teach and students can learn. Fewer novels, units, projects, papers, assessments, et cetera. With the effective virtual classroom, however, students have to give up far less; in most subjects, in fact, the curriculum can be almost identical to what it would be in a normal school.
What makes this complicated is PAUSD got very little practice doing robust remote learning in the spring, so that sour past experience has some parents skeptical.
This is the same teacher’s union that fought integration of Schoology, so some have some historical skepticism on how good PAUSD can pull off remote learning. I hope PAUSD teachers as a community rise to the challenge to pull off remote learning well. Prove the skeptics wrong. There are many amazing PAUSD teachers, they know who they are. There are also some who put in very little effort these past few months, they know who they are. Parents and students know too.
> Yes it is not a flu or a cold… but it is not going to magically disappear.
How about scientifically, then? The last six months have been very promising, and some vaccines are entering phase 3 testing. (China’s actually vaccinating their military.)
Not all parents can stay at home, but, particularly if you have elderly in the same household, look into homeschooling to prevent your family from being exposed to the virus. You can place as many school recommendations as you want, but this is the first time schools have reopened, and how well they actually work in practice has not been shown yet.
C-my it’s not a cold or flu comment was directed at Susana who hopped online and commented that basically she was ok with teachers become sick and/or dying if she can drop her 8 year old off for the child care for the day. She totally lacks understanding of how contagious and dangerous this virus can be in a congregate setting. It was a very cold take on the situation by her and I didn’t appreciate it at all.
To create a safety net for students, the State of California passed a law that mandates that districts and schools
1. “offer in-person instruction to the greatest extent possible”
2. offer to grades 4-12 FOUR hours of instruction daily (down from SIX in non pandemic times)
3. offer daily live (in person or virtual instruction)
Why is PAUSD jumping to 100% online without any assurances about how much daily live instruction middle and high school students will get? Assurances regarding live instruction (in person or virtual) would go a long way to increasing trust. Children Now, Public Advocates and Californian’s Together put together this position piece asking for assurances for 3 hours of live instruction (in person or virtual per day). See https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6957081-DistanceLearning-EquityCoalition-062420.html?fbclid=IwAR22b4iDEiGqS6aLtVBzxy_okgNRe2iqDMh6LFyL9nsVguWXmQ2cdE36Fbw. Please PAUSD offer these assurances.
Also, families with health issues should not need a separate curriculum for learning, especially in high school. They should be afforded streamed and recorded learning like the colleges are providing.
The comments of @John Hicks have been disrespectful, bullying, abusive, and seem meant to intimidate and drive off other posters.
PAUSD and teacher’s union — please give our HS and MS kids instruction — unlike the spring where they got little to none.
So PAUSD wanted almost everything to be held virtually, I propose that our property taxes be reduced and funding for schools be cut substantially to reflect this new work ethics.
As a teacher with my own set of comorbidities, I am still in favor of in class instruction. Those arguing that online instruction is better are lying to themselves. We have to step up and face this problem. If a gunman came into our schools, most teachers would not hesitate to lay down their life for their students. That’s with an almost 100% chance of death. Here we have a average of 1% or less chance if death, and that’s only if you catch it. Mitigation efforts work amazingly well if practiced. The current up swell in cases (not deaths mind you), has clearly come from two major sources; unbridled rioting and thoughtless partying.For years we teachers have argued that we are essential personell in our society. Now we have the situation that requires us to be, and many are now stepping back. Let’s step up and make our best effort to restore our society and country in the ways that only educators can.