With parents and children tired of living as Zoombies — and state and federal governments pushing to reopen schools — momentum builds against the go-slow approach of the Los Angeles teachers union and L.A. school district officials.Low coronavirus case counts and other factors led California to drop San Mateo County into the red tier this week, allowing for high schools to reopen, as long as they follow strict guidelines on distancing, classroom ventilation and reducing class sizes to 25%.
In a deal negotiated between the district and the Sequoia District Teachers Assn., the students in the district’s eight high schools could choose to return to campus on April 5 for a term scheduled to end June 4. The plan, as described Wednesday and seen in point-by-point slides provided to some students the next day, would involve a hybrid form of instruction in which four small cohorts of students would return to campus two days a week, every two weeks.
The students on campus would receive instruction in a classroom, where their teacher would be simultaneously instructing students at home or other remote locations.While negotiating teams from the district and union have agreed to the plan, it still requires ratification from union members. That vote will happen next week.Board President Adam Sarver noted that the district is unusual, with affluent and low-income families in close proximity to each other.
“The extremes here are so great and so apparent,” he said. The town of Atherton — which has for the past four years has topped Bloomberg’s list as the richest town in the country — shares a border with North Fair Oaks, one of the region’s less affluent. And they are in the same district.As in much of California, each community’s experience with the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped how parents and teachers view school reopenings.
For 2 months End of school year, how many deaths or seriously ill people is enough to prove how dumb returning students to campus is? Parents don't have an excuse to say they need to lose work babysitting HS students at home. Wait until at least all teachers are vaccinated.
Continued closures will result in a mass exodus of public education creating a further divide between the have and have-nots and a reduction in jobs for public school employees to return to.
If count is going down and they’ll vaccinate the teachers, what’s the problem?