The SDUHSD held a meeting of its Board of Trustees yesterday.
For those interested in reopening our schools, so that all of our kids have the option to get back to school, there were some interesting developments discussed during the meeting. To set the stage it may be useful to have a brief review of how we got to where we are.
Back in October, the Board decided to reopen schools in a phased reopening plan that would begin with our teachers returning to school to teach their distance learning lessons from their classrooms. After a short period to get comfortable with the classroom setup, students would begin to return to school one day per week and then expand from there. Any student / parent who was uncomfortable returning to campus could remain in distance learning at their discretion. The District had an agreement with the Teachers Union that provided for such a return to campus. All good.
Then the Teachers Union decided that it didn't want to require teachers to return to campus after all, even to teach remotely in empty classrooms, presumably because they could see that in the following weeks students would actually BE in the classroom. This is despite the fact the Union agreed to do just that not two weeks before, and many teachers actually wanted to get back to in-person teaching.
Unfortunately, the (then constituted) Board decided not to press the issue, and instead gave in to the Union's demand to delay returning to campus. In retrospect this was a huge mistake. As I pointed out during public comments during a September Board meeting, the rules in place indicated that if a school was "open" it could remain open if the County fell out of the "Red" COVID Tier and into the "Purple" Tier. But, if it were not "open" and the County then slipped into the Purple Tier, then the school would have to wait until the County was out of the Purple Tier before it would be allowed to reopen. Thus, it was important for each of our schools to open while they could.
Instead of a clear and full reopening for all students, our schools continued along a path of slow reopening by bringing special needs students, English language learners, and other student groups back on campus, while deferring the return of all general education students until January.
When the (new) Board formalized the policy of returning to school for 1-day per week on January 4th and set a goal of returning to full-time on-campus learning for the third quarter (at the option of individual parents and their students), the Union balked and decided to sue the District in court. Their claim was that our schools were not officially "open", and therefore they could not open since the County was now in the Purple Tier. Despite all assurances from County officials, the District administration, and others that our schools were "open" while we were in the Red Tier and could therefore continue to bring more students on campus, the Board decided to take a "pause" in our reopening to avoid litigation with the Teachers Union.
Before the "pause" was over and the District could resume its reopening plans, the state of California, at the behest of the California Teachers Association, changed the rules again and decided that any school would not be considered to be "open" unless it offered all students in at least one grade level the opportunity to return to campus. Since we didn't do that, the state said we would not be able to continue reopening until our County reached the Red Tier.
There are a number of problems with this change. First, it is retroactive. How can the state change the rules after the fact? If we had known that we had to offer in-person learning to all students in a grade to be considered "open," then perhaps we would have done that back in November. Ex-post facto laws are unconstitutional for a reason.
In addition, all of these decrees from the state aren't laws, but are executive orders from the Governor. Executive orders are used in emergency situations when there is no time for the legislature to act. There has been time for the legislature to act, however, as COVID has been with us for a year now. In fact, the legislature did act, by passing a law that says that school districts MUST offer in-person education to the greatest extent it can. The Governor's orders are being challenged in court, but we may not know for some time the legal outcome.
There are more legal issues that I won't bore you with, but meanwhile the Governor ran into a different kind of problem. The new January guidance meant that some schools that were open and doing just fine with few or no COVID cases would now be required to close because, although they are now open, at the time their county fell into the Purple Tier they didn't offer in-person instruction to an entire grade.
What a mess. Note that none of this has anything to do with public health, and everything to do with the Teachers Union attempting to delay school reopening in any way they can.
With the unintended consequences brought about by the State's attempt to appease the Teachers Union, and the substantial drop in COVID cases throughout the state (new cases are down more than 80% in just the last five weeks), the State realized that they needed to do something else yet again, or they will face the wrath of angry parents who are suffering with their kids not being in school. Don't forget that all of this is taking place in an environment where the Governor is facing a recall election due to his poor handling of the coronavirus crisis.
So the state created a new process to allow Districts like ours to apply for what is essentially a waiver so that the Districts can continue to implement their school reopening plans.
This new process was announced by the state last Wednesday, and our District applied for that "waiver" on Friday. We received the appropriate paperwork the same day, and the District Administration has been busy working on this submission.
The process going forward is that the District will complete the paperwork by Friday February 26th, which will include a "sign-off" by the San Diego County Public Health Department. The State Department of Public Health will then take up to 7 business days to grant the waiver (or not), or ask for more information.
Make no mistake about it: this waiver process is our best chance to continue our reopening plans this school year. If we fail to obtain approval to continue with our plan, we may have to wait for us to fall to the Red Tier, which may take a while--it's hard to tell.
Things seem to be set up well to pass this process and obtain the waiver, but we must execute flawlessly. I made that crystal clear to Superintendent Haley last night. He gets it. All of our focus must be on obtaining this waiver.
This is why it is so disappointing that we have a few parents who are actively working against school reopening at any cost. They seem to be making it their mission to do everything they can to prevent us from moving forward and reopening, even at one-day per week, and even while offering parents a choice to keep their children in distance learning if they want. While we fight for positive action to move forward for sake of our kids, they fight for the negative.
I bring this to your attention only to emphasize what we are up against. We need to stay united and strong. This is our chance to save our kids from the continuing disaster created by our government leaders. I'm confident that reason will prevail, but I'm old enough to know that when politics is involved, sometimes it doesn't. As my son told me last night after the meeting, "All actions of consequence make some people mad, or they aren't actions of consequence."
In a related action, the District was sued this week, along with the Carlsbad, Poway, Oceanside, and San Marcos Districts, by a group of parents for not fully opening schools. The filing will be generally available in the coming days, and it is a sobering read. We all know from our personal experience how the lack of in-person schooling is impacting our families and the families of our friends and neighbors. Even so, when you read these stories, your heart will break.
The District is carefully considering how to respond to this lawsuit, but for now we cannot comment on any specifics while there is pending litigation.
I remain cautiously optimistic that we can obtain this waiver and be back in school in early March. This is fundamentally a health and safety review, and we have been assured that our plans meet or exceed all health and safety standards. Each of the Principals last night told the Board that they are ready to go as soon as we determine who will choose to go back to school. Be on the lookout for a survey in the coming days.
Thank you for your continued support as we work through this process. I will always put parents and students first.