Last night's Board Meeting of our School District was depressing and demoralizing.
On the most important topic - how and when we can get the bulk of our kids back in school - the answer is unfortunately not good.
I received several briefs over the last few days, from lawyers, District administrators, public health officers, and others. The bottom line - The State of California has boxed us in, and short of some unexpected change in the near term, we are not going to see our schools open in any meaningful way for the foreseeable future.
It boils down to this. The California Teachers Association does not want kids to return to school because they do not want teachers to return to school. They lobbied the California Governor's office to create updated "Guidance" that effectively prevents us from opening our schools for expanded general education students.
I'll explain it as simply as I can, and I know it makes no sense whatsoever, but it is what it is.
The State Government has said that if a county is in the COVID-19 Purple Tier, schools cannot open until the county returns to the Red Tier, unless they were already open when the county was first classified into the Purple Tier, which for San Diego County was November 9, 2020.
So, it becomes a legal question. Were our schools "Open" on November 9th?
We thought they were. The Superintendent told us they were. The County Health Administration (essentially) told us we were.
But then, through the lobbying of the CTA, the State has issued new documents that indicate that we were, in fact, not open on November 9th. So therefore we can't open until after we fall back to the Red Tier.
I attempted, through my questioning of Dr. Haley during the public part of the meeting, to make it clear what happened. The State, RETROACTIVELY, changed what it means to be "Open" at the request of the CTA. There is no other way to interpret this - that is a fact. As but one example - the State now asserts that a school was not open unless an entire grade had been offered the opportunity to return to campus. That was never expressed or implied until last week.
For any of you who have legal training, or even a casual understanding of the law, you, like me, might have a simple question. Is this legal?
The answer is no, it is not, for a number of reasons I won't get into, but it will take a Judge to slap down the State, and there is no timeline on when that will happen.
Step back to the 40,000 foot level for a minute, and look at how absurd this is. A neighboring high school, that offered the entire 9th grade class the opportunity to return to school (even if only 1 student took advantage of that offer for just 1-day per week), can now open full-time for all students, 5-days per week with a full academic schedule. On the other hand, one of our schools, who may have had 50 or 100 students on campus actually learning on November 9th, is prohibited from opening, even 1-day per week.
Is this stupid? Yes. Does this have anything to do with public health? No. Is this legal? No. Is there anything we can do about it? Not much.
We can try to sue the State - good luck with that. We are but one District in a big State, and our piling-on won't help. There are already several lawsuits in the works, and we can hope that a sympathetic judge will move quickly, but I won't be holding my breath. You have to give it to the Teachers Union for coming up with this clever strategy. It is harder for districts like ours, and Carlsbad (who is in a similar position), because other districts, like most of our Orange County neighbors to the North, WERE "Open" on November 9th, so they can go about their merry business of providing their kids a proper education. The same is true for our local private schools, and some if the more aggressive public districts like Vista.
I warned our District at a Board Meeting back in September that we needed to clearly open our schools immediately to take away this potential legal loophole, and our prior Board, in a rare moment of level headed thinking (thank you Trustees Muir, Gibson, and Mossy) ordered the teachers to teach from their classrooms by October 29th, and had a plan to have general education students on-campus the first week of November.
But then the Teachers Union woke up, and told the superintendent "hell no, we won't go", and our Board was too weak to hold them accountable, in spite of a written agreement that the teachers would return to school and teach when asked to do so.
So there you have it. We can all point fingers at the obvious culprits for their lack of compassion, understanding, strength, will to act, ....., but the bottom line is this - we are pretty much stuck. No one can predict the future with 100% certainty, and although the COVID situation appears to be improving (the new case rate is down 18% over the last week), it may be a while before our County falls into the Red Tier. To fairly set your expectations, you should plan on not seeing schools generally open - even in a concurrent, part-time model, for the rest of the Third Quarter.
We can shave around the edges, and you will hear things like "expanding cohorts" and "getting ready for the Red Tier" but these are tiny, incremental changes. There is nothing to be happy about.
I have a lot more to say, and I will not, EVER, give up fighting for you.
I am behind answering your emails and texts, and will get to them as soon as I can. In the meantime, hug your kids, tell them you love them, tell them there are people who care about them and are fighting for their right to an education. They are learning a lesson that kids shouldn't have to learn. Adults often let other adults down. Unfortunately this time, the adults are letting down the kids.