Board Votes to Provide a 4-day per week on-campus learning option beginning April 12th
Students throughout the District have the choice to attend in-person, on-campus education 4-days per week beginning the first day of the final quarter, April 12th.
2021-2022 school year learning model confirmed - 100% in-class, full-time education with no concurrent teaching from the classroom to distance learners.
The Board did not announce a settlement of the Parent Lawsuit.
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At last night's SDUHSD Board Meeting the Board voted to expand school reopening for general education students from 2-days per week to 4-days per week starting on April 12th. The plan is to maintain this schedule for the entirety of the fourth quarter. The fifth day of the school week will be a flexible education day managed by individual teachers. Students who wish to be on campus for the fifth day may request to do so.
The Board also confirmed that the the Base Learning Model for the 2021-2022 school year will be a traditional school year with 100% in-classroom learning, without distance learning from the classroom. There will be no concurrent / simultaneous learning from the classroom next school year. The District may or may not choose to offer a Distance Learning curriculum, but if they do, it will be a separate program outside of the normal in-person, in-classroom education model.
The Parent Lawsuit being heard in Superior Court remains active. No settlement was announced. The judge in the case granted the State of California defendants' request for a continuance, and the next scheduled court hearing on the case is April 8th. At that time the school District will present its back-to-school plan, and the judge may or may not accept the plan as being consistent with her Temporary Restraining Order requiring the District to open for in-person education to the greatest extent practicable.
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The meeting opened with public comments before the closed session, and public comments were also provided upon returning from the closed session. I would like to sincerely thank those parents who spoke so eloquently in favor of fully reopening schools, and one cannot help but compare their tone and compassion to the near hysteria of other speakers who demanded to "put 10 seconds back on the clock" and "don't interrupt my speaking time with a 10-second warning." Kudos to Board President Muir for keeping relative order in the face of their attempts to create chaos.
The Board retired to closed session to discuss the Parent Lawsuit and the back-to-school learning model, and remained in closed session for several hours.
Much of what was discussed during this closed session must remain confidential unless and until any disclosure is authorized by the Board. Having said that, I can discuss some things that are public knowledge.
As you know, I am an advocate for offering full-time, in-person instruction, on-campus, five days per week. That has been my position since I joined the Board and remains my position today. There is no reason we cannot offer 5-days per week as a CHOICE for students who want to attend school in-person, while allowing any student who wishes to remain in distance learning from home the choice to do so. I argued and defended this position to the best of my ability, but in the end the Board acts as a single entity via a voting majority. Nothing is passed without a majority agreement of the Board.
As a reminder, a group of parents has sued the District (and multiple other districts, the Governor, and other State Officials) to throw out parts of the Governor's back-to-school guidelines and require schools to fully open for in-school education. This Plaintiff group of parents won a temporary restraining order against the defendants last week that requires the Districts (and other school districts throughout the State) to, among other things, open schools for in-person instruction to the greatest extent practicable.
Some people were speculating that our District might announce a settlement of this lawsuit. No settlement was announced by our Board. We did, however, learn that the Court overseeing the lawsuit extended the hearing date from April 1st to April 8th. Neither I, nor anyone else on the Board, can comment on the status of any potential settlement discussions, or even if any are on-going. Such is the nature of litigation.
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What exactly did the Board pass during its open session?
The District's legal counsel advised that the Board should adopt a formal, written resolution that incorporates what is discussed above. Such a resolution was not available in writing, and should be precise and carefully reviewed before adoption.
As such, the Board passed a motion instructing Dr. Haley, in conjunction with the District's attorney, to prepare a written resolution to be considered at a special Board Meeting scheduled for this coming Monday.
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Before the meeting ended, I reminded the Board that I had asked for a Board Agenda item to discuss our quarantining policy. Because it was not added to the Agenda, the District's attorney advised against having that discussion. I reiterated my concerns to Board President Muir, who agreed that she would add this to the Agenda for Monday's special Board Meeting.
For those of you who are not aware of the issue, a number of students have been denied access to campus for 14 days because they were determined to be in "Close Contact" with a student who tested positive but was and remains asymptomatic. The issue is that the "Close Contact" determination was made when at least some of the students claim that they were not, in fact, a Close Contact with the student who tested positive. I have a number of questions about the process we should follow when there is a dispute regarding the determination of Close Contact, and plan on addressing these on Monday.