“It’s been amazing to see how the smallest layer of local government — the school district — (is) grappling with macro level societal challenges.”
— Alegría De La Cruz, director of Sonoma County Office of Equity
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week reaffirmed that the nation’s K-6 schools could safely reopen provided they adopt strict safety measures designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, measures like wearing masks and practicing social distancing. Even in communities with high transmission rates, like Petaluma, the agency said elementary-school students could receive at least some in-person instruction safely.
While this may seem like great news for the thousands of frustrated local parents whose children have been unable to attend school since last March, the cold reality is that it will likely be at least another two months before their kids are back in Petaluma classrooms.
That’s according to Gary Callahan, superintendent of Petaluma City Schools, who told me that a patchwork of state health and education policies will require more time to safely reopen schools locally.
For parents and children forced to endure the crippling deficiencies of distance learning, this is heartbreaking news, especially since many school districts in California and elsewhere reopened safely months ago and elementary school students are now back in class in nearby Marin, Napa and Mendocino counties.
But Sonoma County’s situation is different, Callahan says, primarily because the sustained high infection rate here has held the county in the state’s most restrictive purple tier for several months.
It also hasn’t helped that California’s health and education policies for school re-openings have been a moving target. For example, school districts statewide developed safety plans many months ago, but new and more complex state requirements were adopted only last month and multiple safety plans are now required before a school may reopen.
At one point last month, Governor Gavin Newsom tried to require every one of California’s school districts to rapidly adopt its own safety plan ratified by the districts’ labor unions in order to receive emergency funding, a wildly impractical idea that failed to get any traction in the legislature.
Teachers’ unions, among the most powerful lobbies in Sacramento, recently demanded that schools not reopen until all teachers have been offered the COVID-19 vaccine series, a stipulation that will cause further delays. While it certainly makes good sense to prioritize schoolteachers getting the vaccine, the CDC has made it abundantly clear that public schools can safely reopen without all teachers being vaccinated, a fact underscored by multiple studies.
Yet just such a requirement was secured a few weeks ago by the Petaluma affiliate of the California Federation of Teachers, and Petaluma City schoolteachers are expected to begin receiving vaccines early next month. But with limited vaccine supplies, and an estimated 17,000 Sonoma County school employees, preschool workers and day care providers also in line to be vaccinated, it’s unknown exactly when this will be achieved.
The governor and legislature, meanwhile, are continuing to discuss ways to expedite school re-openings, with discussions centered on vaccinations, personal protective equipment, testing, spacing and other safety measures, all issues which could and should have been decided months ago.
Instead, the can was kicked down the road to local school districts, forcing superintendents like Callahan to deal with an incredibly detailed and nuanced set of challenges which they are ill-equipped to handle.
The lasting damage being done to California school students is beyond tragic. Mental health issues among students have skyrocketed, with therapists in Petaluma helping students suffering from anxiety, depression and stress from failing grades and isolation.
As hard as teachers are working to help students learn virtually, many kids are simply not engaging over a computer screen. The absence of one-on-one teacher-student interaction, missed opportunities for immediate feedback and a lack of extra support has taken a toll. The issue is disproportionately affecting Petaluma’s lower-income Latino students, many of whom lack internet access or necessary computer equipment.
A small glimmer of hope emerged from this disaster last week: The county’s all-important adjusted seven-day case rate per 100,000 residents dipped below 25 for five days straight. The positive indicator opened to door for school districts serving grades K-6 to submit COVID-19 safety plans for approval by both the county and state public health departments, a process expected to take several weeks for the county’s 40 individual school districts, including the eight located here in the south county.
Middle and high school students, unfortunately, are still restricted from returning to in-person learning until Sonoma County moves into the red tier achieved when the number of cases per 100,000 residents drops below eight. It’s anyone’s guess when that will occur, so the maddening uncertainty remains unchanged for older students and their families.
Against this exasperating backdrop, a group of local public school parents and children held a protest march in Petaluma last week to express their strong desire to see schools reopen. A few blamed the Petaluma City Schools district leadership team for failing to adequately communicate plans for reopening local schools, but such criticism was misplaced.
California’s governor and legislature are singularly responsible for this ongoing public school crisis. Only they have the power to fix the problem by approving legislation that mirrors the CDC guidelines and sets a clear state-mandated threshold for resuming in-person instruction.
Any further delay is inexcusable.
(John Burns is former publisher of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. He can be reached at john.burns@arguscourier.com)