On-site child care for teachers’ kids? It’s problematic, says Stanislaus ed chief
A couple of developments late Monday could mean big changes in Stanislaus County school districts’ plans for distance vs. in-person learning and for providing on-campus care for employees’ children.
“Many” of Stanislaus County’s 25 public school districts have intended to offer on-site care for the school-age children of employees as the parents work from classrooms and other school facilities, said county Superintendent of Schools Scott Kuykendall. He joined Rep. Josh Harder for a telephone town hall meeting Monday afternoon and followed up with The Bee on Tuesday morning.
Currently, there is no way for a school district to get state approval for on-campus child care, Kuykendall said Tuesday. He said he’s learned from the Community Care Licensing Division of the state Department of Social Services that no process is in place to approve a waiver sought by a district to provide such care.
“So we’re stuck, and time is running out,” Kuykendall said. “We’ve got districts like Oakdale starting Thursday. It’s a real issue and there doesn’t seem to be a remedy. And I don’t know that the governor or anyone at the state level is going to make this a priority.”
Among the districts planning to offer on-site child care has been Modesto’s Sylvan Union. On Monday, as he was hopefully awaiting word from the state on the issue, Superintendent Eric Fredrickson told The Bee in an email, “If those waivers are not provided, we may then need to pivot to giving employees the option to work remotely.”
Also Monday, the state Department of Public Health unveiled the waiver application process that could let some elementary schools in hard-hit counties begin in-person instruction earlier, provided they meet “stringent health requirements,” the state said in a news release.
“A district superintendent, private school principal or head of school, or executive director of a charter school may apply for a waiver from the local health officer to open an elementary school for in-person instruction in a county on the monitoring list,” the news release said.
But the CDPH says it is recommending schools in counties where the most recent 14-day case rates are more than double the threshold for the state watch list — which would be more than 200 cases per 100,000 residents — not be considered for waivers. State data show Stanislaus and 13 other counties were above that mark as of Monday, and three others were close, with more than 190 cases per 100,000.
Keeping distance is best for now
In Monday’s hourlong telephone town hall with Harder, Kuykendall said he agrees that keeping schoolchildren at home for distance learning is the right thing to do “at this time.”
But he will continue to be a proponent of reopening schools for in-person learning as quickly as it can be done safely, he said, “because there’s a multitude of reasons that kids need to come back to school. Obviously, academics, but also just for social well-being, meals, all the different protections the schools provide for our students.”
Addressing why distance learning is necessary, the superintendent cited the operation of Head Start, Migrant Head Start and other child care programs for essential workers. Through June, the programs operated successfully, with a maximum of 10 children in a classroom and safety protocols being followed. But more recently, sites have had to close for disinfecting or undergo quarantine because of positive cases, he said.
Tony Jordan, executive director of SCOE’s Child/Family Services Department, said Tuesday there have been 15 “incidences of COVID-19 contact in early-education programs” in the county, at sites provided by public schools or private nonprofits that are in partnership with SCOE.
In eight of those cases, test results are pending for staff members or children who were at those sites. Of the other cases, two staff members have tested positive, but no children. But those incidents had the potential to expose 78 staff members and 150 children, Jordan said.
In all the cases, the child development centers have been “exposure locations but not the root cause” of infection, he said. Activities occurring outside the day care operations, such as gatherings for Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day and the Fourth of July have led to the spread.
With the rate of positive cases rising in Stanislaus County, it’s not feasible to ask that schools open in a large way in person, Kuykendall said. It is too difficult right now to stop the spread of the virus, he said, and a positive case on a school campus requires “a quarantine situation. And when that happens, you’ve got to close the classroom, or then you have to close the school. And it’s just not sustainable.”
Modesto City Schools closed its full-day Head Start programs, offered at Martone, Everett and Tuolumne Elementary schools, district spokeswoman Krista Noonan said Tuesday. There never were any confirmed positive COVID-19 cases among children or staff, she said, but at each site, there were instances where staff and/or students had been exposed to someone who tested positive, such as a direct family member.
“After consulting with the county Public Health office, the decision was made to close our centers out of an abundance of caution in order to protect our students and staff members,” Noonan said. “At this point, we will now provide distance learning to all Early Childhood Education children enrolled in the part- and full-day preschool and Head Start programs.”
The Community Care Licensing Division’s guidance on child care applies only to it being offered at a school, Kuykendall said, the logic being that if schools are closed for instruction, they’re also closed for care. Turlock Unified School District has been considering partnering with the city parks and recreation department’s After School Education and Safety program to provide care, and that would be fine, he said. “There’s the rub — we can provide exactly what we’re wanting to provide our employees, which are teachers, anywhere except the school campus.”
Why not commit to full semester distance learning?
An Oakdale resident told the superintendent during the town hall meeting that she fears children will be rushed back into the classroom. She asked why Stanislaus County school districts seem to be looking at distance learning on a week-to-week basis rather than committing to it for at least a semester.
Kuykendall replied that the decision to stick with distance learning throughout a semester hasn’t been made “only because that really hasn’t come up in conversation.” He said county public health officer Dr. Julie Vaishampayan seems more hopeful that would not need to be the case.
Consideration of returning students to schools needs to differentiate between elementary schools and junior high and high schools, Kuykendall said. Getting grade-schoolers back would be easier, using small groups and possibly alternating days on campuses. The upper grades are more problematic for various reasons, the biggest being that students move to different classrooms throughout the day, so there’s a lot more mixing.
In any case, districts could not rush kids back to school, the superintendent said, because getting off the state’s COVID-19 watch list won’t be simple. There has to be a large reduction in positive cases, and it has to happen over 14 consecutive days, he said. “So what happens when we get to day 13 and then we go back up? OK, then we start all over again. So unfortunately, this isn’t going to be something that goes away anytime soon.”
But when there is the opportunity to safely bring students back, especially at the earliest level, transitional kindergarten through second grade, he’s for it, Kuykendall said. It is essential those young children have direct instruction and face time with teachers during their formative years, he said.
“I don’t want to just lump all schools together and say that none of them can open for a semester,” he said. “If we can, in a creative way, in a safe way, start bringing back our elementary schools sooner, I would be open to doing that.”
Give all teachers work-from-home option?
A Riverbank resident and junior high teacher said teachers are being forced to return to schools, where they have shared bathrooms and unavoidable contact with others. She asked why there’s not been a mandate from the county Office of Education that school districts give teachers the option to work from home.
Kuykendall replied that the county office doesn’t have that authority. Its role is to support districts in a number of ways, including professional development and budgeting, but the districts are autonomous. “So it’s really the districts working with their bargaining units, with their administrations, with their boards in coming to agreements. ...”
The agreement SCOE has with its own teachers is that they work from their classrooms, he said. So even if the county did have the authority to say all districts should let teachers work from home, he wouldn’t support that, Kuykendall said.
Making such a decision “is incumbent upon those local communities,” he said. “Those school boards can make the best decisions based on their local school community. And I think that’s absolutely the right approach. One size does not fit all.”
The Sacramento Bee contributed to this story.
This story was originally published August 4, 2020 at 2:52 PM.
