With Stanislaus in red, Modesto City Schools sets aside waiver app, talks reopening
Just hours after Gregori High families were informed Monday that the campus was being closed for 14 days because several staff members tested positive for COVID-19, the Modesto City Schools Board of Education discussed with district administration the plan to reopen in-person learning.
The Gregori closure didn’t come up at the special workshop, which was live-streamed as trustees and board Cabinet members met virtually. The board received an overview of the district’s draft plan for reopening, heard the results of a survey of district employees and families, was read submitted comments from the public and had its own questions, comments and concerns.
At the start of the district presentation to the board, Superintendent Sara Noguchi noted that the original intent had been to bring forth an application for a waiver to reopen elementary schools. Waiver approval is required for school districts in counties on the state’s COVID-19 monitoring list.
But Stanislaus County anticipated learning Tuesday that it would meet the state’s thresholds for moving out of the lowest, or purple, tier, which indicates widespread infection, she said. And that did happen, Tuesday morning. The shift to red means looser rules for restaurants, places of worship, retail stores and more.
“Once in the red tier,” Noguchi told the board, “if we remain there consecutively for 14 days straight, then we’re able to begin to open our secondary schools. So at this time, we are bringing forward an elementary TK-6 plan. However, we are also simultaneously looking at a plan for our secondary because we know that if we stay in the red for 14 days, then it’s not too far off.”
The TK-6 in-person learning model under consideration by the district splits students into two groups, A and B. Group A students would attend school on Mondays and Thursdays, while Group B is home doing independent study. Tuesdays and Fridays, Group B group would have in-person instruction at school while Group A is at home. On Wednesdays, all students would be home, doing distance learning.
By grade level, schools would phase in students to the hybrid learning model.
It would start with preschool through second-grade students, Associate Superintendent Brad Goudeau said. Then “after a few weeks ... if the data holds and things are looking good,” third- and fourth-graders would come back, and grades five and six a few weeks after that.
Staff, family survey responses shared
MCS families were asked to review the TK-6 reopening plan and complete a survey in response. There were separate surveys for TK-6 and 7-12 families, available in English and Spanish.
The district got 1,201 responses to the TK-6 survey in English, and nearly 63% of the families said they would return their children to school in the hybrid model. There were 329 responses to the Spanish TK-6 survey, and 51.7% said yes to returning their children.
The 7-12 survey in English got 782 responses, and 66.8% were in favor of returning kids to schools. The Spanish survey got 68 responses, with an exact 50-50 split between those in favor and those opposed.
Certificated staff — those required to have a credential from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing — and classified employees also were surveyed.
Of the 902 responses from certificated employees, 47% supported the proposed hybrid model, while 36.4% said it would be better to keep students on a plan of full distance learning for now. The remaining 16.6% percent responded “other.”
Among those who answered “other,” there were comments about child care concerns and about bringing back all students but letting families continue distance learning if they choose, district Chief Communications Officer Krista Noonan told the board.
“There were also concerns from teachers about providing both in-person and online instruction,” she said. “And other certificated staff said if students can’t come back every day, they would prefer a Monday-Tuesday, and then Thursday-Friday cohort schedule rather than the alternating days of, say, Monday-Thursday or Tuesday-Friday.”
And the survey of classified employees and management drew 654 responses, with 61% in favor, 28.3% opposed and 10.7% saying “other.”
Summing up the survey responses, Noonan said comments by families and staff are very aligned with the boxes checked. “There are some people who feel that we should just reopen schools and bring the kids back,” she said. “And then there are other people who definitely say no, I want my child or I want as an employee to continue doing distance learning.”
How about a consecutive-day schedule?
Trustee Charlene West observed that the hybrid schedule of Monday and Thursday on-campus learning for one cohort and Tuesday-Friday for the other seems less conducive to helping parents who need to schedule work hours, day care, etc. She said a Monday-Tuesday schedule for one group, Thursday-Friday for the other would make more sense and looks like less of “a nightmare for scheduling for parents.”
Trustee Amy Neumann agreed with West, saying that with the current proposed model, “ you kind of share the germs between the Monday and Tuesday kids.” But by having Group A on campus Mondays and Tuesdays, a deep cleaning and sanitizing could be done on Wednesdays before bringing Group B in on Thursdays and Fridays.
Noonan said some parent comments on the surveys also prefer a Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday schedule.
Neumann acknowledged that while the consecutive-day idea would be better for stopping the spread of COVID-19, it creates “a gap for the teachers and doesn’t allow them a lot of recovery time in terms of moving those students along.”
And Noguchi added that when schedules were being considered, the consecutive-day plan left a five-day gap between when a cohort meets with its teacher. “So we tried to break it up so they would see their teachers in different times during the week.” But everything continues to evolve, the superintendent said, and some districts are using consecutive-day models, so MCS continues to gather information and look at its options.
Board President Cindy Marks said that with survey responses showing about one-third of MCS families want to keep their kids home, the district should be considering ways to bring back the other two-thirds full time.
“Because right now, the parents that I’m talking to ... they’re suffering, they’re going through grave difficulties at home,” she said. “Their students are not functioning in a high-level capacity right now, because they’re in a lonely state. They’re not able to interact with their friends, they’re not able to play, to be in a place where they can do normal activities.”
Their minds are not stimulated by looking at a screen for hours, Marks said.
She suggested the the district explore returning to the multi-track, year-round schedule it used during a period when it experienced a huge enrollment boom and needed to create space on campuses.
Noguchi said she supports thinking outside the box, so long as health and safety protocols are there. But she didn’t think upending the school calendar midyear is feasible. “If we find ourselves in the spring looking like we’re going to be doing this hybrid the next year, I absolutely think that that is something that we could explore,” the superintendent said.
Is this working or not? Depends whom you ask
Noonan read to the board several written comments submitted by families and employees that indicated a divide between the two groups.
Parents Jeremy and Nicole Nuding said in an email that distance learning isn’t working and that their child and others are struggling with depression and hopelessness. Their son “spends more time trying to battle technology issues to get into class and then again to get assignments that he has completed turned in, than he does actually learning anything. He spends more time trying to email his teachers about why he still has a zero for an assignment he’s turned in than he does actually doing the assignments.”
Parents Mark and Summer Niskanen said that calling this school year difficult would be a great understatement. They support a full reopening, saying the hybrid schedule makes it “more difficult on students and parents alike, especially those with multiple children in various elementary school grades.”
Adding that children’s mental and physical stability depends on a normal structured routine and education, “we believe the negative effects the continued school closures have had on our children (and many children, for that matter) far outweigh the risk of COVID-19.”
A fourth-grade Everett Elementary teacher, Eppie Chung, said distance learning has her working harder than ever but there are successes each day. She has “forged positive relationships with the guardians of the students in my class.” She can pull her English learners into a small group and work uninterrupted. “ If you have ever been in an elementary classroom, you understand the rarity of uninterrupted small-group instruction.”
Gina Grgich, a sixth-grade teacher at Sonoma Elementary and a parent of fourth- and eighth-graders, wrote that distance learning is not ideal but is working. “The students in my class are attending, doing their work, and we are in a groove. My own children, at home alone all day, are doing the same. I do not think the hybrid model will improve anything. If it is safe to bring students back, then bring them back 100%. ... If it is not safe, then we shouldn’t bring students back.”
A third teacher, Laurie Vinson of Sonoma Elementary, said the district should consider waiting until after winter break, then see it if can fully reopen. “My students and families have adjusted to distance learning and are successful. We should not interrupt that with haphazard hybrid learning,” she said.
Vinson later added, “ Our school site alone has had at least five COVID cases and the resulting quarantines. That happened with a smaller on-site staff and no students.”
What happens now?
The district’s reopening plan will go before the Board of Education again Monday at its regular meeting. At that time, because as Noguchi said the district would still be within its two-week period of the having to meet the red-tier criteria, the board may decide to move ahead with a waiver application, Noonan said.
The district then would plan to submit the waiver to public health officials Oct. 20.
“Pending public health approval, we would look at a phased-in reopening of TK through sixth grades, including preschool, targeting the week of Nov. 2 to start that initial TK through second reopening,” she said. “... Again, these are all, as Dr. Noguchi described it earlier, these are squishy dates.”
This story was originally published October 13, 2020 at 1:44 PM.
