Why Stanislaus school districts are, or aren’t, pursuing Newsom’s COVID-19 money offer
The deadline has arrived for California school districts to apply for a portion of the $2 billion in grants Gov. Gavin Newsom wants the state to set aside to help them safely return to in-person instruction. His proposal is that the money supports safety measures including testing, ventilation and personal protective equipment.
In Stanislaus County, though, not all districts are pursuing the funding, and even among some that are, there’s caution.
The Turlock Unified School District elected not to submit an application, for which Monday was the deadline. Spokeswoman Marie Russell told The Modesto Bee in an email that its reasoning is shared by some other districts around the state: that the money — a base amount of $450 per student — won’t cover what schools need to reopen under state guidelines.
“We also have some concerns about the mandatory asymptomatic testing requirements for students and staff,” Russell said.
The state suggests schools in counties with the highest case rates, 14 or more per 100,000 people, conduct weekly asymptomatic testing of students and staff. As of Monday afternoon, the most recent update on the state’s Covid19.ca site showed the case rate in Stanislaus County was 60.6 per 100,000.
Modesto City Schools spokeswoman Krista Noonan concurred with Russell’s cost concerns. “Districts are definitely going to be subject to additional financial outlay because the amount per student just doesn’t cover what the actual tests cost,” she said.
About testing the asymptomatic, Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, said, “There’s many schools that are just not going to be able to do that, feasibly.”
Another district with concerns is Oakdale Joint Unified. Superintendent Marc Malone said in an email Monday morning that his district has taken the initial steps in the application process but “reserves the right to terminate our participation if the costs and legal challenges associated with the grant process exceed the potential benefit.”
Newsom announced his grant proposal in late December as part of his Safe Schools for All plan, giving districts a little over four weeks to come up with a COVID-19 safety plan and reach an agreement with labor groups about safety protocols.
Since then, teacher unions and district administrators have expressed concerns about the quick turnaround. They say it’s simply too risky to consider reopening while the state remains a COVID-19 hot spot and new variants of the virus begin to spread in the U.S.
Also, in order to reopen under guidelines Newsom recommends, county transmission rates need to be below 25 cases per 100,000 people — a metric that few areas of the state are even close to meeting.
Modesto’s safe reopening plan updated
Modesto City Schools Superintendent Sara Noguchi told CalMatters last month that the district was pursuing the state’s grant funding while also seeking more clarification from public health officials over how often staff and students would have to be tested.
She said the district would be able to meet the tight Feb. 1 deadline because many of the requirements overlap with those of the waiver it successfully applied for to open TK-6 in-person learning in the fall.
“It took us weeks and weeks to work on an MOU that we negotiated to open up our elementary schools,” Noguchi said in the CalMatters story. “If you weren’t in a district that applied for the waiver, it would be very difficult to put all of this together by February 1.”
Noonan said Monday morning that the district would be submitting its grant application later in the day. She said she would be posting the MCS safe schools reopening plan, which already has TK-6 students back on campuses a couple of days a week in small, stable cohorts, along with its infectious disease prevention plan.
The reopening plan has been updated to reflect new guidance from Cal/OSHA, she said, which includes informing teachers and classified employees of how health and safety changes would affect them. One change from OSHA, Noonan noted, is eliminating the use of face shields with drapes.
“The guidance now is if you use a face shield, you also have to wear a mask. The use of drapes is no longer deemed as safe,” she said. Because for developmental reasons including phonetics lessons, children sometimes need to see their teachers’ mouths, Modesto City Schools is working to procure face masks with clear panels, Noonan said.
Given that the governor’s proposal is just that, a proposal, requiring support by the Legislature, “it’s business as usual for us right now,” Noonan said. “But we are actively working with our labor partners in discussions about what will it look like once we get to the red tier and ensuring that they definitely have an opportunity to give feedback.” Getting out of the purple tier and into the red is necessary for school districts in the county to reopen in-person learning for grades seven through 12, she said.
Doug Burton, president of the Modesto Teachers Association, said teachers and district leaders all want schools reopened in the safest manner possible for employees, students and community. That’s “highly dependent on community spread and local positivity rates, as well as continued testing for staff and the implementation of a student testing program as well,” he said. “We are hopeful that all district employees, certificated, classified and management, will be able to be vaccinated soon on a voluntary basis.”
Vaccines a key issue
The California Teachers Association has been skeptical about Newsom’s plan and has said for months it supports distance learning, not reopening, for schools in counties with the highest rates of spread.
“There are no shortcuts for stopping this surge and the new variants,” the union wrote in a letter to Newsom last week. “The virus is in charge right now and it does not own a calendar. We cannot just pick an artificial calendar date and expect to flip a switch on reopening every school for in-person instruction.”
Vaccines will be the game changer for school reopening, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said.
The rollout in California has been slow-going and state leaders say they’re hanging hopes on President Joe Biden’s plan to deliver a mass amount of doses within his first 100 days in office.
On Thursday, Politico reported that a frustrated Newsom had pushed back against the call for teacher vaccines during an online conversation with the Association of California School Administrators, saying “If we wait for the perfect, we might as well just pack it up and just be honest with folks that we’re not going to open for in-person instruction this school year.”
Modesto City Schools has not yet had discussions about at what point in the current school year it just might not be feasible to fully reopen, Noonan said.
“Our teachers are so eager to see their kids, but they also want to be safe in how that’s done, obviously,” as do parents, she said. “... So, no, we have not had those discussions about, ‘Let’s just wait until next year.’ Are we working on plans for next year? Yes, we’re definitely looking at school year planning. We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to reopen fully come August, but no one knows what the state of COVID will be at that point.”
