Turlock Unified middle and high schools will open on Monday. Will others join?
A flurry of confusion may be most appropriate description for the plans to reopen in-person schools, due to frequent revisions in public health guidance, waning and surges of COVID-19 cases and updated tier-based restrictions.
Further muddling the mix, a San Diego Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order on the Jan. 14 guidelines from the California Department of Public Health, which allows all secondary students to return to cohort, in-person instruction.
With that ruling, Turlock Unified School District posted on its Facebook page on Thursday that junior high and high school students will return to campuses starting Monday.
Ceres Unified School District had tentative plans to open a hybrid model for upper grades on March 25, but any doubt has been squashed.
“As a result (of the lawsuit), the uncertainty about reopening our secondary campuses next week has been removed. CUSD will move forward with plans to reopen secondary campuses on a half-day hybrid schedule on Thursday, March 25, whether or not Stanislaus County is reassigned to the red tier,” said Jay Simmonds, assistant superintendent of CUSD, in an email.
TUSD and Ceres Unified School District each have more than 14,000 students in all grades, placing them behind Modesto City Schools’ 30,000 pupils for the highest number of students.
With scheduled spring breaks and ensuring public health safety measures are in place, other districts are proceeding with their original timelines.
Sara Noguchi, superintendent of Modesto City Schools, sent an email to teachers and staff, stating: “Modesto City Schools is currently staying the course, and, in anticipation of Stanislaus County reaching the red tier on Tuesday, March 23, we are moving forward with our plan to reopen 7-12 schools on Monday, March 29. We are awaiting updated official guidance from Public Health on this topic. The reopening process and timeline will be clarified pending the guidance we receive.”
Modesto’s Sylvan Union district, whose middle schools feed into Modesto City high schools, shares a March 22-26 spring break with the larger district. Using a hybrid learning model, Sylvan returned sixth-graders to its middle schools starting March 15 and last reported its intent to bring back seventh-and eighth-graders starting March 29.
Reopening without going red
Public school districts in the county have been planning for fully reopening campuses since the pandemic closed them last March. Until the restraining order was issued, schools in counties in the most restrictive purple tier, including Stanislaus County, could not fully open campuses. However, local schools that had opened in November when the county was in a the red tier could stay open.
Although, Stanislaus County COVID-19 statistics met criteria for the less restrictive red tier last week, several school districts aren’t waiting to see if the stats send the county into the red this week to proceed with reopening.
“We’re opening secondary schools on Thursday 3/25 (with) cohorts. This was our plan if county was red on 3/23, and it’s what we had communicated to parents. Now, regardless of tier, we’re opening on the 3/25,” said Don Davis, superintendent of Waterford Unified School District, in an email.
In addition to Waterford students, middle and high school students in Newman-Crows Landing and Riverbank Unified school districts also have the green light for March 25.
Riverbank Unified School District is planning to have students in grade six return on Monday and students in grades seven through 12 return on the 25th, according to Richard Tapia, assistant superintendent of RUSD.
Randy Fillpot, superintendent of Newman-Crows Landing Unified School District, said his district is also set to have upper-grade students return to campuses March 25 following a hybrid model with two cohorts of students. One group will be on campus on Mondays and Tuesdays, and the other on Thursdays and Fridays, with Wednesday afternoons for distance learning for all.
Similar to MCS, districts in Patterson and Oakdale are planning for the following Monday.
Patterson Unified School District is slated to reopen upper grades on March 29, even if the county doesn’t enter the red tier. They’ll follow a hybrid model, similar to the current one in place for TK-5 in-person instructions, according to an email from Juan Padilla, PUSD spokesperson.
Mark Malone, superintendent of Oakdale Joint Unified School District, said in a March 17 email that his district will open March 29, and that students and educators are eager to return for in-person instructions.
One plan doesn’t fit all
Size matters for a district’s flexibility for reopening campuses, while also maintaining instruction using distance learning or hybrid models. Smaller districts may have more agility with the frequently changing guidance.
Local public school districts range in size from about 150 students at Gratton and Knights Ferry districts, which have only elementary grades, to Modesto City Schools, with more than 30,000 students in all grades.
Although some local districts have been open for lower elementary grades, only a handful of districts, mostly those with fewer pupils, have offered in-person sessions for middle and high school students.
Denair Unified School District, a smaller district with a total of about 1,300 students, opened in November, the last time the county was in the red tier. DUSD has maintained in-person classes with about 30% to 40% of its TK-12 students attending.
On March 1, DUSD began a broader, staged reopening with welcoming back high school seniors.
“We have 73% of our seniors on campus and they seem quite happy to be back,” said Terry Metzger, DUSD superintendent.
She said it’s difficult for parents and students to understand that different districts have varying resources. Although most districts received supplemental funding from the state or federal government, districts’ needs mandated different spending. For example, in DUSD not all students had devices for remote learning, so that was an early expenditure of their funds.
“We are responsible for attending to the needs of all students,” said Metzger.
With that in mind, she said, the district will maintain the option for distance learning for parents reluctant for their children to return, while also developing plans to welcome students back for a full-day hybrid schedule as soon as it’s feasible.
Hughson Unified School District has also been open for all grades since November, with about 55% of upper-grade students in attendance.
The district also is planning to open for more on-campus time for students.
“We will be returning to a five-day in-class instructional model on April 12th,” Brenda Smith, superintendent of HUSD, said in an email, “We will have about 75% of our students participate in this model at all grade levels.
Trying to accommodate the wide range of needs for all students, including addressing health and safety concerns, has been one of the biggest challenges for districts, as well as changing guidance from the state health officials and the moving target dates for possible reopening.
This story was produced with financial support from The Stanislaus County Office of Education and the Stanislaus Community Foundation, along with the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative. The Modesto Bee maintains full editorial control of this work. To help fund The Bee’s children’s health and economic development reporters with Report for America, go to bitly.com/ModbeeRFA
This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
