Modesto City Schools, teachers union set new quarantine learning plan. What’s included?
Modesto City Schools will provide live instruction and online lessons to students who miss school days for reasons related to COVID-19.
The independent study plan approved last week compensates teachers with a 4.5% raise for an average of 20 minutes of additional work time per day. Officials from the district and its teachers association said the agreement balances student needs, legislative requirements and higher teacher workloads.
“We appreciate the collaborative relationship with MCS leadership that allowed us to reach this agreement,” Modesto Teachers Association President Doug Burton said in a statement.
As of Sept. 22, more than 8,600 Modesto City students had missed at least one day of school this year due to the coronavirus and exposures, Associate Superintendent of Educational Services Brad Goudeau told The Bee in late September. These students altogether were absent for more than 46,000 days, according to Goudeau.
The district has provided grade-level review packets for transitional kindergartners through sixth-grade students and assigned schoolwork through the online learning management platform Schoology for middle and high school students.
“We didn’t believe that that was really in the best interest of students,” Superintendent Sara Noguchi told The Bee in an education forum Wednesday evening.
She said that structure was constricted by legislative requirements, which recently were clarified through AB 167 to assert districts’ ability to offer remote live instruction for students absent due to quarantine or isolation for COVID-19.
Districts vary on quarantine learning
State lawmakers gave districts broad discretion over how to deliver instruction for short-term independent study, defined as when a student misses less than 15 days. In Stanislaus County, for example, Ceres Unified school officials post assignments via Google Classroom and provide printed packets to students who lack reliable access to WiFi, said Amy Peterman, deputy superintendent for educational services.
Turlock Unified recently required secondary teachers to send Zoom links to quarantined students. Hughson Unified has offered synchronous learning to quarantined students since the beginning of the school year.
Under Modesto City Schools’ new arrangement, all teachers will post lessons to the district’s online learning management platform.
“We knew that we could provide them a much richer learning environment by engaging with them through Schoology,” Noguchi said in the education forum.
TK through sixth-grade teachers, as well as seventh-grade teachers at Tuolumne Elementary, will instruct absent students through Microsoft Teams for 20 minutes of class each day, generally during the morning, according to the agreement.
Secondary teachers with absent students will turn on Teams for 30 minutes of class once a week. Students also will receive daily live interaction, such as a check-in.
A previously scheduled professional development day on Monday, Oct. 11, will train teachers for these additional responsibilities, Noguchi said. Teachers will collaborate with their grade-level or subject-level teams on Wednesday to prepare further. The plan will take effect Oct. 18.
The district will spend $8.6 million in COVID-19 relief funding to cover the teacher salary increase, which applies only to the 2021-22 school year, according to the Oct. 4 school board agenda. Put in perspective, Modesto City Schools received about $80 million through the third round of federal relief funding to address the effects of the pandemic.
Trustees unanimously supported the agreement at the Oct. 4 meeting. The teachers union ratified the agreement Friday afternoon with 411 members voting in favor and 25 members opposing.
The full independent study plan can be found through the Modesto City Schools Oct. 4 board agenda.
