‘Distance learning is a disaster.’ SLO County schools are closer to bringing students back
Two North County school districts met Tuesday to revise and approve their plans for bringing hundreds of students back to campus for in-person classes in less than a month’s time.
Atascadero Unified School District received its board of trustees’ approval to send an elementary school in-person learning waiver application to the San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department.
And Paso Robles Joint Unified School District, which sent in a waiver application to the county in September, held a special board meeting to get approval to bring even more students back to classrooms.
Both districts hope to start bringing students back to campus starting Nov. 2.
The developments came the same day that public health officials announced San Luis Obispo County had successfully remained in California’s COVID-19 red tier for two consecutive weeks — meaning schools can reopen upon Public Health Department approval.
“Because we have kept our COVID-19 transmission relatively stable, we have been consistently in the red tier for two weeks now,” Dr. Penny Borenstein, the county’s public health officer, said in a news release Tuesday. “Local schools are not required to reopen for in-person instruction, but they may choose to reopen if they implement the State’s COVID-19 guidance for schools and school-based programs.”
So far, the only schools that have had in-person elementary instruction waivers approved by Public Health are 13 small private schools. Borenstein has said in previous COVID-19 press briefings that these schools account for only a very small fraction of the roughly 34,000 students in San Luis Obispo County.
Between both the Atascadero and Paso Robles school districts, an estimated 3,000 students may return to classrooms before the end of this calendar year, according to each district’s reopening plans, if the county Public Health Department approves. That’s about half of the students enrolled in classes in the 2019-20 school year at those schools wishing to welcome kids back.
Technically, schools can welcome middle and high school students into classrooms in addition to the elementary grade levels. But as of Wednesday, no San Luis Obispo County public schools planned on bringing those student back until January — contingent on COVID-19 case levels in the county staying low or decreasing.
Another public school district, Pleasant Valley Joint Unified Elementary, also applied for an in-person elementary instruction waiver in September. Its waiver has not yet been approved by the county Public Health Department, according to district Superintendent and Principal Wendy Nielsen.
All three North County school districts want to reopen with a hybrid schedule in which students would spend half the day in class on campus, and the rest at home doing distance learning.
Atascadero school board debates coronavirus reopening plan
The Atascadero school board spent nearly two hours in Tuesday’s meeting discussing and debating the district’s reopening plan before approving the waiver application. Though the waiver application was accepted by the board and will be sent to the county Public Health Department on Wednesday, the district’s reopening plan will continue to be revised and edited.
Tom Butler, the superintendent for the school district, said during the board meeting that he will confer on Wednesday with the Atascadero District Teachers’ Association and the Atascadero California School Employees Association — the district’s two teachers unions — about the reopening plan.
Public comments took up the first 45 minutes of the Atascadero school board meeting on Tuesday. Those who wrote in expressed both concern about the reopening plan and excitement about the possibility of returning to classrooms.
“Distance learning is a disaster and a failure for primary, K-5 students,” community member Connie Pillsbury wrote in a statement read by Stacey Phillips, the executive assistant to the superintendent. “They may never recover if the schools stay closed much longer. ... Do your job and open the schools now, whatever it takes.”
The next comment read by Phillips said that “distance learning is working for many of us,” and that “bringing our elementary school children back into the schools for hybrid, in-person learning for two and a half hours will only have incremental benefits but exposes everyone to potentially greater risk of illness from COVID-19.”
Christine Williams, ADTA president and spokeswoman, said at the board meeting that although the teachers union is in favor of returning to in-person instruction, the district’s reopening plan is still not up to par.
“We’ve expressed these reservations in meetings — we’ve asked questions, we’ve asked for answers, and we’ve been told that the details will come,” she said. “The plans in front of the board are vague. They’re missing key operational elements that we feel are necessary to ensure our opening is successful.”
Paso Robles plans in-person classes for elementary school students
At the Paso Robles school board meeting on Tuesday, the story was a little different.
Since board members had already approved an elementary in-person instruction waiver, the add-ons proposed by the district faced little argument from board members or community members.
The district had previously applied to send transitional kindergarten through second-grade students back to in-person learning, but with the county remaining in the red tier for two consecutive weeks, the district will now apply to send students in grades up to fifth grade back to classrooms. That application will be sent to the county Public Health Department on Wednesday.
“I am amazed at how detailed and intricate your plan is, and I give it two thumbs up,” community member Karla Butterfield said during public comment.
Thomas Esser, another community member who called in to the board meeting, said he was concerned that Paso Robles still led the county in terms of the total number of COVID-19 cases.
“The extremely high infection rate in Paso Robles makes me doubt if now is the right time to reopen our schools,” he said. “I know that in-person learning should remain our top priority, however the risks seem too high.”
As of Tuesday, Public Health had reported a total of 913 COVID-19 cases in Paso Robles, which has consistently had the most cases in the county.
James Lynett, the executive director of Paso Robles Public Educators, said the teachers union has received many answers to its questions and concerns about the reopening plans, but encouraged the board to table a vote on the hybrid reopening plan.
“I realize that there’s been a lot of work in this and people think we should have gone back (to in-person learning) yesterday,” Lynett said. “We are going to counsel that we take our time and do this the right way.”
The add-ons to the Paso Robles school district’s reopening plan received little to no pushback from the board members on Tuesday, and the vote to approve the plan passed unanimously.
What happens next?
The Atascadero and Paso Robles school districts are awaiting a response from the Public Health Department regarding their waiver applications and proposed reopenings.
If approved, the districts will open up their doors to students in waves:
- On Nov. 2, the Paso Robles district will bring transitional kindergarten and kindergarten students back to campus, and the Atascadero district will bring students in transitional kindergarten through second grade back.
- On Nov. 16, the Paso Robles district will bring students in first through second grades to campus. The Atascadero district is also considering bringing back students in third through fifth grades that week, although that could change due to a conflict with parent-teacher conferences at that time.
- On Nov. 30, the Paso Robles district will bring students in third through fifth grades back to classrooms.
This story was originally published October 7, 2020 at 11:51 AM.
