Oakland must negotiate schools reopening plan now
As public health experts reach a consensus about the low risk of transmission of the COVID-19 virus within schools, Oakland parents have become frustrated at the lack of urgency by educational leaders to get kids safely back to the classroom. While the Oakland Unified School District rolled out a plan several weeks ago to begin a phased reopening on Jan. 25, it has now decided to postpone reopening, not even giving parents a new date.
COVID-19 rates have hit new records in recent weeks. We aren’t downplaying the severity of the pandemic and understand no new school reopenings can happen until the county is downgraded to the red tier. Nonetheless, OUSD must begin negotiations with the Oakland Education Association immediately so that Oakland’s schools are ready to reopen once Alameda County reaches the red tier. We believe OUSD’s plan to not reopen until the county is in the orange tier is unnecessarily conservative and harmful for kids.
A wealth of evidence has been published showing that schools, particularly elementary schools, don’t contribute to community spread of the virus. A recent CDC report demonstrates that children who tested positive were not more likely to have attended school or child care. Brown University economist Emily Oster has collected data from thousands of schools and argues elementary schools can reopen with mitigation measures in place. The New York Times, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post have all echoed Oster’s findings.
In addition, countless public health experts and physicians believe keeping schools closed poses a major risk to kids’ health and well-being. It’s abundantly clear that distance learning isn’t an adequate substitute for in-person learning. The many negative effects include learning loss, an alarming increase in mental health emergencies, thousands of cases of unreported child abuse and students with disabilities not receiving the services districts are legally mandated to provide.
Educational disparities are widening quickly, making school reopening an issue of equity: Disproportionately Black and Latino, OUSD students are being left behind, while private schools and wealthier Bay Area public schools have returned to in-class instruction. These achievement gaps may follow OUSD students for years.
Unfortunately, the response to OUSD’s reopening plan by the teachers union (OEA) suggests they don’t believe the situation is particularly urgent. It’s clear to many parents that the OEA is pushing for schools to delay reopening until fall 2021 at the earliest. The memorandum of understanding with the OEA expires on Dec. 31, and parents are not aware of any bargaining by the two parties around reopening. Given the many risks of keeping schools closed, OUSD and OEA should be at the bargaining table now.
Larger urban districts have reopened, and other major teachers unions admit that elementary schools pose a low risk. Also, according to OUSD’s Readiness Dashboard, the district has made substantial progress on county-mandated standards for reopening. However, the OEA is still insisting on near-zero COVID-19 cases in every Oakland ZIP code before returning to the classroom, which will likely not even happen once many people are vaccinated.
We believe teachers should be next in line for vaccinations, after front-line medical workers. However, if they are to be prioritized, they must agree to return to the classroom immediately, rather than insist kids get vaccinated as well. It should be noted that many teachers around the country have been teaching in person without a vaccination for months — and there have been very few major outbreaks.
After months of inaction, OUSD and the OEA have a moral imperative to negotiate in good faith and come to an agreement so that once Oakland is in the red tier, the district can immediately phase in school reopening, beginning with the city’s most under-resourced students.
We believe OUSD’s plan to not reopen until the county is in the orange tier is unnecessarily conservative and harmful for kids.
Rebecca Bodenheimer, a mother of two living in east Oakland, is a freelance writer and editor. Megan Bacigalupi is an attorney and program manager at the nonprofit C100. She is a mother of two OUSD students. Bodenheimer and Bacigalupi are organizers of the group OUSD Parents for Transparency and Safe Reopening.