SAISD will limit students as classes resume

The San Antonio Independent School District will welcome back students from the winter break next week, but won’t move to the next phase of in-person learning because of the community’s high rate of COVID-19 cases.

Since the beginning of the fall semester, Superintendent Pedro Martinez and his principals have been asking parents to allow them to direct how many children return to campuses while complying with state rules that require districts to provide in-person learning for any family that chooses it.

With family cooperation, Martinez has been able to control the return of kids and only 30 percent of students were in classrooms before the break.

The district is seeking to stay at that 30 percent level or below when classes resume next week, Martinez said when he spoke to more than 1,000 employees during a virtual town hall Wednesday afternoon for staff.

Schools are re-opening amid a surge of new coronavirus cases, and teacher unions have called on districts to return to virtual learning. The positivity rate in Bexar County rose to 23.2 percent on Monday, nearing the record rate of 24.2 percent during the last surge, and hospitals are caring for more patients than at any other point in the pandemic.

“We are still going to be open next week, but we are going to hold off on any large phases and I’m going to ask families to allow us to do that because the positivity rate is so high,” Martinez said. The district held a town hall for families Wednesday evening.

Martinez also announced that COVID-19 testing will be available weekly to all SAISD schools, and the district will provide vaccines to staff who want them as early as next weekend.

SAISD nurses already received vaccines two weeks ago, said Toni Thompson, associate superintendent of human resources, and the district is working with healthcare industry partners “to access vaccines for all staff as soon as possible.”

The district will start providing vaccines to employees 65 and older and those with high-risk health conditions, which aligns with state and federal protocols. After

those employees receive vaccines, the district will provide them for all other educators in the system, Thompson said.

“We're hopeful that we're going to be able to secure these vaccines so that we can systematically and strategically schedule them for all employees over the next several weeks through a common district site,” Thompson said.

Some vaccines should be available in the district as soon as next weekend, she said. The district will have another town hall Tuesday with medical experts to answer employee questions about the vaccine. Employees will be able to volunteer for the vaccine, and the district will send a survey Thursday to gauge interest.

“This will hopefully be so much more efficient than what some of you may have experienced in the last couple of weeks with long lines, and certainly we're just excited that we would have access to the vaccine for our own employees,” Thompson said. “We sincerely hope that you'll take advantage of this opportunity as it is one of the primary ways that we can mitigate risk and exposure.”

District officials started contacting Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath about two months ago, urging them to prioritize school personnel in the vaccine roll out, Martinez said.

The district had been using local non-profit Community Labs to regularly test asymptomatic students and staff in some schools, but it hadn't been clear until recently that the partnership will continue through the end of the school year.

Julie Castro, 43, an instructional assistant at Sarah King Elementary, said she still wants SAISD to halt in-person instruction completely, even though the district is not allowed to do that under Texas Education Agency guidelines. Nonetheless, hearing the new plan for the spring was somewhat comforting, she said.

“It's not exactly where we want to be, but at least we're kind of going in the right direction,” said Castro, a member of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, the staff union at SAISD. “At least we're not pushing for more kids and at least we're all getting the option of getting tested.”

“They're being more cautious,” she said.