PUBLIC SCHOOLS DON’T HAVE TO LOOK FAR FOR HOW TO REOPEN
As the debate over how to safely reopen schools for full-time instruction rages on, school boards and districts should look no further than private schools and day-care facilities on how to reopen safely. With children languishing behind hours of screen time while the institutions charged with educating them remain virtual, parents and students deserve to know why privately funded programs can offer safe, in-person services while our public programs cannot.
One district that may want to take a page out of its neighboring programs’ playbook is the South Bay Union School District, which serves Imperial Beach and South San Diego. SBUSD has been closed to in-person learning for more than a year and recently decided that it is still too unsafe to go back to school. Meanwhile, in the same community, the Boys and Girls Club in Imperial Beach has been offering the Back2School Distance Learning Club throughout this same period. This program is just one example of many full-time, in-person programs open during the COVID-19 pandemic to support working families’ children with in-person academic, social and structural support so that they can flourish while schools remain virtual.
In the SBUSD, parents are stressed. Their kids are in virtual classes with shortened instructional minutes and hours of independent work while juggling their other full-time jobs. Parents like Stephanie Rich, who works at a bank and whose husband is a first responder, cannot work from home. They have spent the year taking unpaid leaves to care for their children while struggling to manage their family’s educational, psychological and financial needs. The Rich parents finally enrolled in Back2School Distance Learning Club and drop their children off at the Boys and Girls Club for a full day five days per week. There, staff help children with virtual learning, provide meal breaks, and offer activities and enrichment programs. While children are cared for, they are also receiving the academic and social support they would be getting on a school campus. The only problem: You have to pay for it.
The Boys and Girls Club in Imperial Beach has set the standard for how to serve families and is doing so in a diverse community. It has demonstrated that it is possible to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with children spaced 6 feet apart, wearing masks and using shields at their desks. These safety measures, combined with daily wellness screenings, temperature checks and questionnaires for enrollees, have been effective. Even before the vaccine rollout, the Boys and Girls Club is proud to share that there have been zero COVID-19 outbreaks.
On the other end of the spectrum, districts like the South Bay Union School District have provided zero in-person support for the children enrolled in their districts since the start of the pandemic. This culturally and economically diverse community desperately needs in-person learning programs. While the Boys and Girls Club and many private schools in the area have figured out how to open safely, one must question: Why doesn’t the SBUSD just reach out and follow their models?
With growing examples of schools reopening safely coupled with educational staffs’ prioritization for the vaccine — and the extensive evidence of the academic, physical, social, emotional and economic harm that school closures have imposed on children and families — it is unconscionable that any district would even consider keeping its students in a distance-learning model. Now more than ever, districts like the SBUSD, their boards of trustees and their corresponding unions need to come together and address the extensive harm that has occurred to children’s education and family situations during this pandemic.
Districts like SBUSD must also face the reality that with a vaccine rollout in full force, parents are getting back to work, and, in many cases, working from home will no longer be an option. The need for in-person learning at school sites is essential. The educational system must accept its responsibility to the communities it serves and reopen. And if these school leaders will not, they owe their community an answer to the question: If the Boys and Girls Club has been providing in-person support for a year, why can’t you?
Families were patient when the pandemic started because they had faith that our local school districts would fight for our kids to go back on campus. Instead, school systems have become the barrier to open campuses, and families are in the unfathomable position of fighting against their districts to try to get children in school while watching those with the resources access services that districts like SBUSD allege are impossible to provide. To districts like SBUSD: If you need help with reopening, just call your local Boys and Girls Club. These clubs did it before there were vaccinations. They’re doing it now. Maybe they can show you how to safely reopen your schools.
Giardina is an attorney and parent of two who lives in Imperial Beach. Rich is a banker and parent of two who lives in San Diego. isa florist and parent of two who lives in Imperial Beach.