San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Families need schools to reopen safely
In the fifthfloor apartment of a lowincome housing complex on Natoma Street, you’ll find a whole lot of love — and a whole lot of frustration.
Joan Thomas has raised her 9yearold grandson, Royal Holyfield, since he was 10 days old. They’ve always been tight. (“He’s my king,” she says.) But the past seven months of distance learning during the COVID19 pandemic have been difficult. Thomas, a charismatic woman who minces no words, laid bare Royal’s sad situation.
Royal, a fourthgrader
at
Tenderloin Community School, sits almost all day alone in his bedroom staring at a screen — bouncing between distance learning, YouTube and his beloved “Fortnite” video game. Thomas said he’s addicted to screens now and has gained more than 20 pounds.
His behavioral problems have grown worse, but the therapy sessions he’s owed by the school district don’t work well on Zoom. He turns his camera off and doesn’t speak in class unless the teacher requires it. Thomas wants him to repeat fourth grade because he’s learning so little.
“What he’s learning is how to manipulate these two old people,” Thomas said of herself and her husband, Tony, who are exhausted by it all. “I would love for him to be in school. This is dragging on forever.”
And there’s no end in sight. The San Francisco Unified School District made clear last week that not a single child will see the inside of a classroom until January at the earliest — and then, it will only be the most severely disabled children and preschoolers.
There’s no timeline for anybody else — and not even a timeline to set a timeline.
Many parents went into Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting assuming August 2021 was the worstcase scenario for a full return of the district’s 54,000 students. Many left realizing that may be the bestcase scenario.
Almost immediately, parents began posting on social media that they were searching for private schools with available slots, leaving the city or sending their children to temporarily stay with relatives elsewhere — in places where schools are open. Parents with means, that is. Those like Joan Thomas are stuck. It’s stories like hers that are not being told as the district debates the risk of reopening, but rarely discusses the harm to children that’s already happening.
This is a city and school district that claim to care so deeply about equity — where officials repeatedly say little kids like Royal should be at the top of the priority list. So why isn’t he?
Opening schools during a pandemic comes with some risk, but much larger school districts including New York City have managed to open safely without outbreaks. Medical experts say the harms of schools staying shut might outweigh the risk of opening safely.
Teachers are working extremely hard to make distance learning work, but there’s no question it’s exhausting for them and students alike. If the teachers union refuses to go back until there’s no coronavirus transmission or until there’s a vaccine — too high a bar in my book — it needs to say so now.
By the end of Tuesday’s meeting, one thing was abundantly clear: The school district lacks the money, expertise and determination to safely open schools. It can no longer be just the district’s responsibility.
A thriving public school system is a vital part of a healthy city, and San Francisco won’t fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic until its schools are safely open, its children are learning and socializing and its frazzled parents can work and breathe. This must be the top priority for all of San Francisco — the school district, City Hall, the public health system, philanthropists and businesses.
But first, we need a game plan. And that needs to come from Superintendent Vince Matthews.
He needs to write an open letter to the city explaining exactly what it would take to safely reopen schools. Nobody is pushing a Trump-like agenda to get all teachers and kids into school no matter what. And nobody is suggesting that parents who remain scared will have to send their kids back.
But reopening schools for families that want them can happen safely — especially in a city where just 0.81% of coronavirus tests in San Francisco are coming back positive. On Tuesday, San Francisco slid into California’s yellow tier for reopening because its coronavirus transmission rate is so low. It’s the only urban area in California to reach that milestone — mostly because our datadriven, cautious leaders have steered us so well. They’ve said for many weeks it’s safe for elementary schools to reopen, and some private schools already have.
So, Superintendent Matthews, what would it take? How much money do you need? How many thermometers, masks and bottles of soap? Which schools lack windows that open? How much testing will teachers require? What help do you need to figure out a hybrid system because social distancing means not all kids can return all day, every day?
Lay it all out there. Then the city must answer the call.
It’s ridiculous to expect that the school district can cough up as much as $ 300 per coronavirus test, which Matthews said is the cost, for its teachers when it’s already so underfunded. Once the teachers union gets far more specific about its demands for return — including how frequently to test teachers — testing and contact tracing should be removed from the district’s plate entirely and handed to the Department of Public Health.
It’s also ridiculous to expect that the cashpoor school district can scrounge up thousands of bottles of sanitizer and thermometers on its own. We’re a city with 75 billionaires and countless multimillionaires, deeppocketed foundations and wealthy companies. They would probably pitch in if the requests were detailed and specific.
Jeff Cretan, spokesman for Mayor London Breed, said the mayor “is frustrated that a major part of the city is stuck.” She included an extra $ 15 million in the city budget for the schools to help them reopen, but doesn’t know exactly what else is needed. The mayor has no authority over the district.
Cretan said, for example, staff with the Department of Building Inspection can visit schools and help improve ventilation systems.
“We’re ready. We want to help,” he said. “We need them to tell us what they need.”
Mark Sanchez, president of the Board of Education, said the district’s policy team on Wednesday discussed the idea of harnessing the city’s energy, expertise and financial resources after so many parents demanded more transparency Tuesday night. The district will also send a survey to parents soon asking who wants to return and who doesn’t, he said.
He said teachers’ real worries over their own and their families’ safety coupled with severe underfunding make reopening far harder than many parents realize. He said he’s hopeful a vaccine will be ready in time to start the 202122 school year like normal.
“I’m not discounting the psychological and emotional and educational urgency around this,” said Sanchez who, along with Commissioner Jenny Lam, is up for reelection Nov. 3.
Laura Dudnick, spokeswoman for the school district, said there is a way to donate to help public schools during the pandemic at sparksfpublicschools.org . She also pointed out that it’s important to vote on the Nov. 3 ballot for Proposition J to provide raises for teachers and Proposition 15 to change the way taxes on commercial properties are assessed. Both would bring in tens of millions of dollars for the school district.
Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who has a daughter in public school, said she’s been offering for months to help the district — and hasn’t gotten anywhere. She was so infuriated by Tuesday’s school board meeting, she sent an 11 p. m. text to Dr. Grant Colfax, head of the Department of Public Health, begging for help with testing teachers.
( He responded the next morning that he’s talking to the school district about it.)
She said in a city that claims to care so much about equity — and a district whose Black and Latino students score far below their white and Asian peers — keeping kids home indefinitely makes no sense.
“That stubborn achievement gap that is a disgusting, hidden shame of our city is going to widen to such a level that the best teaching is not going to overcome it,” she said. “If that isn’t the racial justice issue of our day then I don’t know what is.”
She got a recent worried call from City Attorney Dennis Herrera who has four top female attorneys in his office on the verge of quitting because they can’t continue to do their jobs well and help their small children distance-learn.
One of them is Francesca Gessner, who is trying to work full time from home, help her 5yearold son participate in kindergarten on a computer and care for her elderly dad who lives with her and has Parkinson’s disease. All while her husband, a firefighter, darts from one faroff wildfire to the next.
Her son, Augustine, hates sitting in front of Zoom, isn’t learning to socialize and isn’t learning to read and write.
“He will be lucky to be in class in August,” she said after watching the disheartening Tuesday board meeting. “That’s why women in my office — and it is women — have spent the last 36 hours frantically searching for private schools, places to move or new jobs.”
Herrera said he can’t afford to lose top talent — and the city can’t afford to lose more families.
“What we need now is a clarion call from the school district that is rooted in transparency and communication,” he said. “I and other leaders will answer it.”
Let’s hope that call comes soon before more families give up. Lila Nelson, a single mom in the Bayview, said this is her fifthgrade daughter’s last year in the school district. Next year, she’s going private. Her daughter, Miriam, is outgoing and vivacious, and has always joined the student council and clubs at Sunnyside Elementary. But Nelson said she’s lost her spark and enthusiasm for learning.
Nelson is Black and said the Board of Education seems to think it’s only welloff, white families who want schools to reopen, which isn’t true. Sanchez made a remark to that effect in The Chronicle and explained that it’s wealthier, white families who tend to email him the most about it.
“What Black community are you reaching out to?” Nelson said.
“There’s no creativity right now. It’s heartbreaking to know this system is failing all these children.”
Back on Natoma Street, in Joan Thomas’ apartment, Royal played “Fortnite” and mostly ignored his grandparents. Thomas said she’s convinced her grandson is depressed. He doesn’t even want to dress up for Halloween this year.
“Whatever he is on Halloween, I try to be the girl. If he’s Superman, I’m Supergirl,” she said. “I’m worried he’s going to say he doesn’t want a Christmas tree.”
How will she feel when he can finally step back in the classroom?
“A sense of relief,” she said.
Let’s bring that relief to Royal and thousands of other children and their parents. It’ll take a lot of money and effort, but if any city can safely do it, it’s rich and creative San Francisco. We have no other choice.