Marin County takes risk by weighing near return to normal
The Marin County schools superintendent was gushing.
“Isn’t it just great?” Mary Jane Burke asked, as she summarized the county’s recommendation to reopen schools and bring all kids back to classrooms full time in the fall, with masks and social distancing.
Marin was among the first counties in the state to release such a specific plan for a return to inclass instruction, a nearly backtonormal environment, with more liberal guidelines than recommended by the state.
Despite Burke’s optimism, the plan sparked immediate resistance and a heated debate, one playing out in virtually every district across the state, over what is an acceptable level of risk for students and staff — and at what point do the ben
efits of inclass instruction outweigh the concerns over the coronavirus spreading.
That means, based on budgets, available space, labor agreements and local health guidance, some districts will start the year fully online while others will bring all kids back to class fulltime with safety measures in place. Still others will adopt a hybrid plan somewhere in the middle. In some cases, decisions could reflect increasing case counts or the status of reopening, which varies among counties.
There is no perfect plan, officials say, and it’s a guessing game likely to draw community ire regardless of which direction a district goes.
In Marin County, the plan emphasizes getting all kids back in class, with cohorts of students staying with their teachers, desks 4 feet apart rather than the 6 recommended by the state, as well as temperature checks, handwashing and other safety measures in place. If someone comes down with the coronavirus, the cohort would be sent home for a 14day quarantine, rather than the whole school.
Each of the county’s 18 districts is now considering whether to adopt or modify the plan, depending on space, staffing and other considerations.
The Marin County guidelines, released last week, were a dream scenario for weary parents eagerly anticipating the return of the sack lunch and sevenhour school day, but the plan drew immediate fire from many in the community who recoiled at the idea of 25 kids or more in a classroom five days a week as the coronavirus continues to circulate across the country.
“There’s been a mixed response,” said Dr. Matt Willis, the county’s health director. “Some people feel we’re opening too fast, some feel we’re opening too slowly.”
Willis and Burke said they believe the scales have tipped toward reopening with children back in school five days a week.
But many teachers were wary, arguing the county guidelines were more liberal than those of the state and could put students and staff at risk.
“It’s a gamble with the health of students and their extended families, and teachers and their extended families,” said Andrea Gough, a Marin County middle school teacher. “I feel evidence isn’t being put out there to justify this decision to squeeze large numbers of students into classrooms that cannot accommodate them at a 6foot distance.”
While county officials recommend outdoor learning as much as possible, students will still be in classrooms for hours each day, within feet of each other — which health experts say is a highrisk environment, despite masks.
In middle and high schools, students would be exposed to an even larger cohort, perhaps 100 or more as they move between classes, according to the guidelines.
It’s unclear how many of the Marin County districts will adopt the guidelines. They were a bit of a shock to teachers, said Jim Hogeboom, superintendent of San Rafael City Schools. The district is still in the planning stages and taking the guidelines into consideration.
“Teachers are afraid,” he said. “There are a million questions. Are you going to clean the bathroom every time a kid goes in there?”
The district’s board is expected to decide on a plan in late July, Hogeboom said. His best guess is they will bring back elementary students to the smallest class size possible and do a modified inperson schedule in upper grades, incorporating some kind of distance learning.
“The bottom line is we don’t know now,” he said. “We need some more time.”
San Rafael parent Monica Jones needs more time, too.
“It’s so early,” she said. “I don’t know where things are going with the virus. Things seem to be getting worse.”
Jones has three children in Marin County schools, two in high school and one in middle school. She wants them back in class. They want to be back in class.
“How can I send my kids back, but my company isn't prepared for us to come back?” she said, adding she’s in waitandsee mode. “I’ll most likely abide by what (the districts) are doing, assuming it’s in line in terms of the numbers and the science behind it.”
The science, though, can add to confusion. This coronavirus has only existed in humans for about seven months, and much is not yet known about how it affects children in particular.
Studies suggest that children are both less likely to be infected and suffer less serious illness when they do get sick.
Kids are very often the source of other respiratory illnesses that get shared well beyond the classroom. That may or may not prove true with the coronavirus, too. But it will be hard to know that for sure until schools reopen, infectious disease experts said.
“I don’t think we’ll know until we get the kids back in school and see what happens when there’s a larger reservoir of people who may get the virus,” said Dr. Lorry Frankel, head of the department of pediatrics at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.
Among the most important unknowns is whether children who are infected but don’t have obvious symptoms of illness are likely to spread the virus, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Stanford.
“Obviously, nobody’s going to send a child who’s sick to school,” she said. “But how often will children be asymptomatic, and if they come to school then, will they be able to transmit to other kids?”
Infectiousdisease experts note that though kids may not be especially vulnerable to serious illness from the coronavirus, the same can’t necessarily be said for their teachers and other school staff.
District officials will have to navigate those unknowns as well as a seemingly endless number of roadblocks and challenges related to reopening, regardless of which path they choose.
Those who lean toward inclass instruction will have to address the possibility that not all teachers will want or be able to come back because of health concerns.
Those adopting hybrid plans will have to consider how teachers will instruct both in person and online during a given week and how to deal with transportation,
family issues and child care if students go to school only two days a week.
All districts will probably have to offer some form of distance learning for students with underlying health conditions, which increase risks related to the coronavirus.
Many districts are still weeks away from deciding. San Francisco expects the board to adopt a plan in midto late July.
In the Sausalito Marin City School District, officials have already been testing their plan to bring all kids back full time, with 12 students per classroom.
The district, which has only one school and 115 students total in grades K8, piloted inperson learning in late May and early June, and currently is operating inperson summer programs, said Superintendent Itoco Garcia.
The district will be able to reduce class sizes to 12 because they have the space and as a Basic Aid district that gets to keep extra property tax revenue, they have the money, or an annual budget of $5 million, which pencils out to $44,000 per student.
Some districts are facing budget shortfalls and cuts, meaning adding staff or reducing class sizes will be financially difficult if not impossible.
“We do have a plan to reopen for all students five days a week, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. beginning in the fall,” Garcia said. “We believe it is the safest, most responsible way for us to run school.”
Garcia acknowledged the health concerns among some in the community, but noted there are always safety issues in schools and there is no scenario that is risk free.
“Our No. 1 job is to make sure our kids and our staff get home safe every day,” Garcia said. “On the one hand, yes, COVID19 is an additional concern, and on the other hand, it goes on the list of things that I mitigate the risk for every day.”