S.F. schools’ virtual first day, with hope
Shaky spring left many wary but determined
San Francisco schools threw open their virtual doors Monday, starting a new academic year with a distance learning game plan officials hope will offer more live instruction than the spring.
Until the district’s 53,000 students can return to class, they will have to log on for an education with their 3,600 teachers.
The stakes are high, with parents fearing a repeat of what was largely a disastrous start to distance learning in the spring, when schools were required to switch to remote instruction overnight.
There appeared to be cautious optimism among teachers, parents and administrators that it would be better and that students would not lose out on learning like they did in March, April and May.
Teachers have agreed to work sevenhour days, up from four hours in the spring, and have had some training on distance learning. Many have spent the summer months preparing for remote instruction this fall.
Kindergarten teacher Angela Owens was nervous Sunday night, anxious to meet her new
Sunset Elementary class, but also disappointed she would see them only on a screen.
She was a firstyear teacher last year, when the pandemic shuttered schools in midMarch. Like all teachers, she scrambled to connect with families and students through the end of the year, mostly meeting with them individually online.
But this year, she and the other kindergarten teachers had a game plan ready to go.
On Monday morning at 9:20 a.m., the faces of her 19 students popped up on her screen, some wearing headphones half the size of their little heads, others yawning or spinning in adultsized office chairs.
“Hello!” Owens said, her voice lively, her facial expressions and body language exaggerated to help bridge connections with students through bits and bytes. “I see Jake. I see Riley. I see Bao. I see Shino and Janice and Grayson and Parker!”
She waved, and they waved back.
“I am going to be your teacher this year!” she said. “We’re starting the year on the computer. It’s going to be so fun!”
She helped guide the students through Zoom practice sessions, turning the mute button and camera on and off while taking attendance and then sharing some details about herself.
“I love the color green, and I love turtles and tortoises, and I love kindergartners,” she said.
One student wandered away for a bit, another sipped a drink, another continued to spin in his chair. Parents hovered in the background, including one mom who wore a “Life is better with naps” Tshirt.
But for the next 4½ hours, the students would be at school — in this case logged on to Zoom — stepping away from the computer for lunch or recess times and turning off their cameras and microphones while they worked on class assignments independently.
Owens encouraged parents to get students up and dressed, pack a lunch if desired and send their children to school for the day, even if that meant the kitchen table.
Many students in San Francisco and other districts across the state received little live instruction in the spring after schools closed, and parents voiced concerns that the fall would be no different.
The amount of live learning expected from teachers had to be negotiated between districts and teachers unions.
In San Francisco, the agreement calls for two hours of live instruction or live interaction each day, but that could mean individual meetings or small group sessions — leaving some students with far less interactive time than others, said school board President Mark Sanchez.
“I feel like it’s an open question whether we will be able to engage students anywhere near inperson learning,” he said. “We want to make sure that ... students have the ability to be engaged two hours a day.”
Not all students in San Francisco Monday had a full day of learning though. Some spent an hour or two online with teachers and were done by midmorning, with no homework or activities to keep them busy. The schedule was largely dependent on individual teachers or schools.
Jennifer Butterfoss said both her children, one in transitional kindergarten and one in third grade, had a “pretty smooth” first day at Alvarado Elementary.
Her third grade daughter spent about 30 minutes online with her teacher and class and then had assignments to do later in the day while the teacher conducted oneonone sessions with each of her students, a schedule they would likely follow the rest of the week.
So far, everything was much better than in the spring, when it was “all hands on deck, let’s just panic,” Butterfoss said.
On Monday, “my kids were both pretty into it,” she said. “I think we all sort of know what to expect.”
But across the district, many parents and students say they hope the pace will pick up, because it’s still unclear when teachers and students will be able to return to inperson learning, even for a couple of days each week.
But the school day will nonetheless be shorter, with a new state law reducing the minimum instructional minutes required during distance learning, with the number varying by grade level.
In the meantime, the district’s grading policy will go back to the original one used before schools closed, which means middle and high school students will receive letter grades, with transitional kindergarten5th grade students receiving feedback on their progress.
It could be a month or more until any kind of inperson learning happens in schools, officials said, and depends on coronavirus case counts and hospitalization rates as well as negotiations with unions.
The district has been scrambling to get computers into the hands of students and get WiFi hot spots set up. Up to 10,000 students needed devices, according to a spring survey, and 5,000 need internet access.
San Francisco schools have been facing a $20 million deficit, and despite a $15 million boost from city coffers, will still struggle to pay for all the additional costs associated with distance learning, officials said.
One way they’ve cut costs is by dropping bus services. But now, officials face a planned protest Thursday by up to 260 school bus drivers, who received layoff notices from their company, First Student, because the district will not continue to pay for the service while schools are shuttered. The decision will save $26 million per year. The layoffs are effective Aug. 31.
The bus drivers are not district employees, but are contracted to drive through First Student.
“We have served the city of San Francisco for 50 years,” said union officials, in a statement. “And we do not think it is too much to ask that the city find a way to provide for us for a few months so that we are able to return to the job that we are proud to do.”
In general, however, it appeared that the school year kicked off relatively smoothly, with no major hiccups so far, said Susan Solomon, president of United Educators of San Francisco, which represents the district teachers.
Many teachers spent the summer learning new technology and preparing for online learning, she said.
“With all of the challenges, and they are many and big, actually people ended up feeling good about starting,” she said. “The thing that’s not much different than a regular school year — we really do look forward to seeing our kids.”
During the students’ hourlong lunch, Owens reflected on the first day. Only one potential student was absent, and it felt a little more like normal school than it did in the spring, she said, but still not the same.
She realized she has less control over distractions, making it harder to keep their young attention. It’s not like she can tell them, “Ignore the fun things that you have in your room and look at the screen,” she said. Still, she felt it went “OK.” Just before 2 p.m. and a goodbye for the day, Owens asked her students to give two thumbs up if they were excited for Day Two — and 38 thumbs went up, accompanied by big smiles.
“Wahoo!” Owens said after she logged off. “Cuties!”