Will vaccines speed schools’ return?
The fingerpointing in the reopening of San Francisco schools continued Wednesday, as district officials blamed the city for not supporting a return to classrooms and labor leaders blamed the district for not organizing onsite vaccinations, even as priority vaccines rolled out for thousands of teachers and school staff.
More than 2,600 San Francisco teachers and school staff now have a code giving them access to dedicated vaccination appointments for educators, which should allow them to get their first COVID19 shot within days, city officials said Tuesday.
District officials sent these first vaccine codes to the staff at the schools set to reopen first, including preschools and 24 of the city’s 64 elementary schools.
“These codes can be used to schedule appointments at Moscone Center and other Bay Area sites now,” Mayor London Breed said Wednesday in a statement.
It’s unclear how many district teachers have been vaccinated so far, but the codes ensure that every educator in prioritized schools should have almost immediate access to the vaccine.
San Francisco Unified has about 4,600 teachers, as well as thousands of other school staff including teacher aides, counselors, office and cafeteria staff, and custodians.
The dedicated vaccines cover all those currently working in schools or who will be among the first to return when classrooms reopen.
Amid a growing call from parents, health officials and others for students to return to classrooms,
state and local officials have prioritized vaccines for teachers across California, with the belief it would pave the way for reopening.
Yet in San Francisco, vaccines might ease anxiety for teachers who could return to schools in the coming weeks or months, but provides no guarantee classrooms will reopen anytime soon given ongoing labor negotiations and a scramble to move furniture, fix windows and other tasks at dozens of elementary schools.
San Francisco health officials said they are waiting on the district to request inspections of schools ready for reopening. So far, only six elementary schools have been readied and approved for reopening.
District officials, however, blamed the city Wednesday for delays in reopening, saying more vaccinations, testing and support are needed to reopen.
“Any delays in getting staff vaccinated will result in senseless delays in opening schools,” said Superintendent Vincent Matthews in a statement. “As we’ve repeatedly stated, we need the City to immediately prioritize access for our educators.”
In fact, vaccinations are not the reason schools remain closed. County health officials do not require teacher vaccines to open. The district and labor unions agreed to require them if the city is in the state’s second most restrictive red tier, which is where San Francisco is now. In the orange tier, the agreement does not require educators to be vaccinated.
The city is expected to reach the orange tier in less than two weeks.
Breed has emphasized that the city has contributed more than $15 million to help the district manage the pandemic and created learning hubs to provide a safe supportive space for students in distance learning.
School Board President Gabriela López criticized the city Tuesday for giving the district 2,650 codes out of 5,000 received from the state. Yet that allocation is also for private schools and charter schools, many of which are already open across the city.
District officials instead pointed fingers at the city for failing to provide more resources to help open schools.
“I’d like for our City partners to join us in putting on a teacher vaccination day like nearby counties have for their educators,” López said in the statement. “Up to now, teachers have been scrambling to make appointments at Walgreens and CVS, but without the priority codes, they had to get things done the best way they could.”
Union officials blamed the district for delays, saying the district needs to set up vaccination sites on district property and provide timely information on where staff can get available vaccines.
“Our educators and school staff shouldn’t have to monitor Twitter for updates about how they can access vaccines,” said teachers union President Susan Solomon in a statement Wednesday.
Solomon did not acknowledge the codes distributed to teachers Tuesday for priority appointments.
The weekly allocation of 75,000 vaccines by the state for educators only became available starting on Monday.
State officials urged districts to prioritize educators already back to inperson teaching, or those expected to return to classrooms within three weeks.
San Francisco schools are not expected to reopen before midApril, if not later, and only for preschool through second grade initially.
For Josephine Zhao, a parent liaison at Gordon Lau Elementary, the news that teachers started receiving codes was “great.”
But she feels there has been so much loss already, and the apparent deadlock at the bargaining table is only contributing to that, she said.
“A whole generation of kids is losing out in terms of social, emotional and physical development as well as academics,” she said. “We’re not going to be there fast enough.”
Zhao, whose children are in 11th and eighth grades, said she believes each school should set its own schoolday schedule for reopening given how different each site is in terms of demographics and a desire to return. That would end the labor stalemate.
In the meantime, she said she hasn’t received a code yet, because her school is not in the first two waves, but would be happy to go back without a vaccine.
“I believe in masks and social distancing,” she said. “I see those work.”
State officials sent the first round of vaccine codes to the city late Tuesday for distribution to the district, as well as private schools and charter schools. The codes were expected a day earlier.
Meanwhile, the district continues to negotiate with the teachers union on what the school day will look like when and if classrooms reopen. Without that agreement, district officials can’t schedule even the first round of students to come back.
Superintendent Matthews said this week he still has no specific timeline for reopening schools given ongoing uncertainties.
The district continues to set up school sites to meet health and safety standards, including spacing desks and posting signage, among other requirements.
“We still need a clear timeline from the district on reopening,” Breed said. “All of our kids need to be back in the classroom safely as soon as possible, and that includes working to get them back in five days a week for full days as soon as possible. We’ve lost so much this year, and we have to do everything we can to support our kids.”