Private school going remote for final week

Public school districts appear unlikely to take same precaution

An elite private high school in Oakland will go remote for the last week of classes, a precaution to stave off rising COVID-19 infections among the student body, administrators said Thursday.

Beginning Thursday morning, teachers at The College Preparatory School held classes online, hoping that the school’s 372 students would return to campus for finals on May 27, followed by in-person events to celebrate graduation.

“We’re just trying to be prudent,” Sara Sackner, the school’s director of advancement, told The Chronicle. With cases rising in the Bay Area, fueled by new, infectious variants that relentlessly spawn every four to six months, Sackner and other staff saw an opportune moment to shut down and beat back the surge.

By the middle of May health officials were reporting 2,500 coronavirus cases a day across the Bay Area — an underestimate, some experts said, because people are testing themselves at home or not getting tested at all.

Sadly, Sackner said, online education “is a skill we have had to acquire.”

She noted that although classes have shifted to computer screens, the school’s campus remains open. Sackner and other faculty worked there on Thursday.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether College Preparatory School’s decision would be a bellwether for other districts. Ryan Phillips, a spokesperson for West Contra Costa Unified School District in the East Bay, suggested that a lack of state funding would make it difficult for public schools to take this route, in addition to logistical challenges.

Bay Area public school officials who spoke with The Chronicle Thursday uniformly said that they had not considered changing their classroom format for the last weeks of the academic year.

“We continue to work closely with San Francisco Department of Public Health to monitor updates,” San Francisco Unified School District spokesperson Laura Dudnick said. “We are following public health guidance and strongly encouraging vaccines and boosters to those (who are) eligible, encouraging masking, and reminding students and staff to stay home if they are sick.”

Similarly, Oakland Unified School District spokesperson John Sasaki said the public schools have no plans to move classes online. He noted that even after the district lifted mask mandates last month, most students and staff kept their masks on, which may have prevented the virus from spreading.

Jennifer Maddox, a spokesperson for San Jose Unified, said the South Bay public school district will also stay in person for the rest of the year. It would likely take a new state health order for San Jose to shut down classrooms, she said.