Reconstructing education

San Jose schools have also had to completely redirect to online programming. San Jose Unified School District has been entirely online since March, and while it seemed earlier this year that they may be able to welcome students back onto campuses starting in January, steadily rising case counts in Santa Clara County have made the future of schooling more uncertain.

SJUSD spokesperson Jennifer Maddox said district officials hope to set a new in-person target date once the county starts trending toward the orange tier, when the county is experiencing a “moderate” spread of the coronavirus. She said the district hopes to give families about four weeks’ notice before allowing students to return to campus in some form.

“The only thing that’s certain right now is things are going to continue to change,” Maddox said. “There’s a decent chance we’ll be able to welcome students back at some point, but it’s unclear how long it’s going to take for us to swing back out of this.”

She said during 2020, district officials worked to make distance learning as sustainable as possible while also preparing for some students to return.

“I really think this year has forced us to adopt technology,” Maddox said. “It was forced in a very short amount of time, which has been stressful for teachers. But the silver lining on that cloud is it has forced us to all move to being a much more modern education system, which i think is to the benefit of everyone.”