Schools get $2B boost to reopen
Newsom’s goal is to have in-person instruction by middle of February
Facing growing pressure from parents and educators worried that students are falling further behind, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Dec. 30 unveiled a $2 billion package of incentives for California school districts to reopen classrooms for in-person instruction as early as mid-February even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage.
The package boosts spending for coronavirus testing, including weekly tests at schools in communities with the highest rates of COVID-19 transmission. It doesn’t appear to mandate testing, however.
And although teachers are expected to be in the mix of essential workers next in line to receive the coronavirus vaccine along with people at least 75 years old, it’s unclear whether they’ll be inoculated in time to safely return to classrooms about six weeks from now because distribution of vaccines has been lagging nationwide, including California.
In announcing his new plan, Newsom cited growing evidence that younger children are at a lower risk of contracting and transmitting COVID-19 and stressed that with adequate precautions, schools could effectively operate in-person classes without fueling the spread of the virus.
“As a father of four, I know firsthand what parents, educators and pediatricians continue to say: Inperson is the best setting to meet not only the learning needs but the mental health and social-emotional needs of our kids,” Newsom said. “In the midst of this pandemic, my administration is focused on getting students back into the classroom in a way that leads with student and teacher health.”
But for some teachers, skepticism about safety remains.
E. Toby Boyd, president of the California Teachers Association, said in a statement he appreciated the governor pushing for rigorous safety standards and transparency requirements tied to the reopening of schools, but there are still “many unanswered questions.”
“The devil is always in the details, particularly as it relates to implementation and execution,” Boyd said. “We look forward to hearing more information and hope the new guidelines that the Governor said would be released next week will create a coherent statewide plan rather than creating more confusion for parents and school districts.”
The proposal, which will be submitted to the state Legislature as an adjustment of the state budget, aims to first bring back students from transitional kindergarten to second grade as well as those with special needs, such as English learners, homeless, foster and lowincome children. The remainder of elementary school students would follow shortly thereafter, with a goal to be “back on track across the spectrum by spring 2021.”
Under the plan, districts that choose to transition to in-person instruction would receive about $450 per student, with the potential of up to about $700 per low-income student, English learner and foster youth, Newsom said Dec. 30.
To be eligible for the program, a school district must submit a safety plan to local and state agencies. Students and school staff will be required to wear masks at all times while on campus.
Only schools in counties with a seven-day average of fewer than 28 new coronavirus cases reported daily per 100,000 residents could open — a threshold that would keep schools in areas of the state with high transmission rates, including all of the Bay Area and Los Angeles County, shuttered for the foreseeable future. Santa Clara County, for instance, currently reports a seven-day average of 67 cases per 100,000 residents.
Even if a district decides to reopen, parents can opt to continue distance learning only if they are not comfortable with sending their students back into a classroom, Newsom said.
Tony Thurmond, state superintendent of public instruction, said he recognizes that not every school will reopen but noted the new funding will make it much easier for those that choose to.
“Our educators are leaning in and trying to provide everything they can, but we literally moved into distance learning overnight, and so there are unavoidable impacts that unquestionably have occurred,” he said. “… We know that many families, foster families and homeless families, English learners, free- and reduced-lunch families, have been impacted in different ways, and so we’ll be continuing our work to strengthen family-engagement strategies to ensure our kids are connected to their schools.”
The governor’s announcement comes during the most dangerous surge of the pandemic and after most schools across the state have been shuttered for almost a year to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. Underscoring the ever-present threat, the government announced Wednesday that a mutated strain of COVID-19, one that has been found to be more contagious and was traced to the United Kingdom, has been discovered by a lab in Southern California.
With more than 5,700 fatalities reported through the first 29 days, December already has been the deadliest month of the pandemic in California, and the average number of deaths and cases each day are still rising, though more slowly than before Christmas.
Prior to the December surge, elementary school districts were permitted to apply for waivers to reopen in-person classes, but only a small portion of schools across the state had done so.
In addition to parents, Newsom has been facing considerable pressure from some legislators to establish a uniform plan to transition back to in-person instruction. Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, earlier this month introduced a bill that would require schools allowed to open under state and county health orders — those in the state’s red, orange or yellow reopening tiers — to implement a plan to do so within two weeks. The governor’s new plan would go further to permit some counties in the purple tier to reopen as well.