Campus returns to distance learning

An unprecedented recent spike in COVID-19 cases has put a strain on Tuolumne County’s resources for contact tracing and caused the Sonora Union High School District to revert back to off-campus distance learning through December.

The Sonora Union High School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously Tuesday night to switch from a part-time, on-campus education model to exclusively distance learning though the end of the calendar year in the midst of the largest surge in coronavirus cases the county has seen since the pandemic began nine months ago.

Superintendent Ed Pelfrey said on Wednesday that the recent spike in cases had slowed the contact tracing process between the county Public Health Department and the district, risking exposures by students and staff who may have contact with the virus but didn’t know it yet.

“That’s the challenge, and that’s the primary reason for the move to distance learning,” he said. “The Tuolumne County health office is doing the very best they can with the resources they had, but their capability to make timely notification of students and staff who have tested positive has been outstripped by the number of positive tests.”

Pelfrey said the district has had to call the county Public Health Department to confirm positive tests of students or staff before they receive an official notification.

“Before they have the opportunity to contact us, we know,” he said. “That leads me to wonder, primarily, if there are students who are positive or who should be quarantined who we don’t know.”

Pelfrey said five staff members and four students tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 15 days. The positive tests for each of them would have been between Nov. 3 and Nov. 15, he said.

Full distance learning will begin on Thursday and last until the end of the calendar year.

None of the trustees made comments preceding the unanimous vote Tuesday night.

Student board member Acacia Grimes presented arguments for a continuation of the hybrid model as well as a return to distance learning only, noting she conferred with student leaders before bringing her information to the board and superintendent.

“A student had said, and I quote, ‘We are currently focusing more on the fear and creating a disservice to our students educational journey,’ “Grimes said.

Grimes ultimately gave her (uncounted) student vote to distance learning and said she conducted a Facebook poll of approximately 100 students, with about 70 of them voting for distance learning only.

The decision comes in the wake of the county having the highest positive growth rate in the state. There were 254 active cases and nine people hospitalized with the virus as of Wednesday morning. An additional 46 cases were identified on Tuesday.

The decision by the board has also not silenced the ongoing chorus of parents and teachers calling for a more rapid reopening. Many critics of the district called the beginning of the hybrid reopening in October as still too cautious.

“We’ve been doing the best we can as a district and as a school to bring students on to campus as much as possible safely,” Pelfrey said. “We believe in-person instruction is the best way to teach students.”

There were 16 speakers from the public on Tuesday. The public comment was limited to 30 minutes total, with each speaker limited to one minute and 30 seconds.

A majority of the speakers, which included teachers and parents, advocated for a continuation of the hybrid model.

William Sarkisian, a teacher at Sonora High School, lauded the safety measures and said some students were being left behind in the distancelearning system.

“This system is not working for many of our students,” he said. “I see the strain and burden this has placed on you.”

Another Sonora High School teacher, Dave Rowan, complimented his colleague, but advocated for the opposite.

“These are students, these are teenagers,” he said. “If there’s ever a time to be cautious, this is it.”

Some parents said they hoped for a continuation of in-person learning because their students were receiving failing grades with the distance model. Others said they were speaking from personal experience and commented on the nature and danger of the virus.

“Speaking for myself, it’s wholly ineffective for what we can do for these children in this format,” said sophomore and senior parent Allen Aldridge, who also identified himself as a fourth grade teacher at Belleview Elementary School. “It’s unfair to keep flip flopping like we’ve been doing, on, off, on, off, on, off. It’s a disease that is very tragic and it does take lives, but it has proven to be overwhelmingly survivable.”

However, the parents advocating for distance learning appeared just as adamant in their conviction.

“The rapid increase we’re seeing overnight definitely concerns me in sending my son to school because we don’t have the resources at the moment to stay ahead of the ball,” said parent Nikki Coleman.

Prior to the meeting, Pelfrey received six emails from stakeholders who wished to continue the hybrid model and five emails from stakeholders who wanted a return to distance learning.

The county Public Health Department has left the onus of reopening decisions to the districts themselves, though it warned on Monday some schools may close “due to staffing shortages or out of an abundance of caution for the safety of all staff and students.”

The county was moved into the purple tier of the state COVID-19 risk classification system this week, though it dictated schools that were already open for in-person instruction may continue to do so. Schools can reach a criteria for closure to distance learning if they reach a certain case threshold.

Guided by a letter from the county Public Health Department, the district previously decided to provide distance learning until the end of the first quarter, Oct. 16. During that time, the district provided a plan to the department which required a phased, or hybrid reopening, with students parttime on campus and parttime in remote learning.

Currently, the department does not have to approve reopening plans for schools in the county.

The district’s board voted to adopt the hybrid plan on Oct. 8 and set it to begin at the beginning of the next quarter.

The district began the hybrid reopening the week of Oct. 19, with approximately half of the student body on campus beginning on Oct. 20.

In the first phase, the students were on campus one day a week, with 50% of students described as “cohort green” attending on Tuesday and the other 50% percent on Thursday as “cohort gold.” Students did distance learning with teachers on Monday and Friday, while Wednesday was remote learning without direct teacher instruction. On the days students are not on campus, they follow the class digitally from their home.

The model was scheduled to last until last Friday, at which time the cohorts would replace one of the distance learning days each to be on campus two days per week.

During the soft reopening, Sonora High School instituted a system of symptom checking at the beginning of the school day that requires each student to have a receipt to present to teachers at the beginning of each class. The check involved a person asking about symptoms and a touchless temperature scan before receiving the receipt.

Pelfrey said the safety measures on campus, which included masking, social distancing in classrooms, cleaning protocols, staggered breaks and parental interventions, were largely successful. The concern though, he added, was uncontrolled spread if the district did not know if a student or staff member was exposed or positive due to the rapid increase in countywide cases.

The school began the next phase of the hybrid reopening on Monday, but decided to call the special meeting on Tuesday after being contacted by the county Public Health Department on additional cases and the inability to contact trace, Pelfrey said on Wednesday.

“We appreciate that they are working as hard as they can,” he said. “It’s not safe for our students and staff if we have students coming to school who have not been contacted that they should be quarantined.”

The value of nine cases reported on Tuesday was an increase from the agenda released before the special meeting, which identified six positive tests in the previous 14 days and multiple others in quarantine because they had contact with people with positive tests. The new cases included two students and one staff member.

Pelfrey said Wednesday he did not have any data available indicating how many students were receiving failing grades, but acknowledged the metric increased since the institution of distance learning.

“We have students that are having success and we know we have a lot of students struggling. Intervening with that is a high priority for us,” he said. “We’re working on trying to make a difference for each student… We work with all parents individually to find individual answers for them.”

Pelfrey said there would be approximately 50 or fewer students remaining on in-person learning on campus, with specifications individualized to their needs. They included primarily students with internet connectivity issues in their homes, along with students with individualized learning struggles and students with IEPS, he said.

There are about 900 students at Sonora High School, and 150 students at the alternative education sites.

There are approximately 320 students per cohort.

The amount of students asking for distance learning only has steadily increased from about 160 students at the beginning of the hybrid model to about 220, Pelfrey said.

About a month ago, Summerville High School reported 639 students, with 40 choosing to do the independent study program.

Summerville Union High School District Michael Merrill said during a special board meeting on Nov. 12 that the district decided to maintain a half-day, inperson schedule through the Christmas break. The district initially planned to go to a regular schedule on Nov. 9 following a full reopening with the limited schedule on campus.

“Our administrative team is doing contact tracing in the event that there are any positive cases reported to us,” Merrill said in email. “We have had no additional cases of the virus associated with any close contacts.”