Deal reached to get children back in schools
ELK GROVE — The majority of California’s 6.1 million public school students could be back in the classroom by April under new legislation announced on Monday by Governor Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders. Critics panned the plan as inadequate.
Most pupils have been distance learning for the past year. But with coronavirus cases falling rapidly throughout the state, there has been increasing pressure to break a legislative logjam that has held up a statewide plan for in-person instruction.
If approved by the Legislature, the state would not order districts to return students to the classroom and no parents would be compelled to stop distance learning if they prefer it. Rather, the state would set aside $2 billion that would be paid to districts that get select groups of students into classrooms by the end of the month.
Crucially, the legislation does not require districts to reach an agreement with teachers’ unions on a plan for in-person instruction, a barrier districts including the state’s largest — Los Angeles — have not been able to overcome.
It also does not require all teachers be vaccinated, as teacher unions had urged and that could take months given the nation’s limited supply of vaccine. The legislation would make it state law that 10 per cent of the state’s vaccine supply be set aside specifically for teachers and school staff.
The California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said the agreement gets teachers “one step closer to rejoining our students”.