Bay Area families opting for independent study
Legal restrictions prevent schools from easily pivoting back to remote learning
Bay Area families worried about the surge of COVID-19 omicron cases are clamoring for remote learning options for their children, but school leaders can’t easily or legally pivot back to the same online models they used last year without losing state funds.
Last year, California lawmakers allowed an exception for school districts to offer online classes and still receive state funds for student attendance as a way to avoid mass outbreaks, but that option has expired.
Now, public schools must again provide in-person instruction to receive attendance funding. And there is little appetite among state leaders to change that.
Assembly Bills 130 and 167, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in July and September respectively, prohibit schools from using virtual learning as the primary vehicle for instruction. Newsom and other educational experts contend that in-person schooling is the best way for kids to learn.
But that doesn’t sit well with some students and teachers in Oakland Unified School District. A group of students are boycotting classes until the district meets their demands, delivered in a petition, to provide a safe school environment with regular testing, masks and outdoor eating areas. Without
those, the students are demanding a return to online instruction for two weeks. The teachers union also gave the district a 48hour deadline — up Jan. 22 — to agree to an updated COVID-19 safety plan or face a possible strike.
State law does give individual students the option to attend school through temporary or permanent independent study programs, but schools aren’t allowed to use the curricula as a way to close classrooms completely. All school districts and county offices of education are required to offer an independent study option as an alternative to in-person instruction this school year.
Juana Saguindel chose that alternative for her fourth grader and kindergartner at Garin Elementary School in Brentwood. She temporarily enrolled her kids in an independent study program before they returned from winter break to keep her family “safe from the virus” and prevent her kids from falling behind. She said she’ll consider sending them back to the classroom if
cases drop, but she is glad her kids are still learning, and aren’t at risk for now.
“On the first day of school we received a Gmail saying right away there was a COVID case,” Saguindel said. “I was like ‘Oh god.’ ”
Enrollment has soared in a new virtual program in Hayward and in other parts of the region since last fall, including Oakland and San Jose. The state has allowed districts to decide which model to use, such as online learning, group Zoom classes or individual handout assignments. Even more kids have enrolled since the start of the omicron surge in December at some districts.
Oakland currently has 1,092 students enrolled in its Sojourner Truth Independent Study School, and 85 more students have signed up for the program since the winter break. Cupertino currently has 204 students enrolled — a tenfold increase from previous years — in its program where the district previously averaged 20-30 students. Hayward Unified has nearly 490 students enrolled in its new virtual independent
study program and its traditional independent study program.
San Jose Unified has 492 students enrolled in its program. More students in San Jose had requested independent study at the beginning of the school year last fall, but officials have not seen an increase since returning from the holiday break in January, said Jennifer Maddox, a spokeswoman for the district.
Hayward Unified has had more interest in its programs since the postholiday omicron surge, said Dionicia Ramos, a spokeswoman for the district. There is space in both programs now, but capacity is limited due to staffing. Ramos also said secondary students have more restrictions about when they can transition into and out of the virtual independent study program given their semester schedule.
Other parents who want to keep their kids in physical classrooms to avoid any further learning loss are worried about schools potentially closing. Although it’s not likely that schools in Cupertino or
elsewhere will fully close, staffing shortages remain a problem.
Yi Ding, a parent of a student in the Cupertino Union School District, said he understands if teachers are staying home and have legitimate worries about their own health, but that districts have the data and knowledge on how to keep transmission of the virus low in schools.
“Our kid had a really tough time through distance learning and definitely fell behind,” Ding said.
Some districts with severe staffing shortages found ways to close temporarily without losing state funding.
West Contra Costa used two of its “smoke days,” also called “snow” or “pupil-free” days — allocated by the state to the district allowing it to close temporarily for COVID-related purposes — to shutter schools for two days following its return from winter break after seeing an uptick in omicron cases and staffing shortages.
Hayward also temporarily closed schools last week.
The district gave families the option of signing up for independent study or sending their kids to classrooms where they’d take online classes with staff supervision. Officials there have said they believe that model meets the criteria for state law.
If school leaders really can’t find any other staffing resources after consulting with their county office of education and the California Department of Education, they can seek a waiver for a temporary closure, said Maria Clayton, a spokesman for the CDE. State law does allow school districts to alter the academic calendar to shift planned breaks or add days in the spring to accommodate a short-term closure this month if they choose, Clayton said. But it’s not easy.
“Anyone who has worked in a school district understands that bargaining over the academic calendar is a complicated process, always with many interests to consider. In some cases, the academic calendars are finalized several years in advance,” Clayton said.