A family’s struggle with school closures

Much like many other families have expressed throughout the area, the Garnica family has been struggling with the closure of schools due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Alyssa Garnica has been in charge of keeping her four children on task with school work while her husband

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Game On Puzzle Book works to provide for them. Her seventh-grade son and preschool daughter haven’t been able to return to school, though her kindergarten and fifth-grade daughters have been able to return to Tierra

Buena within the last month, though only four days a week for two-and-a-half hours a day.

“It’s been devastating,” Garnica said. “My husband

had to change jobs because I’ve been stuck at home for 11 months with the four kids. We’ve maybe been able to leave the house every two weeks during that time. It’s just been horrible and my children are suffering.”

Since school closures began in 2020, she’s noticed her children have become more anxious and fight with each other more. She said they miss the presence of others in a classroom setting and would perform better with their teachers in front of them.

“My son has been withdrawing, even from his online classes where they are supposed to do group things with fellow students. He hasn’t seen his friends for the past 11 months. My daughter has one friend and she’s seen her twice, so the social cutoff has probably been the most devastating for them. I feel my kids are a year behind, and with the emotional impact, our house is in chaos a lot of the time.”

She feels fortunate that the family has a mortgage they can afford on one person’s income, but she questions how others who aren’t as lucky have been dealing with the school closures and their impacts to a parent’s ability to work.

Advocating for reopening

At the past two meetings of the Yuba

City Unified School District Governing Board, Garnica has advocated for schools to reopen.

She said board members haven’t acknowledged her comments.

But she was surprised to find that she was the only parent to speak during the meetings, as she feels there are many others who share her opinion. One reason, she said, could be that many were unable to attend virtually, another could be because it was somewhat tricky to sign on and go through the proper process of getting permission to speak.

Garnica suggested other concerned parents

interested in speaking up call the district (Yuba City Unified School District – 822-5200) to have someone explain how best to access the meetings and sign up for public comment.

“My hope is for schools to reopen and for more transparency and more accessibility for the public to get involved in things like this,” Garnica said. “I can’t be the only parent that cares throughout the community.”

Latest CDC guidance

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools through Phased Mitigation recently, which stated it is critical for schools to open as safely and as soon as possible, and remain open, to achieve the benefits of in-person learning and key support services.

The report outlines mitigation strategies to reduce transmission of COVID-19 in schools and learning modes by level of community transmission.

The framework divides reopenings into four color-coded zones, including low (blue: 0-9 new cases per 100,000 in the past seven days) and moderate (yellow: 10-49 new cases) — both of which are encouraged to consider reopening

fully for in-person learning. Schools in areas of substantial transmission (orange: 50-99 new cases) would be advised to consider a limited reopening with multiple safety strategies implemented. The counties with the highest rate of transmission (red: more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days) could consider limited openings for elementary schools with certain modifications, though middle and high schools would still be advised to remain closed.

Based on those metrics, the Yuba-sutter area would currently fall somewhere in the moderate (yellow) to substantial (orange) categories — find the overview of the CDC’S recent guidance at https:// bit.ly/2zdyg6a.