San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SAN DIEGUITO PLANS ON REOPENING
District says it might not have enough staff or substitutes to teach
The San Dieguito Union High School Board voted last week to reopen schools starting in January, despite warnings from district administrators, the teachers union and others that there won’t be enough staff and that the reopening violates state rules.
The board voted 3-2 late Tuesday night to offer all students one-day-aweek, in-person instruction starting Jan. 4, and five-days-a-week in-person instruction starting Jan. 27.
The board voted at 11 p.m., after receiving hundreds of public comments from students, parents and teachers arguing for or against reopening next month.
San Dieguito serves about 12,900 middle and high school students at 10 schools.
Many parents told the district that their children are suffering socially, emotionally and academically during school closures. Some said it’s not fair that other schools in the San Diego area have been open for months.
“Kids and families continue to suffer as the schools remain ‘open’ for only a select few,” said Amber Lahaise, a San Dieguito parent, in a written public comment.
Many students, teachers and parents questioned the district’s ability to safely reopen during a COVID-19 surge that has caused staffing shortages at neighboring school districts and has consumed all intensive care unit capacity in Southern California hospitals.
“We’re deep into the purple tier and multiple spikes that are getting worse,” said Duncan Brown, president of the San Dieguito Faculty Association.
Before the board’s vote, San Dieguito Deputy Superintendent Mark
Miller cautioned against scaling up reopening beyond one day a week before seeing how well the initial reopening goes.
“If you vote for anything more, I’m going to be brutally honest. You’re asking for trouble,” Miller told the board.
State rules
Superintendent Robert Haley said in an email Friday that the district is communicating with county health staff about reopening.
“We have been carefully planning an expansion of our reopening for January 4 for several months,” Haley said, “and our Board of Trust
ees ... understands there are differences of opinion and has listened to all voices.”
San Dieguito is reopening with San Diego County’s permission but in spite of state rules that say schools cannot reopen for instruction while their county is in the most restrictive, purple tier.
San Diego County has been in the purple tier since Nov. 10. Schools that had not opened for regular in-person instruction by then lost that opportunity.
“The planned ... reopening is not only unlawful under the California Department of Public Health orders, it is deeply troubling from a public health perspective,” said York Chang, California Teachers Association staff attorney, in a cease-and-desist letter the union sent to Haley on Monday.
“If SDUHSD insists on proceeding in such a reckless manner in violation of state orders, it is courting significant liability exposure,” Chang added.
In general, state guidance says schools can’t reopen for instruction during the purple tier if a school has only been offering in-person support to select small groups of students, which is the case for San Dieguito.
San Diego County has given guidance to schools that appears to contradict this state guidance.
The county says on its online FAQ page that schools can expand and reopen for instruction during the purple tier even if they are offering only small-group support sessions led by a teacher.
The county’s Chief Resilience Officer Gary Johnston assured San Dieguito it could proceed with reopening, the district said in a statement.
Johnston and other county officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Staffing shortage
While San Dieguito is pursuing reopening, many other districts have been doing the opposite.
Many districts said they lack staff to stay open because
staff members have had to quarantine due to COVID-19 positive test results or close contacts with people who got COVID.
Districts that were open but have suspended in-person instruction include Carlsbad Unified, Coronado Unified, Poway Unified, Escondido Elementary, Oceanside Unified and Vista Unified.
Districts that have postponed reopening include San Diego Unified, San Ysidro Elementary, Sweetwater Union High, La Mesaspring Valley, Lemon Grove, South Bay Union and Chula Vista Elementary.
On Thursday, two days after the San Dieguito board voted to reopen, the district’s human resources chief told the board she does not know if there will be enough teachers to reopen schools.
Human Resources Chief Cindy Frazee said 40 teachers have requested leave for health reasons and 20 have requested leave for child care reasons; 12 health leave requests came after Tuesday.
Frazee said the district is hoping to allow teachers to work remotely if they end up
having to quarantine.
If teachers work remotely, the district will still need substitute teachers or other staff to supervise students in classrooms.
Frazee said the district does not have enough subs. At best, it has about a dozen possible subs, she said.
Safety
San Dieguito board President Maureen “Mo” Muir, who pushed for reopening next month, invited four pediatric health professionals — three of whom have children attending district schools — to Tuesday’s board meeting, to serve as an expert panel to answer board questions about reopening.
All four told the board they are impressed with the district’s work on reopening.
“I ... highly encourage this to move forward because it is a safe, healthy choice for our kids in our community,” said Del Mar pediatrician Dr. Shakha Gillin at the meeting.
“There’s no way to say if you waited another week, it’s actually going to be safer or whatever. It’s safe with the measures any day you
choose.”
Some parents and teachers said they have concerns about the safety plan. For example, the district said it will maintain a minimum 3-foot distance between students in classrooms, not the recommended 6 feet.
The district also is planning to use the equivalent of MERV 8 to MERV 11 air filters in classrooms, along with HEPA air purifiers, according to its reopening plan. UC San Diego experts have said in a report on reopening schools that MERV filters with ratings below 13 are not effective at filtering for coronavirus.
Some district administrators, teachers and parents said they also are concerned about bringing hundreds of students to campuses at once under San Dieguito’s five-days-a-week plan.
Most other local school districts that have reopened are offering “hybrid” instruction, where students in groups take turns attending school part of the week or part of the day.