SAN DIEGO SCHOOLS BESET BY SHORTAGES, ABSENCES
Our schools are nearing the end of the third week following winter break, in the midst of the latest and largest surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. Staffing shortages and student absences throughout this school year were already putting enormous stress on students, educators and families before the winter break in late December, and the post-holiday Omicron surge has pushed many of our schools to the limits of their capacity to remain safely open. Thankfully, public health experts predict that the current surge will plateau and begin to decline over the next few weeks. The question for all of us as a community is what will school look like in the spring semester, and how do we prepare for the next school year given the uncertainty of the pandemic and the support students need if they are to recover and thrive moving forward.
For the next couple of weeks, we can expect a continuation of students and staff missing school days. Across the district, daily student attendance in January has averaged 80 percent to 85 percent, down from an average of 93 percent to 94 percent before the winter break, and down from pre-pandemic levels of 95 percent to 97 percent. We appreciate students and families taking the pandemic seriously, testing regularly, and staying home when students test positive or are symptomatic. Doing so has helped prevent the spread of the virus at school, as have our ongoing mitigations, which include proper air ventilation, required indoor and outdoor masking, provision of highquality masks to students and staff at school, weekly surveillance testing, and making vaccinations easily accessible to students, families and staff.
But for students missing multiple school days — including high school students preparing for and taking finals — we will need to be flexible and supportive as we help those students catch up. And despite the heroic efforts of educators to keep schools open, we need to recognize that the daily experience of students at school during these last few weeks has often been less than ideal. As COVID-19 positive or symptomatic staff properly stay home, students are commonly being taught by substitutes and in large group settings rather than in classrooms. For all students, the spring semester will need to include time and support for instruction that has been missed in January.
As students and staff return to school in the coming weeks, we will need to increase academic and social and emotional support for students. Licensed substitutes who are now filling in on a daily basis will need to be kept on for the rest of the school year. We will need to ramp up hiring of teachers, counselors and paraeducators who work with students with disabilities. And we will need to continue for the rest of the school year Superintendent Lamont Jackson’s efforts to take work off of the plates of school staff and administrators so that they can focus on direct support for students — meaning less professional development away from the classroom, and less emphasis on standardized testing that fails to help educators focus on the individual growth of their students.
From a health and safety perspective, we cannot let our guard down as we hopefully see case rates decline. We know that the pandemic continues to be a roller coaster, and we as a society have been wrong every time we assume a current surge will be the last one. For schools, that means increasing our efforts to get all of our students and staff vaccinated, including booster shots for those eligible. Staff in our district will need to be fully vaccinated or receive an appropriate exemption in order to continue working in the spring semester. Our district will continue to seek legal authority to mandate fully Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines for students as a condition of attending school in person. And we will continue to bring vaccine clinics to our schools, as we intensify testing of unvaccinated and symptomatic students, and as we make sure every adult and student at school wears a high-quality mask indoors and outdoors.
For all San Diegans, our ask is simple. Please do everything you can to keep our schools healthy and thriving. That means getting fully vaccinated, wearing quality masks, avoiding large indoor gatherings when possible (including Super Bowl parties), and advocating to state and federal officials for the ongoing funding schools will need over the next several years. If we stick together and all do our part, this generation of San Diegans will meet our responsibility to future generations.
District daily student attendance in January has averaged 80 percent to 85 percent, down from an average of 93 percent to 94 percent before the winter break.