Newsom touts school-reopening progress
Critics question hybrid plan and physical distancing restrictions
Gov. Gavin Newsom visited an Alameda elementary school Tuesday that just welcomed kids back to classrooms this week to tout progress toward reopening campuses closed for the past year by the coronavirus pandemic.
Of California’s nearly 11,000 public schools, the governor said about 9,000 have reopened or announced dates to reopen in coming weeks, up from fewer than 6,000 a few weeks ago.
“We are seeing real progress, real momentum,” Newsom told reporters at Ruby Bridges Elementary School in the Alameda Unified School District, adding that the $6.6 billion reopening bill he negotiated with lawmakers earlier this month has aided those efforts.
But as excited as kids and parents were to return to school this week at Ruby Bridges, as with most California public school districts, Alameda Unified’s reopening is only a partial hybrid plan, limited to elementary grades whose pupils will be on campus just two days a week for two and a half hours each. The rest of the time, they’ll continue their studies remotely on computers at home.
Middle and high school grades in the district will return to campus in the next month, and also for just a few hours a week.
Despite mounting scientific evidence that schools can operate safely in the pandemic and that kids are falling behind and suffering emotionally with prolonged distance learning, Califor
nia has trailed other states in returning kids to classrooms and getting schools fully reopened.
Along with teacher vaccinations and other safety measures, one of the biggest barriers for bringing kids back every day has been federal and state guidance indicating students should be kept 6 feet apart in classrooms wherever possible. California specifies they should not be closer than 4 feet apart, where it’s physically impossible to achieve a 6-foot space. As a result, most classrooms cannot accommodate every student at once.
But recent studies have called that distancing guidance into question, indicating that schools in Wisconsin and in Massachusetts have operated safely with kids 3 feet or more apart. Epidemiologists have called on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health authorities to revise their guidance.
School officials said Tuesday that allowing tighter spacing in classrooms would significantly improve their ability to bring kids back to campus and reopen fully, as public schools in many states and some rural parts of California have done already.
Alameda County Superintendent of Schools L.K. Monroe said the distancing guidelines are the top concern among county superintendents statewide.
“It’s something that’s brought up constantly,” Monroe said, adding that revised spacing would be “a game changer.”
“It’s huge,” Monroe said. Mia Bonta, president of the Alameda Unified school board, said allowing tighter student spacing would allow the district to negotiate a deal with staff to bring more kids back under the hybrid plan and be particularly helpful for getting middle and high schoolers back on campus.
Newsom stressed Tuesday that the state does allow spacing down to 4 feet in some cases, but said his administration is keeping an eye out for new guidance from the CDC.
Though the World Health Organization recommends 1 meter of distance between students — a little over 3 feet — there remains disagreement among researchers about how much spacing is enough. Critics have pointed out that the 3- to 6-foot spacing guidelines originated from studies of expelled respiratory droplets, and don’t take into account the travel of microscopic airborne virus particles that can spread COVID-19, and other factors such as ventilation.
Teachers, whose unions have been influential in the reopening debate, have said they aren’t convinced by the recent science and that many of the agreements on reopening have been based on the current rules.
But parents who have organized to push for schools to reopen say they hope the hybrid format is temporary and that California will catch up to other states that have welcomed back students full-time.
Megan Bacigalupi, a parent advocate with Oakland Unified School District Parents for Transparency and Safe Reopening, said surveys indicate that nationally, 59% of students in elementary schools, 43% in middle schools and 39.5% in high schools are attending five full days a week.
Bacigalupi said parents in her group were grateful for the progress in getting an agreement for transitional kindergarten through second grade to return to campus in two weeks, with additional grades by the middle of April. But they hope it is just a first step toward a full reopening at least by the new school year in August.
Jonathan Zachreson, founder of the statewide group Reopen California Schools, said many districts are returning for just the minimal grades and hours just to qualify for funding from the state bill.