Parents file lawsuit against district over schools staying closed

Suit blames teachers union for its ‘outlandish’ and ‘irrelevant’ demands that have prevented reopenings

A group of parents frustrated over currently closed schools has filed a lawsuit against the Fremont Unified School District, hoping to force district leaders to reopen classrooms for in-person instruction before school is out, even if it’s just for a few weeks.

The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court last week, follows through on a threat made in April by the group calling itself Fremont Parents for Reopening, which claims its kids are suffering academically and mentally during distance learning.

Reopening Fremont schools is “something that’s completely within (the district’s) power to do, and they are refusing to do it,” attorney Lee Andelin, of the Southern California-based law firm Aannestad, Andelin & Corn, said Thursday in an interview.

“They need to look at what’s good and what’s right, and not only, ‘What can we legally get away with?’ ” he said.

The lawsuit asks the court to order the school district — which serves roughly 35,000 students — to reopen all grades “for fulltime, in-person instruction to the greatest extent possible at the earliest practicable time, not to exceed seven days.”

The district failed to reach a deal with its teachers union after months of talks on how best to reopen schools during the spring, and on March 31, district Superintendent C.J. Cammack announced the district would stop negotiations and remain in distance learning through the rest of the current school year.

“The law is clear they don’t need the teachers union’s permission to reopen. Essentially, what they’ve done is given control to the union over the reopening process,” Andelin said.

The lawsuit said some of the union’s demands during negotiations — such as asking that police officers not be on campuses and seeking increases in compensation for hybrid teachers — were “outlandish” and “irrelevant” and that the union “engaged in efforts to scare the public about HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) issues.”

Andelin said parents feel their kids are “essentially being held hostage” and are concerned the school district may “continue to allow itself to get bullied” by the teachers union and keep kids out of school.

Victoria Birbeck-Herrera, the current president of the teachers union, said Thursday evening the school district board was “uncompromising” during negotiations over reopening in the spring and “unwavering in their lack of ingenuity to make it happen.”

Birbeck Herrera also questioned the motives behind the lawsuit.

“At this point in May, it is very sad to see a legal team accepting money to sue anyone over reopening. It is very clear their intention is not about reopening or in the best interest of our students,” she said.

Even as many other districts in the Bay Area managed to reopen for at least some in-person instruction in recent months, Fremont remained in distance learning despite efforts by some parents — including calls into board meetings and street rallies — to force the district to reverse its position.

“Hopefully, this is a wake-up call for the school district that it needs to take action, be bold and exercise leadership,” Andelin said.

A spokesperson for the school district said it hadn’t been served with the lawsuit and declined to offer a comment Thursday.

Andelin said he believes the district is violating the California constitution, “by giving its students an inferior form of instruction that’s causing all kinds of academic and mental health issues.”

Andelin’s firm, which was hired by the parents group in April, previously has sued six other school districts in San Diego County in similar cases. All of those districts eventually returned to some form of in-person learning, and quickly in some cases, Andelin said. The firm also has a case pending in Los Angeles.

In the lawsuit, Andelin also argues the district is violating state legislation SB 98, which says that for the 2020-21 school year, districts “may offer distance learning” under certain circumstances but “shall offer inperson instruction to the greatest extent possible.”

Though the last day of school in Fremont is fast approaching on June 9, Andelin said the effort to get kids back in school is worthwhile.

“I think two weeks of being in school, of interacting with their teachers, seeing their classmates, I think it makes a big difference for them, and it’s certainly something the district could do if it chose to,” he said.

He noted the lawsuit was filed May 6 but said it wasn’t accepted by the court until late this week.

Bob Bates, one of the parents in the group, said “it’s not ideal” that it took a while to hire an attorney and get the lawsuit filed, but he still thinks kids of all ages could benefit from being in school for even a short time and said teachers and staffers going could gain important experience of working with safety precautions in place.

He also noted some parents also want to keep pressure on the district to ensure it completes a firm plan for reopening fully in the fall, as it announced it would.

“The fact that (the lawsuit) is there, just like with the rallies and the press, I think that puts pressure on the school district to hopefully do things right in the fall,” Bates said. “The spring is really up to the judge at this point.”

Andelin said he’s hopeful the school district will voluntarily reopen schools rather than waiting to possibly be ordered to do so by the courts.

“Frankly, we would love for the lawsuit to become moot by virtue of the fact that they reopen,” Andelin said, “but we’ll see what they do.”