KPBS Midday Edition

Will Distance Learning Make The Grade In San Diego Schools?

By Pat Finn / Producer , Mark Sauer / Host, The Roundtable

Published April 28, 2020 at 9:00 AM PDT

This story was published more than 4 years ago.

San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten at a press briefing on April 24, 2020.

The teacher's union has agreed to the San Diego Unified School District's plan for distance learning for all students for the remainder of the school year because of COVID-19. The plan, which the district begins implementing this week, is flexible and contains some unusual features.

San Diego Unified School District launches its new distance learning model this week for all students.

COVID-19 has shuttered all schools and classrooms, and now teachers and students alike are learning how to cope with learning in an environment that is at once alien and all-too-familiar.

The plan, approved by the teacher's union Friday, is nothing if not flexible.

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Some highlights: No student will receive a grade lower than that which he or she was earning before the schools closed. Teachers set their own daily schedules, are not required to work more than four hours a day and won’t be evaluated based on their distance learning instruction skills.

To reach students without access to a computer, the district has loaned more than 40,000 Chromebooks to students who need them, made special fee arrangements with internet providers and arranged for students who do not have internet access to receive printed materials.

The agreement with the teacher's union expires July 2

Joining KPBS Midday Edition on Tuesday to talk about SDUSD's distance learning plan are Superintendent Cindy Marten and Zachary Patterson, a sophomore at University High School and an elected student member of SD Unified's Board of Trustees.

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KPBS Midday Edition San Diego COVID-19

Pat Finn

Pat Finn previously served as a producer for KPBS Midday Edition and KPBS Evening Edition. Finn began her career in broadcasting at KTLA and KCET in Los Angeles. In 1979 she became KPBS’ Public Information Director, then Director of Advertising and Promotion, Program Director, and Director of Broadcasting. She oversaw the station’s local and national productions, including the one-hour documentary Los Romeros: The Royal Family of the Guitar, and Child Protective Services, a one-hour look inside the San Diego County agency responsible for the welfare of at risk children. Both programs also aired on public television stations nationwide. Finn has earned honors from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Pacific Southwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

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Mark Sauer

A newspaperman for more than 30 years, Mark Sauer joined KPBS in October 2010 and previously served as the host of the KPBS Roundtable. He spent 27 years as a reporter and editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune after stints at The Houston Post and at two papers in his native Michigan. A features/human-interest writer in the UT's Currents section for many years, Mark also spent about a third of his UT career as an editor and reporter on the Metro Desk. He has covered a wide range of events: Wild fires in Southern California and Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast; Super Bowls and the World Series; foster care and child-abuse issues; the Roman Catholic Diocese's sexual-abuse scandal and bankruptcy; royal visits of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and Princess Diana; Republican and Democratic national conventions; high-profile criminal trials; and many other stories, from the silly to the sublime. Along the way, he interviewed everyone from presidents to pan-handlers. His work exposing the false accusations and prosecutions of several San Diegans for murder, rape and child abuse garnered Pulitzer Prize nominations and many regional and local journalism awards, including Best in the West, the Sol Price Award for Responsible Journalism and several San Diego and California bar-association awards. Mark has a degree in journalism from Michigan State University.

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