'Months, Not Weeks,' Until Students Can Return To San Diego Unified Schools
Speaker 1: 00:01 Vexing dilemma unprecedented. No. When uncertain, lesser, evil, there are many ways to describe the decisions faced by school districts. In this era of COVID-19 San Diego unified had already decided to begin the new school year. Online now comes word that it may be months not weeks before it's decided to let kids and teachers return to campuses. Joining me is KPBS education reporter Joe Hong. Thanks for joining us, Joe. Thanks for having me. Well, San Diego unified is adopting a stricter standard than the state is calling for. What's the basis for this decision, what went into it to keep students and teachers away from schools this fall? Speaker 2: 00:37 Yeah, so I think the district is really trying to come up with sort of a customized plan for reopening. You know, you have these larger, broader County and statewide guidances, but San Diego unified teamed up with these researchers from UCLA to come up with a more hyperlocal solution for each of its schools and each of its sort of clusters, because, you know, it does cover a pretty big area of the city, but also these different communities in San Diego unified look different. Um, so I think it's trying to be flexible and adapt to each of its individual sort of neighborhoods. Speaker 1: 01:16 So tell us a bit more about the difference between the UCS D report and the state's criteria on reopening schools. Speaker 2: 01:23 Yeah, so the state has its own sort of, uh, criteria for reopening schools and counties. So accounting needs to have a 14 day case rate of fewer than a hundred positive cases per a hundred thousand residents and a positivity rate of less than 8% over seven days. The district has sort of come up with its own criteria on top of the state criteria, which are, there needs to be fewer than seven outbreaks over a seven day period in the County and, um, much sort of stricter and more expedited contact tracing measures. Speaker 1: 01:58 And what do you expect it to look like when the schools do start to reopen in San Diego? It's going to be kind of baby steps, right? Yeah. Speaker 2: 02:05 So when school starts, there are going to be three key components. One is going to be a personal protective equipment, meaning face masks, a social distancing and better ventilation. So every student is going to be, uh, asked to wear a mask at all times. Um, teachers will also be wearing masks at all times, teachers in special education who need to work more closely with students in more close physical contact with students or might wear even more, uh, protective equipment. And on top of that, students will be sitting farther apart when possible. And if students do need to sit closer together, there will be sort of, um, plastic dividers between desks. Speaker 1: 02:52 So it's going to look a lot different obviously than, than a normal school situation of many parents rely on schools for daycare, essentially them to go Speaker 2: 03:00 To work. I know that fact is being considered. Um, it's just gotta be tough this fall with so many, uh, kids just not going to be at school. Yeah. Yeah. I know the, the district did say yesterday during, uh, the virtual press conference that it's looking at more vulnerable students, uh, let's say students in special education students who might need additional services, um, bring those students in earlier than, than the, uh, sort of the mainstream population sorta help with that childcare element. And based on the experience so far with remote learning, are there changes the district is making to improve things. So nobody was too happy about distance learning and how it works so far in the spring. Right, right. Yeah. Um, I think everyone will sort of admit that distance learning did not go well back in March and April and may. And you know, even when the school year starts up again, district administrators will be the first to say that it won't be ideal. Speaker 2: 03:58 It's, it's, there's no comparison to in person learning. But that being said at this time around there will be grading. There will be a required attendance, just sort of keeps students accountable, keep them motivated. There will be required. Uh, what's called synchronous learning, which is live sort of interaction on online between teachers and students. And there will be a sort of time for one on one sort of more, um, I guess more time for teachers to give students more focused attention. Yeah. You, you mentioned the, the tests and the learning and all I'm wondering about high school seniors trying to get into colleges. Might we see some options like to repeat grades for kids who are struggling? It just seems like it's such, such an influx situation right now, to be honest, I think with those questions, we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves. I think districts are still trying to figure out the, just sort of the foundations of re opening schools. Speaker 2: 04:55 Um, it's hard to say what, what the next year will look like for seniors applying to college, um, and getting ready to graduate. Yeah. We're just not really there yet. As far as you know, we'll other districts in San Diego County be opening schools at least to some degree. Yeah. I think that's the plan. Right. So right now the districts in San Diego County are just waiting to get off the state's monitoring list. Um, and from there, uh, districts will maybe bring back elementary school students first, uh, to sort of a pilot program with their sort of new pandemic learning situations. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I think the goal for all San Diego County districts is to bring students back to campus. I've been speaking with KPBS education reporter Joe Hong. Thanks, Joe. Thanks for having me.
