Itâs been a couple of days since the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) announced a tentative agreement with the teachers union to start reopening some schools for in-person learning on April 12 â but teachers and parents still say they donât know the details.
MarÃa Quelx lives in the Mission District and has eight children. Four of them are in elementary school. On Saturday, she wasnât aware that some schools would reopen or that SFUSD had presented a timeline.
âI would like for someone to let me know, for someone to tell me or my kids because I had no idea,â she said. Quelx doesn’t use a computer or speak English so she has a hard time keeping up-to-date with every school development.
While the United Educators of San Francisco announced on Friday theyâve reached an agreement that outlines how hybrid learning will work, some teachers still donât have all the details, said Maureen Sullivan, a bilingual teacher-librarian at Dolores Huerta Elementary School.
âHow will we be teaching distance learning students as well as in-person learning students at the same time?â Sullivan asked.
The United Educators of San Francisco plans to hold a meeting on Monday to give teachers more information. The union expects to roll out in-person learning in phases and is initially focusing on students in pre-Kindergarten to second grade. The agreement now needs to be approved by union membership.
âIt took a lot of hard work and a lot of time and compromise and back-and-forth,â said, said Susan Solomon, president of United Educators. âThe focus is on pre-K to second grade first, and then expanding to fifth grade and then all students in special education programs.â
Teachers are expected to vote on the tentative agreement this week. It allows students to remain with the teacher they had for remote learning and class sizes will continue to be 22 students in the primary grades. The deal also requires that face masks, hand sanitizer and PPE be available to all educators.
A screengrab from the SFUSD presentation: “Return to In-Person Learning Update” published on February 9, 2021, which shows what a typical classroom layout could look like in schools that are allowed to reopen. (Courtesy of SFUSD)
The school district also plans to install a plexiglass partitions on each teacherâs desk. Additionally, each student will be offered a box with their school supplies to avoid sharing,
The union hasnât committed to providing in-person learning to students at the middle and high school level before the end of the semester.
âIt does feel pretty unlikely,â Solomon said.
The union believes that these protections â in addition to increased ventilation, frequent testing of students and vaccinating on-site staff â will keep teachers safe, said Solomon.
San Francisco Unified School District said on Twitter itâs âon track to offer in-person learning options at a select number of schools for the Districtâs youngest students starting on April 12, 2021.â
We are pleased to let you know that #SFUSD is on track to offer in-person learning options at a select number of schools for our youngest students starting on April 12, 2021. Additional students will be offered in-person options before the end of April.https://t.co/J8c56yGP0R pic.twitter.com/TVMknb4XGL
â SF public schools (@SFUnified) March 6, 2021
On its website, the district stated not all elementary schools will open. Only six elementary schools are currently ready to welcome back students: Alvarado, Cobb, Glen Park, Lawton, Muir and Sunset.
The school district is allowing families to choose whether to send their children back to their classrooms or continue with distance learning. They plan to offer every eligible student up to five days of in-person instruction per week.
Unclear daily logistics
According to the union, teachers at the selected schools will have two weeks to prepare their classrooms and lesson plans before theyâre asked to return. Sullivan, the teacher-librarian at Dolores Huerta Elementary School, is relieved the union has reached a deal with the district but still a lot of questions.
âWe still donât have a clear understanding of what recess is like and how lunchtime will work and what the day-to-day schedule looks like,â she said.
Sullivan has two children â a nine and 13-year old â and her partner works as a nurse at San Francisco General Hospital. She wants the union and the district to explain what resources the agreement provides for teachers who have children that are still learning remotely. One solution sheâd like is for the district to provide small in-person learning hubs that her kids can join.
âI donât feel comfortable leaving [my daughter] at home by herself all day,â Sullivan said. âIâd like to know what the plan is and if educators will have the chance to get their kids into learning hubs.â
SFUSD has assigned Dolores Huerta Elementary, which is on the border of Noe Valley and Bernal Heights, to reopen in the next wave of in-person learning. No official date has been given as to when that will begin.
Over a hundred parents, teachers and community members from Dolores Huerta Elementary signed a letter addressed to Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors asking that officials provide clearer information on issues like access to public transportation for parents when the school opens up again.
A Sense of Urgency
Parents like Quelx, who lives in the Mission, say the school district hasnât done a good job communicating with parents who donât speak English or donât have easy access to the Internet.
While Quelx fears that schools may be reopening too quickly, she believes that the best place for her eight kids to learn is inside a classroom. She says it has been difficult for her children to participate in online learning at the same time. The only way the family has been able to make it work has been for each kid to wear headphones during their lessons.
And while she is trying to support them, Quelx says she canât keep up with the various challenges, which range from the wi-fi dropping out to keeping on top of her kidsâ schedules.
âTheyâre still little so itâs been hard for me,â she explained. âI really want my kids to go back to school.â
Quelx is worried about their health. A few months ago, she and some of her children were sick with COVID-19. She and her family got very sick and she doesnât want to go through that again.
Quelx said her decision will be based on getting more information about the protections the school district committed to putting in place. And she wants to know who will make sure the district keeps to the agreement. But she does feel a sense of urgency to get her kids back in school as keeping them at home grows more complicated every day.
âItâs been really difficult for me, thereâs no other way to say it,â she said.
KQED’s Holly McDede contributed to this report.
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