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Plans for Pleasanton Unified School District students in fifth grade and lower to return to in-person learning while Alameda County is in the purple tier of the state’s COVID-19 monitoring system will be presented at the Board of Trustees online meeting on Tuesday night, starting at 7 p.m.
No return date has been announced and students in all grades continue to do remote learning for now, with the exception of certain small cohort programs at several PUSD sites. The California Department of Public Health recently stated, however, that schools may reopen for kindergarten through grade 6 while in the purple tier, if the adjusted case rate in their county “has been less than 25 per 100,000 population per day for at least 5 consecutive days.”
As of Jan, 26, the adjusted case rate was 28.9 per 100,000 residents in Alameda County over a 7-day average — a decrease from Jan. 5, which was 31.6 per 100,000 residents adjusted.
Schools are not allowed to reopen for Grades 7 through 12 if the county is in the purple tier, but district spokesperson Patrick Gannon told the Weekly that is “why we’re exploring ways to expand.”
“The new guidance does change the requirements as far as reopening in the purple tier and we’re encouraged that this could allow for us to open sooner, rather than waiting until we are in the red tier as previously required,” Gannon said.
The new criteria and requirements replace the elementary education waiver issued in August that allowed local health officials to grant waivers for kindergarten through grades 6 if certain criteria were met. Waivers that were approved prior to Aug. 3 remain valid.
Per the process, districts must now submit a new reopening plan to the state and county like the one being shown on Tuesday. The district previously submitted a plan very similar to the new one, that was approved before the new guidelines were released.
Multiple sections on COVID-19 testing, physical distancing, cleaning and sanitization protocol and ventilation are included in the new reopening plan.
If or when secondary schools reopen is uncertain but Gannon said it’s not a given they’ll stay closed all year, and added the district is “still exploring different support models” for students and staff.
“It’s just a very complex conversation, especially with changes in guidance happening so rapidly,” Gannon said.
The county must be in the red tier for five consecutive days before secondary schools may reopen, according to public documents. When schools do reopen for the lower grades, elementary reopening will continue as planned with preschool through second grade returning first, followed by third through fifth grade. At home-learners can continue to access instruction remotely.
All students with IEPs and those and identified student subgroups will also be invited to return to in-person instruction, including those in secondary grades.
For the return of secondary students, the district is shifting its focus from reopening to “improving remote instruction and enhancing supports for students.” However, the small cohort supervision program will be expanded, and SAT School Day will be held for high school juniors interested in qualifying for the NMSQT on April 13th and 27th.
Sports may also resume, and sites will expand access to extracurricular programs. High schools will also prepare for promotions and graduations this year using current health guidelines.
The state said lower transmission rates in elementary schools “likely reflects the lower infection rates and lower severity of illness in elementary students.”
“However, it also likely reflects the much higher rates of student mixing in a traditional high school curriculum,” officials said. “This highlights why a modified high school curriculum that creates stable groups can substantially mitigate the risk of widespread in-school transmission in high schools.”
An update will be provided at the February 11th board meeting.
In other business
* The board will receive a report on performance and financial audits of Measure I1 bond expenditures from last year on Tuesday.
Prepared by San Diego-based firm CWDL CPA, the mandatory annual report states that the district “expended Measure I1 general obligation bond funds…only for the specific projects developed by the district’s governing board and approved by the voters.”
The eight-page performance audit outlines over $14.2 million in expenditures from July 2019 through June 2020, for a number of marquee Measure I1 projects prioritized last year. Work included modernizing Lydiksen Elementary and new science and technology classroom buildings underway and Foothill and Amador Valley high schools.
Five years ago, Pleasanton residents voted for the $270 million bond measure, which levies an annual property tax of $49 per $100,000 of assessed value on local homeowners to pay for school remodeling, upgrades and modernization projects at all 15 PUSD sites.
I think it is very unfair to lump Pleasanton and its covid case rate with adjoining communities, whose rates are much higher, to determine if schools can reopen..All the data, all the advice, including Dr. Fauci’s, say get the kids back to class, and away from zoom classes, following their safety guidelines, of course. The data for Pleasanton and the research shows that it is SAFE to open our schools. The private schools in this area, which remained open without problems for the past several months, sort of proves that point, don’t you think?
To clarify, the district plan that is being presented to the board tonight clearly states that they are changing direction and no longer exploring options for getting middle school and high school back this year. It states that for grades 6-12 (slide 27): “Secondary students continue in remote learning for the rest of the 2020-2021 school year”. Now that we are aligning with state versus county guidelines we should be looking at how other CA schools are handling re-opening and not just throwing in the towel. Other districts have done it already and those who havent yet are continuing to plan for it and we should to. All children should have the option of in-person learning just as those who need to stay home are being accommodated. You can view the agenda and proposed plan PowerPoint here : https://agendaonline.net/public/Meeting.aspx?AgencyID=106&MeetingID=81738&AgencyTypeID=1&IsArchived=False
Failed to file for waiver
Failed to open in Oct
Failing to educate students effectively remotely (ref recent grade policy change)
…..and now failing to try to open.
Unacceptable. Our students and teachers deserve better board and union leadership.
Also agree with other posts that the school administration has failed our students.
Surveys designed to justify decisions already made, telling teachers they will not open until perfectly safe, making worse case assumption about how many secondary school student/families will even want to return to justify giving up on 20/21 school year, bringing up student vaccination as a threshold to confuse and scare parents, using the most stringent interpretation of county and state guidelines to open schools – but using EBAL to determine when sports can restart (because EBAL employs so many epidemiologists he said sarcastically)
How do we recall the PUSD admin the way others want to recall Newsom