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The Dublin Unified School District is set to become the next Tri-Valley public school district to bring students back for in-person learning after nearly a year away due to the coronavirus pandemic, with the city’s youngest children set to return on March 18.
During the DUSD Board of Education’s meeting on Feb. 23, district staff shared details on how and when students would be able to return to their physical classrooms, declaring that preschool through kindergarten would return on March 18, first- through third-graders on March 22, and fourth- and fifth-graders will on March 25.
Students in sixth through 12th grade have not yet been assigned a date to return as of Tuesday.
“This is the culmination of many months of work where at every turn there seemed to be a new roadblock, but we are there: We are ready to start inviting our students back to campus,” DUSD Interim Superintendent Daniel Moirao said. “We are very proud of the work we have been able to accomplish, not alone but in collaboration … this has truly been a collaborative effort to get us to this point.”
According to the board-approved plan, students whose families elect to return to hybrid in-person learning will attend school in-person four days a week, with Wednesdays being reserved as a full remote day for all students.
On days when students do attend school in-person, students will be divided into a.m. and p.m. schedules, where some students will attend class in-person during the morning and others will do so in the afternoon.
Similar to other schools that have already reopened, students in Dublin will also be limited to interacting with other students inside of their classroom cohorts — a move made in order to reduce the risk of COVID-19 being spread among students.
Prior to students being assigned to a cohort and schedule, DUSD families have sent in declaration forms informing district officials whether their children will return to in-person classes or remain remote for the duration of this school year.
According to district officials, declaration forms reveal that the mass majority of families with elementary school-aged students have elected to remain with remote learning, with only 17% of respondents opting to return to hybrid in-person instruction.
Meanwhile, 53% of elementary school students will remain remote for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. The remaining 30% of respondents declared that they would like their children to remain with their teachers, regardless of whether it is hybrid in-person or full remote.
The majority of middle and high school respondents have likewise elected to stick with remote learning for the duration of the school year, with 36% of middle school families and 28% of high school families opting to go with hybrid in-person learning. The remaining respondents for middle and high school all decided to stay home with remote learning.
While district officials have stressed a desire to have all students return to the classroom when it is safe to do so, secondary school students will not be allowed to return to in-person instruction until Alameda County moves out of the most-restrictive purple tier into the less-restrictive red tier, according to state’s color-coded reopening blueprint.
Red tier classification will be achieved when the county averages no more than seven new cases a day per 100,000 residents and a positive test rate of between 5% to 8%.
DUSD officials say they predict the county will move into the red tier for five days sometime during the staggered opening dates for elementary schools. If this is the case, the district anticipates sharing secondary school opening dates with families by mid-March.
The DUSD will be joining the likes of the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, which has had special day classes and elementary school students returning to hybrid in-person learning in February. Pleasanton Unified is scheduled to reopen for pre-K to second grade this Thursday.
Residents can learn more about the DUSD’s efforts to return to in-person learning online at www.dublinusd.org.
