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Pleasanton school leaders will consider adding their voice to a chorus of California school districts asking the state to clarify its safe physical distancing requirements for in-person instruction at the board’s regular meeting on Thursday, starting 7 p.m.
Many students have returned to Pleasanton Unified School District sites in recent weeks, but in a draft letter addressed to Gov. Gavin Newsom, the district called it “imperative” for the state to “clarify the stable grouping requirements in such a way that facilitates efforts to bring all students back to campus full-time for in-person instruction in August.”
Specifically, the Board of Trustees and Superintendent David Haglund are requesting “a single set of defined metrics that can be relied upon to safely plan to bring all of our students in preschool through high school back to their classrooms for full-time, in-person instruction, five days per week.”
“Our teachers, administrators, staff, and community members have worked collaboratively and thoughtfully since last spring, as we prepared to safely resume in-person learning this school year,” officials said, adding it is their goal ” to facilitate a full-time return of all students, in all grades for in-person learning” in fall.
“To do this successfully, we will need clear and consistent communication and guidelines from the state,” officials said.
The district said their efforts “have been complicated by often conflicting information” from experts at multiple levels, and “recommendations for group sizes and stable cohorts continue to be out of synch.”
Acknowledging the impact of “dynamic factors, most notably the COVID rates in individual communities,” officials said, “Nevertheless, it is imperative that we have clarity now if we are to plan effectively for the upcoming school year.”
Guidelines around stable cohorts and group sizes “drive decisions relating to classroom logistics and staffing,” and helps PUSD determine how many students and staff can safely be on site. The district also said restricting cohorts or mixing of groups during the school day “severely limits” secondary schools from carrying out a full schedule of classes.
Officials said guidance reflecting the distinction between restrictions for cohorting or group sizes when community infection rates are high or below a specific threshold, “would be very beneficial in allowing us to bring all of our secondary students back to campus in-person for five full days of instruction, much in the same way that adjustment to the physical distancing requirements will enable us to to do with our elementary students.”
The trustees will receive a report about, and consider approving the drafted letter on Thursday night.
In other business
* Findings from a recent audit of the district’s elementary instructional minutes pre-COVID and the onset of Senate Bill 98 will be discussed on Thursday.
The audit was completed in preparation for the 2021-22 school year, and found “a wide variance across the nine elementary schools on the amount of instructional time students received as well as discrepancy in time for teacher to student contact minutes,” according to the district.
The purpose of the presentation is to “discuss having more consistency in instructional minutes across elementary school students,” according to district spokesperson Patrick Gannon.
“The team looked at schedules and instructional minutes at each elementary grade level across school sites and found some big disparities,” Gannon said. “The goal would be to have instructional minutes more consistent, and above the state-required minimum in the event of future school closures,” and prevent the need to add more days at the end of the school year.
In addition to providing an overview of each site’s instructional minutes, the report will also define state time requirements for students, and summarize the district’s process to align instructional time.
According to a June 2020 study by McKinsey and Co., at the start of the school year, students presented “an average loss of up to 30% in reading and up to 50% in math.”
The average learning loss for students nationwide is estimated to be seven months, though the study noted that for low-income, Black and Hispanic students, “this will be exacerbated by 15-20%.”
Another study released in January reported “significant learning loss in both English language arts and math, with students in earlier grades most affected.” The equity impact has also been most severe to certain students groups — “especially low-income students and English language learners (ELLs), are falling behind more compared to others,” staff said.
“Major inequalities in time” for transitional kindergarten and regular kindergarten, as well as first and second grade, often happens when schools implement staggered start and end times vs. not implementing such a schedule, staff said, adding that differences in third through fifth grades “are caused by slight variances in recess and/or lunch minutes.”
Suggestions for maximizing instructional minutes include extending kindergarten to four hours, having a non-staggered day for first and second grade, and reducing lunch for fourth and fifth grade from 55 to 45 minutes.
Principals will work with teachers this spring to provide suggestions for a new bell schedule in the 2021-22 school year. That information will help district staff return with a summary of feedback and a recommended bell schedule at the May 6 board meeting.
* Looking to “address racism, marginalization of student groups, and microaggressions,” as well as identify and reverse policies and practices that contribute to equity gaps among students, the district will consider a $248,000 contract with an outside consulting firm to brainstorm, develop and implement a multi-year equity gap plan on Thursday.
PUSD called it “essential that our educational leaders build capacity and understanding of key practices and core beliefs requiring a paradigm shift” in order to close equity gaps in the district.
Gannon told the Weekly, “It’s part of our work as a district around equity and diversity. It is in line with the implicit bias training and related to stats regarding suspension and disciplinary rates.”
According to the district report, Black students make up just 1.38% the district’s overall racial composition but have the most disabilities at 16.5%, and most suspension incidences by ethnicity at 10.17 %. Collectively, Black students also make up 27.27% of suspension incidences for students with disabilities. The graduation rate is the district’s lowest at 93.3%.
Hispanic students make up nearly 10% of the district’s overall demographics, with slightly fewer disabled students (16.29%), but only slightly more than 3% of suspension incidences by ethnicity, and 5.46% of suspension incidences for disabled students. Graduation rates were reported just slightly higher than Black students at about 93.4%.
Asians comprise 45.58% of PUSD racial demographics but have the fewest students with disabilities (4.25%), and less than 1% of all suspensions by ethnicity. They also had the fewest suspensions for disabled students, at 3.42 %. The graduation rate was 99.2%.
White students account for 35.38% of the district’s ethnic makeup and 11.11% of disabled students, but only 2.7% of all suspensions by ethnicity and 6.45% suspensions for disabled students, with a graduation rate 96.4%.
The three-year process is expected to involve workshops to help PUSD evolve and align its definition of equity, close and eliminate identified equity gaps, and change policies accordingly to ensure high outcomes for all students.
