Number of Smiles from Kids Back in School: Too Many to Count! 😁
For all the bumps of the past week, it has been wonderful to see kids back at school, excited to see each other again and ready to learn and grow! Thank you to everyone working so hard to be there for the kids.
New to SF Parents? Been around a while but want to get to know us better? Join us on Tuesday, 7/31 from 7:30-8:30 pm for a meet-and-greet with our Parent Board, facilitated by Rob Aiavao of TogetherSF.
Clean air good news & big win for parent advocacy! We are thrilled to share that, thanks in large part to the over 100 parents who wrote in about the desperate need for clean air in all SFUSD schools, the district accelerated their plan to purchase and install air filtration systems in all SFUSD schools by a month. This was a wonderful example of parents and the district collaborating to get something done for the kids and educators. Nice job parents, keep it up!
Learn more about implementation of the new air filters at your school. Join us for a conversation with Dawn Kamalanathan, Chief Facilities Officer for SFUSD to get answers to remaining questions. This Friday 8/27 at 12:30 pm. Follow us on Instagram (@sfparentcoalition) and watch a replay even if you miss it live.
School quarantine policy confusion. We’ve been hearing a lot of confusion from parents about inconsistent implementation of quarantine policy across school sites, grades and the school district as a whole (e.g., why aren’t teachers required to teach their class remotely when they’re in full class quarantine?) We’re compiling your questions and putting them in front of SFUSD and city decisionmakers to get clear answers. Here is what we know right now:
This is a statewide issue. A lot of districts are having difficulty operating these quarantine policies.
SFUSD is really trying to do the right thing–their intent is to try to minimize loss of instructional time–for example they did adopt that kids can test after day five and come back after day seven if they have a negative test.
A modified quarantine policy (which the Department of Public Health recommended, and would further reduce loss of instructional time) would requirelabor negotiations.
Remote instruction if a whole class/teacher needs to quarantine would also require labor negotiations. (We’re looking further into this and previous issue and if/when district has a plan to pursue these … were they discussed this summer? Why not?)
In terms of inconsistency with how sites are interpreting and implementing the handling of covid cases/quarantine policy, there’s an acknowledgement of the inconsistency but no answers (yet) on how to address.
Online learning program concerns. Sadly, we’re also hearing similar concerns about the SFUSD online learning programs. We continue to gather information to understand what’s happening.
What’s the plan for mitigating learning loss? Every school district in California has received substantial federal and state funds to mitigate the learning loss of prolonged distance and hybrid learning. So, how are those funds being spent? SFUSD is just starting a planning process now, which is great, if a few months late. Here are some resources to help your family and school in the meantime:
Family Guide: The excellent TNTP has a series of resources for parents on how to understand whether our children are getting what they need, and ideas for how to have constructive conversations with our schools and teachers. Check it out here.
Your thoughts on the proposal to recall members of the Board of Education. SF Parents has not yet taken a position on the proposed recall of Board of Education Commissioners Collins, President Lopez and Vice President Moliga. We have been laser focused on school reopening. However, we are well aware that who sits on our Board of Education has a profound impact on the lives of our child, and that our members and supporters want the opportunity to share their diverse thoughts on the topic, to help us shape our own policy. To that end, we are putting up an open Facebook thread on Recall, today (Thursday). If you’re not already a Facebook group member, join and participate in the thread to share your thoughts.
