Trade unions representing San Francisco teachers and other employees in the city’s school district on Friday announced their conditions for returning to personal education, a proposal they plan to submit to school officials.
Susan Solomon, president of the United Educators of San Francisco, which represents 6,500 teachers and para-educators across the country, said teachers and staff will return to personal education in the state’s reopening class with vaccines – or in the orange level as a teacher and staff vaccinations are not available.
The reopening proposal was not linked to specific dates.
The announcement comes amid increasing pressure on the district and the unions representing school staff to personally retrain for the district’s more than 52,000 students. The case came to light when Dennis Herrera, the city attorney, sued the school district and the council to force them to come up with a specific plan to reopen.
The next day, Mayor London Breed held a news conference with other officials to put the union and district under pressure to enter into an agreement. Breed said students’ loss of learning and mental health make the problem urgent. The district’s own research shows that black, Latino and Asian students as well as students from low-income families lost significant academic ground compared to richer and white students during the pandemic.
Reopening of schools is led by the state’s color-coded system. According to state guidelines, the red level indicates a “significant” spread of the coronavirus and the orange level indicates a moderate spread of the virus. At the moment, San Francisco is in the press, or ‘widespread’ level. Schools in provinces at the press level may be allowed to open K-6 grades if their “average adjusted rate” is below 25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and they submit a safety plan.
Local, state and national health officials said schools could reopen safely with the necessary precautions. Very few cases of transfer have been detected to schools in the Bay and elsewhere.
Solomon made the announcement shortly before she said she would present the union’s reopening demands to San Francisco Unified School District administrators at the table.
The teachers said their offer also requires the district to ensure that virus testing, social removal, disinfection, protective equipment and increased ventilation take place at schools. It was unclear how many of these requirements were met. The union has previously demanded that toilet lids be installed in toilets and air monitors in classrooms.
“Most of us (concerns) have been addressed,” Solomon said. “There are a few other areas where we want to see movement, including testing and availability of vaccines.”
Currently, all provinces are vaccinating essential health workers and long-term caregivers and employees. The state also allows provinces to provide shots to people over 65, education and child care workers, emergency services workers and those working in food and agriculture, if vaccine is available. Some provinces began vaccinating teachers, but withdrew due to vaccine shortages.
Solomon said the union and the district were not very far apart in their proposals for reopening and pointed out that the two parties meet daily.
The school district did not respond to requests for comment.
The pressure on the district and the unions increased on Thursday when a tearful race of school children holding signs saying “I miss my friends” and urged all parties to work together to get schools open.
The organizers of the event – Reduce the Distance – announce the establishment of a city-wide petition and insist that the school board and the teachers’ union reach an agreement by 18 February on the conditions needed to reopen schools.
Scott Wiener, who said he was upset that the day after the school board voted to rename 44 schools, the district announced that middle and high schools were unlikely to reopen this school year.
“I have always been a big supporter and supporter of this school district,” he said. “My frustration is that I’m considered a defeat.”
Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, a group of local advocates for children, paid attention to what was happening in San Francisco and elsewhere in California, believing that the pressure of the building – by parents and politicians – was ultimately the network which may be held may stop. most public schools in California are closed.
“I have been involved in education policy and advocacy for a long time, and I have never seen parents energetically on a policy this time,” he said. “It has an impact. Ideally, the focus should not be on the guilt of this politician or that school official, but on opening schools. But it is clear that the pressure has an impact. ”
Lempert said schools are reopening safely elsewhere in the country, while many California districts appear to be going nowhere.
District officials said they were ready to reopen for the youngest and most dangerous students by the end of January, but they could not reach an agreement with the union.
San Francisco public schools have been closed since mid-March, but more than 15,000 private school students are back in class. Parents of public school students who have been camping in the living room with their children for almost a year said they were frustrated.
“Private and parish schools have opened safely,” Jonathan Alloy, who has two children – Samuel (9) and Rebecca (8) – told Commodore Sloat Primary School. “The children of families with the money for private school get a good education.”
According to Alloy, the union’s offer to return to the classroom as the color of the pandemic improves has ‘many reservations and no sense of timing’.
As he spoke, Rebecca jumped in front of the living room computer with her virtual classmates as part of her physical education class, and Samuel knocked out a book report.
“The closure has a huge negative impact from a mental health and socialization standpoint,” Alloy said. “It’s time for them to do something.”
But parent Laurel Paul, with two boys in two high schools in San Francisco, said she understands the reluctance of teachers.
“We are all frustrated and ready for the pandemic,” she said. “I do not blame parents for being upset. But I see no good choices. The boom is narrow. The variants are narrow. I’m glad the union is campaigning for safety. ”
To pretend that the pandemic will just go away is his wishful thinking.
“I wonder if some of these parents who want the schools to reopen have now found a secret door to Narnia,” she said.
San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writers Jill Tucker and Michael Cabanatuan cattributed to this report.
Steve Rubenstein is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @SteveRubeSF