California schools need more than Newsom’s $2 billion to reopen, superintendents say
Leaders of seven large California school districts argue in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom that his $2 billion plan to reopen classrooms falls woefully short of ensuring equitable access to education for students of color and those in low-income communities during the coronavirus pandemic.
Newsom announced his plan to reopen school doors on Dec. 30, saying that allocating billions in funding for improved ventilation, personal protective equipment and frequent COVID-19 testing for staff and students will allow for in-person instruction to safely resume.
To access the funding, which pencils out to at least $450 per student, districts would have to offer in-person instruction for transitional kindergarten to second-grade students and lay out plans for rigorous and consistent testing and sanitation protocol.
The seven superintendents — representing districts in Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco —contend the plan still doesn’t acknowledge systemic racial and economic issues in the education system, which the pandemic has worsened.
While funding was a “start toward recovery,” they write, Newsom’s “Safe Schools for All” program isn’t helpful enough for these urban districts, which serve a high percentage of students from poorer neighborhoods hard hit by the virus.
“The plan does not address the disproportionate impact the virus is having on low-income communities of color,” reads the letter signed by Robert G. Nelson of Fresno, Jill Baker of Long Beach, Austin Beutner of Los Angeles, Kyla Johnson-Trammell of Oakland, Jorge A. Aguilar of Sacramento, Cindy Marten of San Diego and Vincent Matthews of San Francisco.
“And it also reverses a decade-long commitment to equity-based funding,” they wrote.
Families in certain communities, particularly Latino neighborhoods, the leaders say, include essential workers who can’t stay home during the pandemic. As a result, infection rates are higher in these areas, making it harder to meet the state’s reopening threshold of no more than 28 cases per 100,000 people.
“Our worry is the model that the governor makes as part of this plan will have the effect of making it more likely that communities that have not been impacted as greatly as places like Sacramento and others will be able to reopen,” Aguilar said. “That of course will only exacerbate the disproportionate effect that COVID has had.”
Other points of contention include leaving what’s considered a “safe school environment” to the discretion of the more than 1,000 districts in California, which they said will create a “patchwork of safety standards.”
For example, Aguilar added, the plan needs to better explain PPE and vaccination requirements, with tangible targets for districts to hit.
The superintendents therefore recommended the administration consider a list of actions in addition to the promised funding.
They include a more aggressive, “all-hands-on-deck” public effort against the virus in low-income communities. The leaders also want to finance testing and vaccination efforts via public health funds, rather than through traditional education funds. Summer school and other learning loss recovery ideas should be implemented, along with targeted funding for special education students, they said.
“This is really a public health crisis,” Aguilar said. “And we are making sure to protect (education funding) dollars.”
A school staff vaccination timeframe should also be made public by Feb. 1, they wrote, as well as “detailed information on school and district status in meeting COVID health standards, providing in-person instruction and school-based virus occurrences.”
“We believe these additional steps will ensure that “Safe Schools for All” lives up to its name,” they wrote.
This story was originally published January 6, 2021 at 8:41 AM with the headline "California schools need more than Newsom’s $2 billion to reopen, superintendents say."