Clovis mother says school district has not planned well for new students, special needs

On Monday, my precocious, autistic, 5-year-old son will, like so many other children, start a public education journey on his first day in kindergarten. This should be a momentous occasion, full of new crayons and friends, first-day pictures, and an exciting leap into the world of learning.

COVID-19 stopped him from doing that in a classroom, but Clovis Unified School District leadership chose to fight an arcane war over “local control” with Sacramento that has left him, his typically developing 2nd grade brother, and countless families like ours across Clovis and Fresno with an increasingly short list of options, all of them bad.

When families and teachers limped through the end of last school year, it was easy to chalk the chaos up to the myriad twists and turns a global pandemic threw our way. With little warning, teachers, students and families had to adapt to “distance learning” — and the results were, for the most part, uninspiring.

But with a summer to adapt and re-imagine school for what it could be in light of a global pandemic keeping kids out of classrooms, I had hope that our district leadership could come up with a plan which put children at the center of a new learning experience, perhaps even one that could even be a beacon of hope for other districts around the country.

As confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our community spiked to alarming levels and as school districts in our Valley and throughout the state made plans for distance learning, we were told that the district would plow ahead preparing for in-person instruction. Then, when, as Superintendent Dr. O’Farrell put it blithely in a town hall for parents in July, Clovis had “local control” wrested from them by Big Government in Sacramento, the district had no choice but to proceed with “distance learning” options for all students. This option was complicated, they claim, by the passage of SB 98, a bill which, as teachers and administrators told us, meant students would be forced into days packed with Zoom calls (180 minutes a day for Kindergartners! Have you done a three hour Zoom call in the pandemic? How did you like it?) until classrooms reopened.

Here is the problem. That’s not what SB 98 says. Nor was it the intent of the Legislature, Gov. Newsom, public health officials, the superintendent of public instruction or anyone with a duty of care over California’s children, to make that the case. SB 98 mandates daily check-ins with students, yes, but not Zoom overload. The superintendent and the district board are misreading — intentionally for political purposes or otherwise — this bill, and it is our children, especially those in their most formative years, who are most at risk.

As school resumes on Monday, we were presented with two options, “scheduled distance learning” overseen by local teachers, or an online homeschooling option. Both of these put the responsibility for ensuring learning progression squarely on the shoulders of parents — not educators. “Scheduled distance learning” at best lacks creativity and will ultimately pit parents against their children and teachers. Based on the limited information parents have received from the school, this approach will look a lot like a typical in-person school day, delivered over Zoom. Forcing parents to wrangle small children into hours of video conferences with thinly veiled threats that if our kids don’t show up we will be put on truancy plans.

When the school sent a “bell schedule” for the hours upon hours of Zoom instruction I would try to chaperone while balancing the demands of my career, I asked friends whether I should quit my job now or wait until I have a nervous breakdown.

Let me state for the record my family is extremely privileged. My husband and I both work full time from home, and we have both our nanny and two sets of grandparents in our quarantine bubble — we have an immense amount of help. We will muddle through given the options presented — and I am confident that we are better off than the vast majority of parents of early elementary and special needs students in the district.

If we’re muddling through, how will the children of nurses, firefighters, teachers, grocery clerks and other essential workers fare? How about single parents? People who work multiple jobs? Families of English lLearners? What support is there for them in this scenario?

Rather than face reality, district leadership has chosen instead to throw a tantrum. CUSD’s extreme, unfounded reading of SB 98, and vindictive attitude about “local control,” coupled with the lack of a plan for how to maximize success amidst the changing nature of education during the pandemic, fundamentally disregards children in their care — but especially early elementary and special needs students. It leaves teachers without any support. And it leaves parents to clean up the mess.

Superintendent O’Farrell had time to prepare for the eventuality we are faced with and work to mitigate the havoc COVID-19 has wrought. She and the board squandered that time with magical thinking about in-person instruction, bemoaning their scuppered plans and fuming about “local control,” rather than preparing for the reality facing our children. Meanwhile she has demonstrated an abysmal track record of addressing the concerns of BIPOC families in our community and failed to take appropriate action earlier this year when students in her district perpetrated heinous acts of online racism and bullying.

In the end our children, especially those most in need of support at the most fragile stages of their development, will suffer as a result of their failures. It’s time the superintendent and the board take responsibility and resign, so we can again try and build a system that works for teachers, students and families with new leadership.

The bell will ring at 8 a.m. Monday to start a new school year. We haven’t a moment to lose.