Which Schools Should be Closed ?

 

 Statement on the Impact 

of COVID-19 on SCUSD Students 

January 20, 2022

 

The Sacramento City Community Priorities Coalition (CPC) is very concerned about the quality of education for children in the Sacramento City Unified School District. We recognize that the district, parents, and students are in very difficult times with the impact of COVID-19, but while the school doors are open, the education is fractured. That is not okay. 

The CPC has deep concerns about the following issues that must be addressed to address increasing learning loss of students, particularly for students who are academically behind and emotionally scarred by the pandemic. 

We particularly concerned about the following: 

•                • _Since classes resumed after the Winter break, the number of students without a regular teacher in SCUSD grew to over 15,000. Many students are attending day and after-school classes in which their teachers (or substitutes) are not available. 

 

•                • _We know that up to 40% of students in SCUSD schools are being shuffled into combined subject classes, and even in larger gym spaces. There is no curriculum for such mixed classes. Even a skilled teacher would have difficulty deciding what to teach and at which grade level. That is crowd control, not in person learning. 

 

•                • _Ignoring the emergence of a second wave of COVID-19 and the omicron variant, the district also made a poor decision to return to in-person classes and abandon remote learning for students and teachers who are quarantined or choose not to return to schools because of the pandemic. 

 

•                • _There are no apparent protocols for dealing with COVID health crisis. There’s no formal COVID testing or consistent tracking of COVID infections. This puts teachers, staff, and students at greater risks. And it’s difficult to reduce the spread of the virus in schools when there’s not adequate social distancing or ventilators in classrooms.  

 

•                • _We’re also deeply concerned about the learning loss of students. The district hasn’t reported on the academic and social-emotional impact of the pandemic on students, particularly among Black and Hispanic students with disabilities. 

 

Our Recommendations 

While we understand the challenges the district is facing, we are calling for SCUSD to close impacted schools, especially high schools for two weeks so alternative plans can be developed. Because what’s taking place now is clearly not working. 

Alternative plans might include the following: 

•                • _Return to a hybrid model of remote and in-classroom in order to serve students and teachers who choose not to return to school and who are in quarantine because of COVID infections. 

•                • _Start the development of a Virtual Academy for “students who qualify as medically fragile with documented health conditions or medical needs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.” 

             Lower class sizes, spreading children out not grouping them together.

•              

•                • _Increase the physical and mental health support for students. Increase health professionals on site at each school where there is an outbreak and improved ventilation. 

•                • _N-95 and K-95 masks for all teachers, staff and students. 

•                • _Require weekly testing for all unvaccinated teachers, staff and students. 

•                • _For teachers and staff: If you are sick, stay home. Remain at home until you complete the recommended quarantine. You should isolate for the full time needed to heal. You should test negative for the virus prior to returning to 

 

the classroom. Early returning to the school spreads the virus and places everyone at risk. 

•                • _For Parents: If your child does not have 24 or fewer students in the classroom, with a credentialed teacher, we recommend that you consider keeping your child safe at home for a few weeks – until the district creates and implements a responsible plan including no merged classes, expanding testing and optimal personal protective equipment. 

 

You should also insist during this time on the return of at least some form of 

on-line instruction for the Spring semester, until schools are safe. The district does have an independent study program you might consider for your child to learn from home. 

Community Priorities Coalition 

4625 44th Street, Rm 5 Sacramento, CA 95820 

 

For more information contact Carl Pinkston, BPSB, info@blackparallelschoolboard.com or to the website: https://blackparallelschoolboard.com/program/lcfflcap/community-priority-coalition/

Signed, 

Black Parallel School Board, Building Healthy Communities, Tower of Youth, Democracy and Education Institute and League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC, 2862)

Sacramento Unified Superintendent Resigns. Why this direction of school reform did not work.

Sacramento City Unified Superintendent Jonathon Raymond has resigned.  He will leave the district in December. Raymond was one of a number of national superintendents trained by the Broad Superintendents Academy- a project of the Broad Foundation.   Michelle Rhee serves on the advisory committee for the “Academy”. This is a significant part of Broad and corporate guided  strategy for school “reform”.  See prior articles by Randy Shaw and Joanne  Barkan, among others,    on the limits of this reform movement.

The district hired Raymond, and received Broad Foundation support, in an attempt to raise the achievement scores of public schools.  However, Raymond served during the last 4 years of economic crisis while state imposed budget cuts prevented many improvements.

Particularly divisive has been the decision to close seven low income elementary campuses.  This strategy of closing schools in minority districts has been used by Broad Foundation alumni in cities around the nation, including Chicago, Philadelphia and others.  The Foundation has a guidebook for how to select and to close these schools.

No Superintendent, no leader, can be individually faulted for failure to significantly improve scores in low income schools in a period when the per pupil expenditures were reduced by over $1,000 per student.

Increasing student poverty, as documented by economist Joseph Stiglitz, and Robert Reich, among others, explains a significant part of why U.S. in falling further behind other countries school achievement.   “When you break down the various test scores, you find that high income kids are high achievers and they are holding their own and more.” According to Micheal Rebell  the executive director of the campaign for Educational Equity at Columbia University.

Spared schools in Chicago see few financial benefits from closing 50 schools

Mathew Blake

In pushing through the closures of 50 neighborhood Chicago schools this summer over the vociferous objections of the teachers union and community groups, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his handpicked school board argued that the shutdowns would make up for budget shortages and direct more resources to other neighborhood schools.

But a week into the school year, the remaining schools appear to be receiving no immediate financial benefits from the closings.

The school year started on Monday for all 403,000 Chicago Public Schools students. Media coverage has largely focused on the “safe passage” routes that the district drew up to help the 12,500 students affected by the closings walk to their new schools. The closings prompted widespread concern that displaced students would have to cross gang lines to arrive at their new classrooms, exposing them to violence. But after five school days, there have been no reported violent incidents involving students traveling to their new schools.

Closing Schools, Faulting Teachers in Sacramento

July 25, 2013

By Seth Sandronsky
and Duane Campbell

Seth Sandronsky's ZSpace Page

Officially, a budget shortfall for the Sacramento City Unified School District caused closure of seven elementary schools. Marcos Bretón, a columnist for The Sacramento Bee, weighed in with this: “I honestly don't believe that the district was driven by racial bias in closing schools months ago” http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/14/5565087/marcos-breton-poor-sacramento.html

Excellent in the column is recognition that the SCUSD schools in low-income neighborhoods are disastrously underfunded. Further, as Bretón notes, in low-income neighborhoods the police system does not work, the health system does not work, the garbage goes unpicked up, and water and sewage are problems, along with gangs. Why then, do we expect underfunded schools to work in such neighborhoods?

When it comes to education policy and race, Bretón finds fault in the plaintiffs’ bid to establish legal proof of racial bias in school closures. A federal district judge, Kimberly J. Mueller, agreed on July 22 that the case of the plaintiffs lacked merit.

When it comes to money and policy to close schools and save the district $1 million, we should put this amount in a broader context that Bretón does not. For instance, there is recent and relevant Sacramento history.

Between January 19, 2012, and June 5, 2012, the Walton Family Foundation, the philanthropic arm of retail giant Wal-Mart, donated a total of $500,000 to Stand Sacramento for Sacramento Schools, the 501(c) (3) nonprofit school reform group that Mayor Kevin Johnson founded in 2009 with $500,000 from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. In the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mayor Kevin Johnson is the Second Vice-President and Education Reform Task Force Chair.

Contacted by one of us for comment, a spokesperson for his Stand Sacramento for Sacramento Schools declined to reply as to how the group is spending the $500,000. We know one thing. Walton Family Foundation money is not bridging a budget gap to keep the closed district schools open.

Private dollars flow. Public schools close. This trend speaks volumes about local public education now.