What will Distance Learning look like in the fall? How will students and teachers safely return to school? How will teachers teach engaging lessons through masks, physically distanced desks and 6 feet away from their nearest student?

As California schools look to solutions to create a viable path to learning and teaching in the 2020-21 school year, school districts and local communities struggle to understand and restructure the roles of teachers and staff personnel, nurses, schools, school buildings, mental health services, and nutrition programs. The interplay between the identity of schools as places of learning and the essential services that public schools provide has created difficult discussions between different members of the school communities and stakeholders. 

The San Mateo Union High School District held a board meeting on June 11, 2020 to examine and discuss different models of starting the school year. Several documents, slide presentations, and discussions are provided on David Kristofferson’s Eduissues blog under “Recent Topics” in Education News to help local parents and community members understand the complexities of returning to school in a blended or all Distance Learning model.  On June 25th, the SMUHSD School Board will meet again to view a presentation of blended and distance learning models and to hear community input.

The majority of teachers in SMUHSD believe that we should begin the school year with a Distance Learning program with options for students to come onto campus to work on assignments, access the internet, and receive health, nutrition and other wellness supports. In this post, I have copied the letter to the School Board from the SMUHSD Math Curriculum Council, as well as four other letters that examine and defend this position written by SMUHSD teachers: a Biology teacher, a Spanish teacher, an ELD teacher and a Professional Development Coordinator.

Letter 1: SMUHSD Math Council Letter to the Board

June 10, 2020 

Dear School Board Members and Dr. Skelly, 

I am writing this letter, with input from the department heads at each site, to clearly present the perspective of SMUHSD math teachers with respect to school reopening in the Fall. 

In short, we think that the risks of in-person learning greatly outweigh the benefits. In fact, given sufficient time during the summer to prepare, we think that synchronous distance learning will provide students with a higher quality of learning than a blended/in-person model will, with significantly fewer risks. 

First and foremost, we think that the risk to the health of our students and staff, their families, and the communities at large is too great. Social distancing measures work best outdoors where people are in contact for short periods of time. Sitting in enclosed spaces for longer periods of time, even with small cohorts of students, greatly increases the risks to all. We know that there are many people who, even if not in a high-risk category themselves, live with those that are. By requiring in-person learning, we will be contributing to the likelihood of a second wave of infection, and putting many in our community at risk. Right now, many of us do not personally know anyone who has gotten sick or died from COVID-19. This may be causing people to make a faulty generalization, believing that the risk is much lower than it truly is. 

According to the Washington Post, since the beginning of June when the state started to reopen, California has had its highest ever seven-day average of new coronavirus cases. Factoring in the massive scale of the ongoing BLM protests and exponential growth patterns, who knows how many infections there will be by the time we hit August. There have already been reports of schools in Canada, France, Israel, and South Korea that have closed down again due to outbreaks after reopening. In addition, as we enter the cold and flu season, any minor symptom will be suspect; students will stay home, and teachers will need to call in sick in much greater numbers than ever before. Aside from the interrupted learning, where will we find a sufficient number of substitute teachers to make this work? 

Secondly, we think that the student experience in blended learning will be far worse than people are imagining. Math teachers make extensive use of collaborative group work of all sorts to make our classes engaging and reflective of the practices detailed in the Common Core. Instead, students will have to sit separately, not engage in group work, not even able to see what others are doing. Giving authentic, personalized feedback will be impossible, and teachers will waste a great deal of time attempting to enforce mask-wearing and social distancing policies. This will harm student-teacher relationships and further detract from the joy of being together. 

We have already started examining a number of technological tools that will allow teachers to replicate quality in-person class and small-group learning experiences, without the risk of being 

in the same classroom. With a combination of Nearpod, Zoom breakout rooms, and Google slides, for example, students can work on high-cognitive demand tasks while teachers orchestrate productive discourse. It would be a mistake not to pay attention to the affordances of such well-implemented distance learning techniques. 

In addition, if we adopt the proposed quarter schedule, students will have a lot less time to work on building their fluency in math concepts. Teachers will have to simultaneously condense the amount of material being taught and speed up the pace. Students will be under a lot of stress and pressure trying to learn a semester’s worth of material in 9 weeks, and they are less likely to retain their learning. Teachers will need to create both remote and in-person lessons for students to complete which effectively doubles the planning work. This will detract from the quality of the lessons, as well as teachers’ ability to provide timely and useful feedback. AP and IB students, in particular, will struggle to complete the course syllabi and to be prepared for their exams – especially those who take math in the 2nd and 4th quarters – and students who are already struggling with math will find it even more difficult to catch up, further exacerbating the achievement gap that we have been working so hard to eliminate. 

We sincerely hope that the school board will see the wisdom in providing high quality distance learning for all, as opposed to the restrictive blended-learning format. It will cost less money, lead to better learning outcomes in math, foster stronger relationships among students and staff, and significantly reduce the potential impact that COVID-19 will have on our larger community. Thank you for your time and consideration. If you have any questions about our position, or you would like a demonstration of the tech tools that I described, please feel free to contact me at your convenience. 

Sincerely, 

Daniel Wekselgreene, District Math Coordinator / CHS Math Department Co-Chair 

Co-Signed:

Deb Stucke, HHS Math Department Chair

Erik Bennett, BHS Math Department Chair

Andrea Rosenthal, SMHS Math Department Chair

Cheri Dartnell, AHS Math Department Chair

Lidia Battaglini, MHS Math Department Co-Chair 

Letter 2: Biology Teacher

Dear Board of Trustees and Dr. Skelly, 

The current dialogue between the union and the district administration and the community has almost entirely focused on the semantic question of blended vs. fully remote learning. However, as a teacher, the specific details of when and how instruction will be given, to whom, and with what supports are the pieces of information that are most critical for planning our curriculum and instruction in the fall and must be considered alongside, or even before what general type of model we choose.

In deciding on a model/phase that works for all students, we must ask two questions: how can we safely allow teachers to maximize instructional minutes? (as the quality of instruction provided during these minutes is a direct product of the time invested in the lesson planning process) and how can we best address the structural issues facing our most at-risk students, many of whom depend on their ability to access campus resources?

The intense pushback from a large number of parents and teachers in response to the once proposed “quarter system” is a clear illustration of the consequences of what happens when a plan is designed to answer the question “how can we bring students back to school?” instead of “how can we ensure that teachers are best able to do their jobs to ensure that all students are best able to access school resources and core curriculum?”

Among the most important components of any pedagogical approach is clear organization and structure. Students benefit from school and are able to learn in school because it provides structure and opportunities for socialization. Distance learning this spring failed because it failed to provide any form of structure. I think there is great benefit in having in person class, even if students are masked and six feet apart. However, under any blended model, students would only be getting this in person instruction ⅓-½ the pre-covid time. This loss of instructional minutes is problematic. Furthermore, teachers are expected to provide structure for their “remote” students while teaching a cohort of in person students. This is borderline impossible for teachers. This type of asynchronous learning for students, with a lack of structure, is not developmentally appropriate. There is a reason why high school is not structured like college. Students do not have the executive functioning skills and impulse control to self-structure and complete many hours of work outside a structured class environment. I worry that any blended model or asynchronous model burdens students with the task of self-structuring over half of their learning time. Having taught 9th grade for over 10 years, I can only think of a few students who would be capable of doing this. 

I teach AP Biology, a college level course. I also teach AVID, an elective for historically underrepresented students. I worry about how I will teach AP Biology course equitably and strategically under a blended model.  Unfortunately, at San Mateo High School, our AP classes have not represented our student demographics. There are a few classes that historically have been better and where my AVID students feel more successful. I have been working to make AP Biology one of those. My AVID students attribute success in AP classes to teachers consciously creating a positive classroom community combined with teachers thoughtfully scaffolding instruction to make content accessible. In my AP class, I spend a whole week on community building, I spend 2 days teaching students how to read a textbook and take notes, I explicitly teach academic language to provide access for my LTELs. This type of skill building, which is imperative for culturally relevant teaching, for making students of color independent learners vs dependent learners*, takes time. The blended models truncate this time. The children of Genentech execs who can hire private tutors and who have nice work stations in their single family Foster City homes will be mostly fine. My AVID students who share apartments with 2-3 other families, who are the most educated person in their family at 16-years-old, and who were already pushing their comfort zone by taking my AP Bio class will struggle more. The blended model (phase 5) achieves equality, bu what we really need in our district is equity. Having a large cohort of students on campus at any given time does not allow for individual students (those who need it the most) to come onto campus daily for services (nutrition, mental health, one on one health) or provide them a safe and productive space to learn. 

At the last meeting, I was heartened to hear the board members’ concerns about our highest need populations and the recognition that their needs differ from some of the other students in our district. I also encourage Marc Friedman to continue investigating our SRO presence on campus and how it affects our students of color and propagates systemic racism in the form of the school to prison pipeline. However, I think it’s important to differentiate between performative action (“low hanging fruit”) and the unsexy decision-making and detail oriented planning that actually disassembles the structural racism that is embedded within our school system (of which I and you are a part of.) Since you are on the record as being committed to dismantling systems of oppression, I beg you to give significant weight to these students’ needs (i.e looking at logistics) in making your ultimate decision. 

*Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students Book by Zaretta Hammond

Signed (Name Redacted)

Letter 3: Spanish Teacher

SMUHSD Superintendent Kevin Skelly and Members of the Board of Trustees:

As both a teacher in the district and a parent of a 15 year old, I would like to strongly encourage that our district, as well as our feeder districts, adopt a Distance Learning plan for next semester. 

My first and most important point is that personal connections are crucial next semester. We know that all humans, and particularly our adolescents and children need social interaction. Social relationships are at the core of all human learning and healthy development. Currently, we are in the midst of a pandemic, in which our children are suffering the loss of these daily connections. My son has seen one friend at a distance since March 13th, and it was his most joyous day of the past three months. His school set up Zoom meetings and on-line assignments with peers in small breakout groups, yet he was unhappy and disconnected, spending much of his time playing videogames and on social media. It has been impossible to monitor and frustrating to control. Getting him to take a walk outside continues to be a daily battle. Much to my deep chagrin, his day begins and ends on his phone, because this is how he connects with his peers. And he needs to.

No matter how much I dislike Distance Learning, we must abide by the health and safety requirements of this pandemic. I do not want my in-person classes to be the reason that a member of our community gets hospitalized or dies by Covid-19. It cannot be. Last semester was a disaster, an experiment, and it did not work. But, the reality of the in-person classroom set-up next year is worse. We will be in masks, separated by 6 feet in desks, afraid of each other’s air, afraid of the lack of proper ventilation or windowless classrooms, and afraid of moving to the next classroom. Teachers’ voices will be muffled; facial expressions covered. No pair work, no group work, no Four Corners, no Socratic Seminars, no writing on the board, no manipulatives, flashcards, or cultural realia, no teacher walking by to observe student work. A walk to the bathroom will become an agonizing chore in hygiene and waiting in line. As students and teachers work across classrooms, our computers will mostly remain on our desks connecting us to the lesson, and to each other. 

Coming to school to experience this type of learning will be expensive, frustrating, isolating, and possibly frightening. This is not the social experience we all desire. On the other hand, in spite of all of my pedagogical distrust with on-line learning, I propose that the district spend its resources and human capital this summer on developing a synchronous, attendance based Distance Learning platform in which students will see each other and their teachers five days a week. We can make this work! We can divide students into small advisory groups in which teachers, counselors, and staff help monitor their on-line engagement and become liaisons between school and families. As health and safety conditions change, we can invite our small groups to campus for social distance walks, talks, and projects outside. We can work together to more smoothly pivot between all distance learning and blended on-campus learning when things are safer. We can also create “learning centers” for small cohorts of students who need to be on campus in order to connect to the internet in a quiet environment or who need extra help and guidance.

For next school year, we must put the relationships at the forefront of our planning. Let’s put away these awkward and difficult in-person learning models, and let’s come together to do this well! Let’s invite parents and guardians to Zoom meetings with Wellness counselors and Academic counselors. Let’s identify struggling students and get them one to one help when needed. Let’s have PE options in small groups on campus. Let’s have art projects, singing, art therapy, and dance options open for everyone. Let’s have weekly meetings and check-ins with small advisory groups. We are teachers, counselors, parents, grandparents, administrators, trustees, and students. We are creative and team builders. Let’s work together to create and prepare for a mentally strong, personally connected, and healthy school year!

Signed (Name Redacted)

Letter 4: ELD Teacher

Dear Members of the Board,

I sincerely hope my message here is superfluous. I sincerely hope that by now, you’ve listened to our ELD students, their families, and their representatives across our district. I hope that you embrace their input over those who will co-opt ELD students’ struggles to push their own agenda. We’ve heard many an argument from families and community members who cite ELD students as a primary reason to return to campus to provide “equitable” learning — despite having no interaction with ELD students nor their families, ensconced in a bubble ignorant to what our ELD students’ lives actually look like. The fact that the most recent oppositional petition to distance learning — ostensibly for the sake of an equitable and safe learning environment — came from a school whose community regularly performs hate crimes is laughable.

As ELD Department Chair and SMHS teacher, my entire career has centered around ELD students. I was here when ELD students had no content options in beginning levels, when students over 16.5 years of age were unnecessarily pushed out of the comprehensive high schools, when the Wellness program was in its nascent stages and students’ only option for anxiety and trauma support was their teacher (me). Having built my career and my life around the needs and joys of teaching the ELD population, here’s what I can provide you with:

Please also note that our ELD students often have to watch siblings while guardians are at work, or go to work themselves. During the normal school year, I often had students missing class so they could go to work.  How much will the pandemic inflate these obstacles? And how can I be flexible and meet students online at 10pm — which I’ve had to do! — if I am required to teach each of my five classes twice, not to mention preparing materials for in-person and online learning on top of other teacher duties?

I’m sure you’ve seen and will see many arguments for returning to campus centered around what people perceive to be the needs of our ELD students. I implore you to remember to let those students and their families speak for themselves — and if their voices are not yet loud enough, please remember to listen to those of us whose lives revolve around our ELD kids, and around making sure they are academically successful, happy, and safe.

Signed (Name Redacted)

Letter 5: Professional Development Coordinator

I write to express my strong objection to returning to in-person instruction in our schools. While I respect the many hours of work that my dear colleagues have invested in trying to find a way to return to in-class instruction, it is clear that the pandemic continues to burn stronger than ever. Infection rates are rising across the state and nation, and we haven’t even left the first wave of infections. If it wasn’t safe to return when state infection rates were lower in the spring, how could it be safe with rates that are even higher now, especially with flu season fast approaching? I was one of the early survey respondents to report that I would joyfully return to in-person teaching if it were deemed safe and realistic. However, plans to return to in-person instruction have been based on wishful thinking about impossible sanitation protocols and ignore the severe instructional and learning limitations we would be placed under.

I love teaching and am desperate to return to normalcy. I miss my students. In normal times, I would jump at the chance of teaching a class size of 12 or 17, as suggested by return-to-school models. I have spent countless summer hours decorating my classroom with inspirational posters, artwork, cultural items, and language supports. I would be delighted to return to the in-person language learning activities that I’ve spent years fine-tuning. I too am worried about how the many uninterrupted hours of screen time are affecting our students. It was painful to see students struggle under the triage-based asynchronous teaching model that we were forced into in the spring, and I have no desire to repeat that. 

However, the compromises involved in returning to school are not worth it, and the high school experience would convert into a sad specter of perpetual anxiety that will likely undermine any possible added educational value. Our major district professional development sessions from just this February, which I had a small hand in developing and leading, centered on the importance of avoiding the provocation of “amygdala hijack”–the primordial immediate fight, flight, or freeze response that humans face when placed in stressful situations, be they physical or psychological. Returning to school will likely institutionalize amygdala hijack as an endemic theme of each day. 

Every day we enter school, all students, staff, and visitors will be faced with time-consuming symptoms check protocols, which health experts know are unreliable, resembling a daily TSA security checkpoint. Students will not be in the small, stable cohorts that experts mandate: instead, throughout the week, students will churn in and out of six or more cohorts of students, in addition to their families at home. Teaching and learning will be forced into an obedience-first model, with the educational experience taking a backseat to fear. Teachers and school personnel will be charged with perfecting the Sisyphean task of enforcing health guidelines in teenagers–the same health guidelines that we daily see adults in society shrugging off around us. I understand the thirst that students have, which I share, to return to socializing in-person with each other, but nearly all instances of socialization will be prohibited: no hanging out in a group with your friends, no giving a high five in hallways, no sharing lunch with them, no relaxing club meetings, no hugging a friend suffering a breakup, no leaning in to help a classmate on their worksheet, no sharing a pencil, no picking up a book for a student who drops it in the hall. All of these activities are at once instinctual, tempting and medically unsafe. How many of us now dread using public restrooms on the rare occasion we need to when leaving our homes? Imagine a teenager facing that dread several times a day. Educators already struggle to faithfully and equitably “police” such mundane issues as respectful language and cellphones. Despite everyone’s best efforts, we will not be successful, and public safety will be compromised. When COVID cases inevitably recur in our community, what will be the psychological effect on students and adults who are unwittingly complicit? 

Health care experts now acknowledge how essential masks are in preventing the spread of COVID, and they would be a constant fixture in our school. They will also be a constant impediment to learning and relationship building. Wearing masks while teaching will make clear communication challenging and will chill our relationships–we all experience this every time we leave our homes. Masks muffle your speech. Masks hide emotions. Masks require constant adjustment. Language learners can no longer rely on important facial and mouth articulation cues. Imagine going through an entire school year without seeing your teachers smile. Imagine learning in a physical environment where a teacher has never truly seen your face, and you’ve never seen theirs.

Sadly, return-to-school plans will in many ways replicate the same distance learning we are hoping to avoid. In an effort to find enough space in our classrooms to enforce social distancing, students will face obstacles to their learning and mental health. Normal hallmarks of language teaching dangerously approximate the now infamous choir practice super-spreader scenario: oral repetitions, shouting, and singing. I am lucky to have a relatively large classroom with windows. But even in my classroom, seat configuration will make it challenging to see the white board and TV that I rely on to teach. I will need to remain in a small designated “teaching zone” at the front of the class, and minor, daily teaching activities will be health violations. I can’t walk over to help a student with their work. I can’t cross the room to pick up a handout I left in the back. I can’t pass out papers or lend a pencil. I can’t pass around cultural objects. I can’t let students use markers. I can’t serve my students horchata for the first time. Students can’t work alongside their group mates. I can’t lead an evacuation drill. 

Nothing we do during the pandemic will be easy, nor will it be ideal, however proposals for synchronous, live teaching will be far superior to in-person schooling or the fraught asynchronous learning experiment from this past spring. Current remote, synchronous proposals provide students with a scheduled and structured day, live virtual teaching, and timely communication and support. While there will be challenges, learning from home will help keep students and their families physically safe, rather than forcing us into an environment rooted in perpetual anxiety and dehumanization as the pandemic continues to worsen.

I urge you to reject proposals to return to school in favor of a well-thought out remote learning experience.