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Superintendents from State’s Largest School Districts Call for Funding, Common Requirements in School Opening

Published on Thursday, November 5, 2020 | 5:31 pm
 

Seven California school districts, including the state’s four largest, called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to adopt and pay for more stringent, uniform health and safety requirements that they think should be in place before bringing students back to school during the pandemic.

In a Nov. 2 letter drafted by Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner and signed by superintendents from school districts in Long Beach, San Diego, Fresno, Santa Ana, Sacramento, and Oakland, the education administrators call for collective action and additional funding to bring students, teachers, and staff “back to schools in the way that is as safe as possible and sustainable for the long-term.”

Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Brian McDonald said the district is not involved in the effort.

Pasadena students have been learning via online distance learning since March when the pandemic forced schools across the state to close. Local teachers have said they would not return until safety protocols are put in place.

Like Pasadena, none of the other districts plan to bring students back to regular classes before January.

“California has long maintained a strict set for standards of health, education and employee protections and practices in schools,” said the superintendents. “This crisis is not the time to lessen standards which could compromise the health and safety of all in the school community, the quality of education being provided to students or the protections for employees in the workplace.”

Pasadena, Los Angeles and Long Beach schools are in Los Angeles County, which is in the purple tier, the most restricted category on the state’s monitoring list, prohibiting schools, bars, and some businesses from reopening until infection rates improve.

The standards are laid out in a three-page document that calls for free testing for students and staff, and for family members who may have been exposed to someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.

Testing should be available at multiple sites within a community, with a turnaround time of 24 to 48 hours for test results, the document says.

Newsom has provided districts with $5.3 billion in federal CARES Act funding, plus $620 million in state funding, which he has repeatedly said should be sufficient to reopen schools.

The governor has insisted that individual school districts should decide when to reopen, based on state and county health department guidelines.

The superintendents say that is one-time money that must be spent by the end of the year and not sustained funding to keep schools open.

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