OAKLAND — Dozens of parents, students and teachers of the Oakland Unified School District gathered Sunday at Eastshore Park to call on district officials to reopen schools as the spread of the deadly coronavirus pandemic continues to slow.
It’s been nearly a year since schools in the Bay Area’s third-largest city closed down at the start of the pandemic. Parents and teachers — many of whom belong to Black and brown families that have been disproportionately impacted by the disease’s spread — are frustrated with the district’s sluggish approach to reopening schools for its over 50,000 students.
Parents are asking that OUSD immediately begin a phased reopening of schools for the remainder of the 2021 Spring term, beginning with elementary schools and the most vulnerable populations, who should return to the classroom no later than March 15. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, former School Board Director Jumoke Hinton-Hodge and current OUSD District 7 Director Cliff Thompson joined parents and teachers in calling on the district to reopen.
“It is time we let our children go back to school; as we say in Oakland, it’s hella time,” Schaaf said.
Since Feb. 2, elementary schools in Alameda County have met the California Department of Public Health’s guidelines for reopening, but the district has not yet moved to open schools. OUSD spokesman John Sasaki said in a letter sent to parents on Wednesday that the district is planning on reopening school by mid- to late-March.
But many of those who gathered Sunday were upset over the “inadequacy” of distance learning, “Zoom school” and the district’s response. They expressed frustration that California is 49th in the country in the number of students who are back in schools. Some said they’re noticing that the prolonged absence is having detrimental effects on children’s development.
Paul Kwatra, 45, of Oakland said it’s clear to him that “Zoom school” is not good for his seven-year-old twins in first grade. He said he’s less concerned about the education being missed than about children not getting social interaction with each other while they’re stuck at home.
“You can only learn how to have those social interactions at school,” Kwatra said. “How will they learn to interact with their peers if we don’t equip them with the skills they need? They get those from their teachers and their friends.
“This is about getting them ready to be a part of society.”
Bonnie Forbes, who said she has been a OUSD teacher for 14 years, said she’s worried about her students’ learning loss during distance learning. She said her own children said “for the first time that they hate school,” and urged the district to reopen to keep students engaged.
Like many other parents on Sunday, Kwatra said he has been frustrated with the Oakland Education Association and he wanted the district to put more pressure on the teachers’ union to get school reopened. The union’s latest proposal calls for voluntary in-person instruction for “small and stable” cohorts, which the district did not accept.
Still, the OEA is demanding that the district only allow teachers and staff who have been vaccinated to return to in-person instruction, and asking that teachers have the vaccine made readily available to them. The union wants the district to commit to voluntary in-person instruction in the red tier, and further commit to re-closing schools if the county returns to the purple tier again.
A representative for the union was not available for comment Sunday.
But University of California, San Francisco pediatrician and epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford said teachers don’t have to be vaccinated to safely return to schools.
“Elementary schools have little risk of being foci for the spread of the virus,” Dr. Rutherford said. “I understand why schools were closed at the start of the pandemic, but we can be comfortable that we can expeditiously get back to education in person.”
While parents who protested Sunday were eager to get students back in desks, some members of communities of color across America say that safety must be the first rule over any potential reopening. A Pew Research study taken in mid-February showed that Black, Hispanic and Asian adults are more likely to say risks to teachers and students are their top concern.
Mayor Schaaf said in an interview Sunday that she has been working with state and federal officials to make vaccines more readily available to teachers.
She added that if educators want a vaccine they can get one. either through any vaccination site in the county, or through a new mobile health clinic provided by the federal goverment, specifically for educators, she said. Schaaf said that she’s encouraged that Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that 10% of the state’s vaccine supply will be dedicated for teachers.
“This is our way of saying, teachers education workers, we value you and we want you back in our children’s lives,” Schaaf said. “That’s why we’re dedicating this precious vaccine for you first.”
