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Sabrina Albright propped up her school-issued laptop on a history textbook at her kitchen table Wednesday morning as she prepared to greet her new students through the computer screen on the first day of class.
Although it wasn’t exactly how Albright — a 26-year teacher in Union City’s New Haven Unified School District — would have hoped to start the new year, she was confident that distance learning was going to happen more smoothly this time than last spring.
“I’m excited but I’m nervous about making the connections with my kids,” she said. “…We’ve had a lot more time to plan and to look at all the different types of tools that we have, so I definitely feel better about it.”
When the coronavirus pandemic forced schools across the Bay Area to hastily switch to virtual instruction last spring, the results often weren’t pretty, frustrating parents, students and educators alike.
Teachers struggled to reach and engage their students. Parents expressed dismay at the lack of structure, live instruction and communication from administrators. And students — those most affected by the mangled online learning models — had to try adapting to a new way of learning in the midst of a stressful and unsettling global pandemic.
But after a summer of bracing and planning for the possibility of starting a new school year online, educators around the Bay Area say they are optimistic this time things will be different.
But any hope they had of also opening this week and next with limited in-person classes went out the window when Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last month that any county on the state’s “watchlist” — now encompassing more than 90% of the state — would not be permitted to open classroom doors without special permission.
Since then, districts across the region have decided to take their own approach to the start of another semester with virtual instruction.
Some, like South San Francisco Unified, pushed back the start of the school year a week to give teachers and administrators more time to prepare. Others, like Oakland Unified and Pleasanton Unified, conducted short check-ins with students but gave them the rest of the day off so teachers could use that time for whatever planning or student or parent outreach was needed.
“We know we aren’t going to get it right the first time around,” Pleasanton Unified spokesman Patrick Gannon said. “But we’re very happy with the initial feedback.”
While most districts are shrinking their schedules to limit the time students sit in front of a computer, San Jose Unified School District is bucking that trend by requiring a full day of lessons for teachers and students.
Palo Alto Unified School District, on the other hand, has not set a minimum number of required face-to-face minutes per day between teachers and students — a policy that most other districts have outlined in their reopening plans.
After parents complained in surveys and forums that it didn’t establish a formal schedule for distance learning in the spring, Palo Alto this time did set up a schedule for elementary and secondary students that also has them meeting with teachers virtually three days a week starting on Aug. 17.
“When we were first closed in March for three weeks, we didn’t think we needed to reinvent the whole school system, we thought we wanted to limp through this,” Palo Alto Unified Superintendent Don Austin said. “Once our mindset shifted, it really helped us to get centered and make decisions.”
At New Haven, where Albright teaches, the district has three instruction schedules for elementary, middle, and high school levels. Albright’s middle school students will be in virtual classroom from about 8:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. each day.
“Society in general, and New Haven specifically, is asking a lot of teachers and families and students at this point,” said John Mattos, the district’s director of assessment and evaluations. “There may be some growing pains in the first couple of weeks, but at the end of it, we’re going to be pretty proud of what we were able to put together.”
But no matter the amount of time and effort that went into preparing for this new school year online, issues of equity, technology and accessibility will remain a great hurdle for districts to overcome.
Just hours before the first day of school started, San Jose Unified sent an email to parents Wednesday morning informing them that students would not be marked absent if they could not log into the district’s new online learning platform. “We understand the anxiety and stress caused for students and families when things do not go as planned,” the district wrote in its email.
Assistant Superintendent Stephen McMahon said district employees were attempting to call the homes of every student who did not log on Wednesday morning to see what the problem was — lack of internet access, technology issues or personal reasons.
Katie Davis, the mother of three children at Brooksin Elementary School in San Jose, was one of the fortunate ones. The first day of school for her three elementary age students went off without a hitch — an indication to her that things had greatly improved since the last round of distance learning rolled out in the spring.
“It seems to be running a lot smoother and the kids are able to work independently,” Davis said. “I have a huge appreciation for all the extra time and work that the teachers and district have put in to learn the new technologies and make sure the students are more engaged.”
Staff writers Angela Ruggiero, Aldo Toledo, Jon Kawamoto and Peter Hegarty contributed to this story.
