Teachers unions in 3 large Sacramento districts want schools closed until at least January

Citing concerns that the coronavirus pandemic will still be out of control months from now, the unions representing teachers in three Sacramento County school districts are urging county school leaders and superintendents to keep campuses closed until at least January.

In a letter to Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools Dave Gordon and their districts’ respective superintendents, the teachers unions at Sacramento City Unified, Natomas Unified and Twin Rivers said allowing some schools to reopen before others “deepens inequality” in low income neighborhoods where coronavirus infection rates are high. Those three districts serve a combined 95,000 students.

“Education equity is tied to health equity,” the letter reads. “We must ensure that there is COVID-19 health equity in all neighborhoods and places across our county before schools return to in-person instruction.”

Sacramento County schools can reopen campuses beginning Tuesday, two weeks after the county entered the state of California’s red tier for coronavirus spread risk. However, no public schools are scheduled to open classrooms yet; Folsom Cordova Unified approved a reopening plan that allows elementary and middle school aged students back on campus for nearly three hours a few days a week starting in November. High school students will return Jan. 4.

Arcohe School District, which serves nearly 400 students at just one TK-8 school south of Elk Grove, has plans to reopen on Nov. 9.

Reopening school campuses would likely require formal agreements between districts and their teachers unions.

Sacramento County public health officials said they have been in contact with a number of school districts and county school officials – and reopening plans are taking time.

“It’s not like turning on a light switch on Oct. 13,” said Dr. Olivia Kasirye, the Sacramento County public health officer.

Health and school officials have been encouraged by the fact that nearby counties that have opened schools for hybrid in-class instruction have not run into notable outbreak issues.

That’s giving Sacramento confidence it can do the same. But there are some large school districts that will take longer to get hybrid learning programs running.

“The smaller schools might be able to get up and running much sooner, but for larger school districts, it might take longer,” Kasirye said. “They are going to space it out.”

Many schools in the Sacramento and Twin Rivers districts are in ZIP codes where coronavirus transmission rates are high.

“Even if Sacramento County overall can maintain red tier status, our collective position is it is unsafe and inequitable to resume instruction via a hybrid or fully-in-person instructional model until these standards can be achieved in every zip code in the three school districts,” the unions wrote. “Our position from the beginning has been simple: California cannot physically open schools for in-person instruction unless it is safe. The politicization of school reopening and in-person instruction cannot allow us to stray from this core principle and from the science that drives it.”

The unions said “it is unrealistic to expect” conditions will improve “in the 2020 calendar year” and said without dramatic improvements in infection rates and testing capabilities, “our school districts cannot physically open in a hybrid model until at least January of 2021.”

Schools make COVID-19 changes

Several schools, including those in Folsom Cordova and Sacramento City Unified, are replacing HVAC systems to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Sacramento City Unified is working with an architect to identify improvements needed to be made on campus.

Kasirye said it is a good idea for schools to review and possibly update HVAC systems, especially after recent bad air days that may have clogged filters.

“In some situations, HVAC may play a role” in reducing spread of COVID, she said.

Kasirye cautioned that she does not have research at hand about the connection between HVAC systems and COVID spread, but that it stands to reason that a well-functioning HVAC system can help reduce spread. It can pull air more quickly out of a classroom, so that if there are any COVID particles suspended in the air, they will be drawn away and less likely to be inhaled by students.

“Droplets are suspended in the air, and if that air is stagnant, it could increase the length of time infection particles are floating around,” she said.

If a HVAC system has good filtration, it will catch those particles rather than redistribute them.

“The reason they (schools) are looking at HVAC is they are trying to make sure they are taking all measures they can to create a safe environment,” she said. “Checking on the HVAC is a good idea generally because we have had a number of bad air days this summer.”

The county is offering technical advice to some schools on how to set up for safely bringing students back, including looking at the physical layouts of classroom space.

“Our team can review plans that they have and our team can do site visits to make sure they are optimizing the space and taking the correct measures,” she said.

County health officials will do inspections if requested. They also intend to visit schools that have infections to see what contributed to the outbreak, she said.

The county has begun training some school representatives on how to do contact tracing for themselves. Other schools will rely on county contact tracers. Some schools might be able to do internal tracing, while others will lean more on the county to provide that support.