A third Sacramento County school district announces a plan to reopen. This time much later

San Juan Unified School District is set to reopen its campuses for its 40,000 students on Jan. 5.

Students will return in cohorts, but can choose to continue to remain in distance learning. The decision was made at a board meeting on Tuesday night, making San Juan Unified one of the first local districts to announce an opening date much later than other districts.

The district is exploring two options on how to bring students back: Students will attend in-person classes for two days and online classes for three days. Or students will attend in-person classes for five partial days, and the remaining class time will be online. Or students can continue full distance learning.

Students enrolled in special education will return to self-contained classrooms for up to four days on Nov. 2.

Details of the in-person model will be finalized and sent to families no later than Dec. 1

“Given the challenges observed in other districts, the revised guidance from health officials and changing circumstances, an agreement has not yet been reached with the district’s employee groups on what the final instructional model might look like,” read a statement from the district.

The district plans to install plexiglass in common areas, and MERV13 filters for better ventilation. In its reopening plan, the district said that surfaces, restrooms, offices and any touchpoints will be cleaned several times a day.

“We appreciate that the district is taking a thoughtful approach to reopening,” said Shannan Brown, executive director of the San Juan Teachers Association. “Nobody knows what we are heading into because we are in a pandemic.”

Brown said with the coronavirus infection rates increasing during past holidays, sending students back to school with Thanksgiving and winter break approaching would be risky.

Brown said the district and teachers union worked together to agree on a January reopening. But with that spirit of collaboration came criticism from families who wanted the board to open campuses sooner.

“It sort of puts us in a lose-lose situation,” she said. “We typically have a good working relationship, and work through our differences in opinion and perspectives, and we tend to reduce confusion. People criticize us for working well together, and criticize us for not working together. And either way, the criticism is that we must not care about kids.”

Many parents spoke at the virtual school board meeting, sharply criticizing board members for reopening the school district in January when the state currently allows for reopening campuses earlier than that.

Debra Hillsman, a parent in the district, said she is “horrified” that the district decided to delay reopening until January.

“Every single one of the people I work with, everyone of their kids are in a part time where they go back to school a couple of times a week,” she said during the board meeting. “New York, Texas, Florida. To see you are not prepared for that and trying to push this out until January is astonishing to me.”

The district’s original reopening plan had to be revisited to ensure that students did not receive less instructional time with an in-person hybrid model than they are receiving in full distance learning.

“How do we make sure that we have continuity of connection, and that we are not unintentionally reducing the amount of time when what we want is more time?” Brown said.

Melissa Hartwick, another parent in the district, said she thinks the hybrid models adopted by other districts including Rocklin Unified and Folsom Unified were not fair to children and families who chose to stay home.

“When we do go back, as long as the (infection rates) stay the same, the kids who are medically at risk, if they are pushed off into (a virtual) academy, we are now penalizing them for choosing not to return,” Hartwick said. “Let’s not penalize those kids and make them switch teachers or switch content and curriculum because they are medically vulnerable.”

Some parents were concerned that schools will be unable to reopen in January during cold and flu season.

If the county returns to the purple tier in January, schools that are not open will be unable to open at that time, according to Sacramento County public health officials.

Several private schools in Sacramento County, and public schools in Placer and El Dorado County have reopened their campuses.

Natomas Unified voted to bring students back in November.

Folsom Cordova Unified voted to reopen its campuses in November for elementary and middle school students. High school students will return in January.

This story was originally published October 16, 2020 at 10:46 AM.