By defying state COVID-19 rules, this California school board is risking lives

On the 3,000+ member “RE-OPEN Schools in Placer County” Facebook page, a school board member who pushes to re-open immediately receives high praise. Teachers unions that call for safety precautions receive scorn. Anti-vaccine sentiment is the norm and Gov. Gavin Newsom is depicted as the devil in disguise.

Consequently, it comes as no surprise that Placer County’s Roseville Joint Union High School District is not focused on vaccinating teachers. In fact, it’s not even willing to abide by simple social distancing guidelines.

RJUHSD plans to remain fully open for in-person instruction despite the fact that three of its six schools fail to meet the state’s new four-foot classroom distancing guidelines. That means it’s only a matter of time until students and staff at Roseville, Woodcreek and Granite Bay High Schools are forced back into quarantine — again.

In December, the RJUHSD School Board voted unanimously to bring its 11,000 students back to campus for fully in-person instruction starting Jan. 1. After that, hundreds of students throughout the district were forced to quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19 on campus. Roseville High School was forced to return to distance learning for two weeks because “too many staff members quarantined,” wrote The Bee’s Sawsan Morrar.

The board’s December decision also ignored health and safety concerns shared by a majority of teachers in the district.

“When Placer and Sacramento counties’ COVID numbers were spiking, it seemed incredulous to push our classrooms to the most congested seating we had seen since March,” said Granite Bay High School history teacher Brandon Dell’Orto, who is also the president of the Roseville Secondary Education Association. “To us, it really defied all elements of basic logic.”

According to the CDC, “COVID-19 spreads mainly among people who are in close contact (within about 6 feet) for a prolonged period.” By ignoring distancing guidelines, the school board has again chosen to put its staff at risk unnecessarily.

Placer County public information officer Katie Combs Prichard said RJUHSD received permission from the county’s health department and the California Department of Public Health to “delay changes to current models until CDPH further clarifies ... how its latest guidance will be applied to districts already offering in-person learning.”

However, the decision to ignore these guidelines is a clear attempt by the RJUHSD School Board to pander to Republican-leaning Placer County parents who voted two new board members — Heidi Hall and Pete Constant — into office because they promised to return students to the classroom.

RJUHSD teachers continue to make good-faith efforts to work with the board to find a solution to return students to the classroom, but they’ve learned that their legitimate safety concerns are not important to district parents or the school board.

“We’re often perceived as the selfish ‘state workers’ who ‘continue to get paid, while doing nothing’ by some in our community, on social media, and—if not in their words—in the actions and pronouncements from some on our Board,” a letter sent to the board and signed by 300 RJUHSD staff members reads. “Only a handful of Board members have passionately defended us when demonized by members of the public. The silence of others has said much.”

During public comment at the Jan. 26 school board meeting, the majority of parents spoke in favor of continuing with the current in-person instruction schedule, frequently mentioning the consequences distanced learned has had on the mental well-being of their children.

I sympathize. I did my last quarter of college online, and I hated every minute of those Zoom lectures. But I knew the temporary sacrifice was worth it to protect my family and slow the spread of COVID-19.

Ultimately, in-person instruction should not be an option while Placer County is still in the purple tier, California’s most restrictive tier indicating that the virus remains widespread. On Feb. 1, the first day Roseville, Woodcreek and Granite Bay held in-person classes while failing to meet the four-foot distancing guidelines, Placer County reported 209 cases and two new deaths.

Elsewhere in California, seven of the state’s largest school districts have pushed back against Newsom’s reopening plans — saying the state must do more to suppress the virus before they would consider reopening schools.

The board’s flagrant disregard for basic health and safety measures during a global pandemic is unbelievably irresponsible, especially now that a new, highly-contagious COVID-19 variant has made its first appearance in the Sacramento area.

“We demand a return to the days where we worked collaboratively and respectfully together with the Board and District Office, rather than letting ourselves get pulled into the vortex of national anger and social politics,” the RJUHSD staff letter reads.

The RJUHSD school board must reconsider its current and dangerous instruction model. Its top priority should be getting staff vaccinated, not pushing the county’s political agenda.