With less than a month until the Cloverdale Unified School District (CUSD) reopens its doors to students, the district gave an update on its reopening plan during its July 21 school board meeting.
CUSD Superintendent Betha MacClain said that the district is moving forward with the expectation that students are returning to full, in-person instruction. Since classrooms have been at limited capacity up until this point due to social distancing guidelines, district staff are in the middle of identifying how many desks are necessary for each classroom.
“At this point, until November, masks will be required indoors. We won’t have restrictions like three feet of physical distance, or six feet. With that said, the assumption is that there won’t be any restrictions on how many students can be in the classroom,” she said, noting that there’s a masking reassessment due at the state level in November.
At the start of the school year, the district also won’t be using dividers on desks, since the dividers previously used have impeded students’ ability to hear and pay attention in class, and since studies have shown that dividers do little to stop the spread of COVID-19, according to MacClain.
The district update was given before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendation that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people wear masks indoors.
MacClain said that the district has little wiggle room when it comes to masking.
“For students who refuse to mask, then we have to offer alternative placement. When you get into the weeds … there really is no flexibility, there is the illusion of flexibility. What I’d say our flexibility is, is whether we discipline a student in a punitive way for not masking, or we offer the student independent study or some combination of both,” she said. “But the option of not masking unless there’s a verified health reason isn’t something we have the flexibility to decide locally.”
From a liability perspective, the district’s insurance doesn’t cover communicable disease, so it needs to demonstrate that it’s making an effort to follow state guidance.
During public comment following the update, a parent with three kids in the district spoke urging the district to join other districts in signing a resolution asking the California Department of Public Education to rescind student mask mandates.
“In the United States I feel that we pride ourselves on an equal opportunity education for everyone. I feel that last school year was not equal opportunity for anyone,” she said. “This is bringing back déjà vu — when the CDPH said that everyone had to be masked to go back to school. I don’t feel like my kids got an education last year. I feel like we went from Zoom calls to wearing masks in schools, like a prison. That’s a strong statement, but the way my kids reacted wasn’t good.”
The board of trustees said that it would look at and consider the resolution at its next regular meeting.
“I think the entire board and district are supportive of getting kids back into normal school. I feel, unfortunately, rules are imposed upon us that we have to enforce and know that the board has asked for the last year and a half, we’ve asked legal, we’ve asked our insurance companies ‘What can we do?’ We take this seriously, we take the education of kids seriously and we’re definitely looking into all of the avenues that we have,” said board president Preston Addison.
For those still on distance learning
One of the big conversations happening among local superintendents, MacClain said, is the requirements for independent study for students and families who don’t feel comfortable sending their student(s) back to school.
MacClain said that the district has to offer a version of independent study that’s similar to what they did during distance learning, with more targeted attendance taking and direct contact with a teacher every week. She said that the North County Consortium is talking about doing independent study through the consortium.
“When we surveyed families at the end of the school year, we had nine students that identified they absolutely must have continued distance learning or independent study, and there were about 20 families that said maybe, depending, we’re not sure,” MacClain said. “It’s less than 20 total, which would really make it difficult — and they’re evenly distributed across our three divisions. We’re hoping that we can partner with other north county schools and do something collaborative, so that’s the current burning question.”
