‘Let’s focus on the fall,’ Sequoia principals push back at parents’ pressure to reopen more extensively this spring

The Sequoia Union High School District expanded in-person learning to 50% capacity this week, but some parents are expressing frustration that students are not back on campus more regularly. Meanwhile, school principals have asked parents to rein in their complaints and have patience.

During a Wednesday, April 14, district governing board meeting Menlo-Atherton High School Principal Simone Rick-Kennel explained it’s complicated to configure the 50 classrooms in use at the Atherton high school with social distancing guidelines — although San Mateo County’s guidance was recently updated to require that desks are placed 3 feet apart, the district submitted its reopening plan in early March with desks spaced 6 feet apart before the change was made. She said it would take about 30 minutes to remeasure each classroom for the new social distancing guidelines. Some parents don’t understand why the district doesn’t update its distancing between desks to 3 feet now to allow more students on campus at a time.

“A sense of urgency doesn’t mean tomorrow, but it means it’s a priority,” said Rick-Kennel, who will leave the role at the end of the school year to become the district’s director of small schools. “It’s a priority for summer and it’s a priority for fall.”

Interim Superintendent Crystal Leach shared that the district is aiming to bring students back at 100% capacity in the fall. Of the 9,300 students in the district, those who opted to return to campuses are divided into four groups (A, B, C and D), according to the reopening plan. For example, Groups A and B will attend Mondays and Tuesdays, and Groups C and D on Thursdays and Fridays. Wednesdays are designated for asynchronous learning at home.

Rick-Kennel also said that the school’s “traumatic” lockdown — after someone called in a threat to “shoot up” the school — on students’ second day back on campus on April 6 has left the school community “reeling” and “recovering.”

The incident also highlighted the disconnect between coronavirus protocols and lockdown, in which students and teachers have no choice but to be inside together with doors and windows closed (which limits the ventilation needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19). In one case, 18 students locked down in one portable last week, she said. Edith Salvatore, Sequoia District Teachers Association president, said she inquired with the district about getting extra COVID-19 testing and whether quarantines are needed, as teachers and students were forced to shelter in place — up to three hours for some — with windows and doors closed. In some cases, students were brought in from the athletic fields and did not have masks.

“I think we have forgotten COVID is still out there, even though the cases are low,” she said. “We’ve got AP (Advanced Placement) testing, we have every athletic team going. I don’t know how we’re going to contact trace if we have a positive case. … I have no doubt we will be 100% in the fall if this trend continues, I just want to remind us all this is a reality. I knock on wood that we don’t have a positive case, but if we do, everyone’s going to get notified.”

Sequoia High School Principal Sean Priest shared the same sentiments as Rick-Kennel about the difficulties reopening during the pandemic.

“Let’s start to really focus on the fall and get the work (for summer and fall) we’re way behind on really ramped up,” he said.

‘Divide’ between parents and teachers

Board members and principals expressed their concerns during the meeting about the divide that seems to have formed between parents, teachers and administrators during the pandemic.

At one point during the meeting, one parent from the group Reopen SUHSD, a coalition of district parents, students, teachers and community members that believe students learn most effectively by attending school in person, said that he didn’t feel as if students’ needs were being prioritized and that the teachers union’s role is not to advocate for students.

East Palo Alto Academy Principal Amika Guillaume said that parents have said some “offensive” things about teachers and that reopening is not a simple maneuver. At Guillaume’s school, 25% of the student body has returned, with many not being able to return because they’re working to support their families or providing child care for their parents. Only 77% are attending classes regularly, compared to the usual 94%-96%, she noted.

“We are nothing without our teachers,” she said. “We’ll continue to have a divide if we don’t call people out for being offensive about what our teachers do; for truly not thinking of the complexity of what we’re trying to get done here.”

Newly elected Trustee Shawneece Stevenson turned to longtime district employees Rick-Kennel and Bonnie Hansen, assistant superintendent of educational services, during the April 14 meeting for insights on the district’s inner workings and guidance on how to bridge this chasm. Rick-Kennel noted that the district officials have always been good about gathering stakeholder input, but that the pandemic has “thrown us all for a loop because it’s impacting everyone so deeply.”

“I disagree that the union is advocating only for their teachers, I don’t think teachers come in thinking their purpose is not to teach students,” Stevenson said. “There is a lot of mistrust between how we (teachers, parents, administrators and board members) interact with each other. We’re so frustrated we’re not accessing our executive function; we are under stress and don’t always get all the details. How do we get on the same page and say ‘we are here for the kids.'”

April 19 expansion

On Monday, April 19, about 500 students were allowed back on M-A’s campus per day, said Rick-Kennel in an email. M-A’s total enrollment this school year is 2,371 students.

The same day, Woodside High School planned to welcome 300 students for the Monday and Tuesday cohort and then the second 300 students for Thursday and Friday for the remainder of the year, said Principal Diane Burbank in an email. Overall, 33% of the school’s roughly 1,906 students opted to return to campus this spring (about 600 students), she said during the board meeting. The return was not equitable, with white students overrepresented by 23% and Hispanic students underrepresented by 12%. It did not “mirror the school-wide demographic.”

The school sorted students so that even at 50% capacity, students have 6 feet physical distance between desks.

“The break and lunches will be where students need to be reminded about distancing — and to pick up the free morning snack and lunches in the Multi Use Room (MUR),” she noted.

Watch the full April 14 meeting here.