Name: S.F. school district, unions reach tentative deal to reopen classrooms
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S.F. school district, unions reach tentative deal to reopen classrooms

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateUnions representing San Francisco Unified School District employees announced a tentative agreement with the district Sunday to safely reopen the city’s public schools — a major step in a contentious, monthslong debate that has pitted city officials against district leaders.A key component of the agreement allows a return to classrooms once the city reaches the red tier, the second most restrictive level of California’s reopening blueprint, if vaccinations against the coronavirus are made available to on-site school staff. If the city progresses to the orange tier, a less restrictive category with “moderate” virus spread, teachers and other staff would return without demanding vaccinations.“The tentative agreement addresses the health and safety standards necessary for the return of students at all grade levels, preschool through 12, and the parties have agreed to meet and confer on any additional negotiable impacts of the district’s plans for the return of middle and high school students,” district officials said in a news release Sunday.The agreement will go before the Board of Education on Tuesday, Feb 16. It’s the first significant movement toward return to in-person instruction for the district’s 52,000 students, and offers frustrated families hope that at least some schools and classrooms will be open before summer break.But the district will need to reach an agreement with the teachers union on daily schedules and other educational aspects of in-person learning, which means there is still no target reopening date and the district is likely still several weeks, if not months, from bringing the first students back.Since San Francisco currently remains in the purple tier, the state’s most restrictive, reopenings presumably would still be down the road under the deal announced Sunday. When the time comes, county health officials also would have to sign off on the reopening details.“This is a major step forward toward a goal that we share with so many parents: safe reopening of school buildings for students and staff,” the unions said in a statement. “In addition to reaching agreement around baseline safety standards, the unions also negotiated groundbreaking language that provides school district support for vaccine prioritization, availability, and education for their members.”Reopening CaliforniaThe announcement came after a week of massive pressure on unions and district officials to reopen the pandemic-shuttered schools, which included dueling news conferences and a weekend protest where frustrated parents demanded that kids be allowed back in classrooms.On Wednesday, City Attorney Dennis Herrera , saying they failed to create a specific and concise state-required plan to reopen. District officials said they did have a plan.“This is progress, but it’s not enough,” John Coté, spokesman for the City Attorney’s Office, said Sunday. “We have not seen the details of any agreement, and so far this raises more questions than answers. There does not appear to be any agreement on classroom instruction and schedules, for example. The school district would need to share the whole plan and show us that it is concrete and meets the requirements of state law.”A day later, a tearful Mayor London Breed stood before children holding signs that read “I miss my friends” at a news conference with families and urged both sides to end finger-pointing to get schools open.“It just really breaks my heart to be here, to see these kids and these families, to know what they’ve been going through,” Breed said. “Kids are struggling in our city, and we all know it.”At their Friday news conference, the unions outlined their conditions, including the availability of vaccinations in red-tier school reopenings, and said they’d be willing to resume in-person teaching without shots once the city is in the orange tier.Hundreds of parents and students marched Saturday, wearing face masks, from City Hall to school district offices, demanding a prompt resumption of in-person learning. They decried what they felt was a lack of strategy for reopening and the inadequacy of instruction over only the Zoom online platform.“We are so glad to learn that after months without significant progress, labor leaders and SFUSD administrators appear to have made a breakthrough,” said Meredith Dodson from Decreasing the Distance, a group of San Francisco parents pushing for schools to open. The group organized Saturday’s march. “We remain firm that we want to see a deal that incorporates public health expert guidance, to get students back this spring. It depends on the details of their proposed agreement, but it’s still possible this agreement doesn’t get kids back until the fall. We have many questions that we hope to have answered as details are shared with us.”The agreement immediately drew criticism: It “falls so far short” of getting children back in classrooms because it doesn’t follow recommendations from health experts who say schools can operate safely if masking and social distancing guidelines are followed, said Dr. Jeanne Noble, director of the UCSF emergency department’s COVID-19 response and associate professor of emergency medicine.“Frankly, I don’t think SFUSD is taking seriously the recommendations from the CDC, from our health department, from mounting evidence across the world, about schools being able to reopen safely,” Noble said. “Their decisions are hurting our children. It’s like the death of expertise, essentially.”Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.Noble also blasted the apparent failure to include middle and high schoolers in the plan.“Middle and high school students is where we’re seeing the worst outcomes from social isolation and the worst metrics in mental health harms,” she said.Susan Solomon, president of the United Educators of San Francisco, countered Noble’s critiques Sunday, saying, “So long as Mayor Breed moves quickly to vaccinate teachers and school workers, we can move quickly and equitably to reopen San Francisco schools.”San Francisco public schools have been closed since mid-March, even though 15,000 private school students in the city are back in classrooms.“Given the constant shift during this pandemic, it’s important to do all we can for the health and safety of our students, families, staff and community,” school board President Gabriela López said in a statement Sunday. “I am excited we have found common ground on these baseline standards with our unions, paving the way for our gradual reopening of schools.”Schools in purple-tier counties are allowed to open for K-6 grades if their “average adjusted case rate” is below 25 cases per 100,000 population and they file a safety plan. County health officials allow schools to reopen with a waiver under the purple tier, but it appears the deal announced Sunday would not allow San Francisco district schools to do so.“This agreement sets the stage to safely reopen schools in San Francisco. Now we need City and State officials to step up and make vaccines available to school staff now, while UESF continues to focus on finalizing agreements around classroom instruction, schedules, and continuing to improve remote learning for the students and families who choose not to return even with these standards in place,” Solomon said in a statement.Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the date that the Board of Education will take up the tentative agreement. The correct date is Feb. 16.Tatiana Sanchez and Jill Tucker are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: , Twitter: ,Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateUnions representing San Francisco Unified School District employees announced a tentative agreement with the district Sunday to safely reopen the city’s public schools — a major step in a contentious, monthslong debate that has pitted city officials against district leaders.A key component of the agreement allows a return to classrooms once the city reaches the red tier, the second most restrictive level of California’s reopening blueprint, if vaccinations against the coronavirus are made available to on-site school staff. If the...

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Tatiana Sanchez

Jill Tucker knows the rules of tether ball and sort of gets why one might need to solve for X and so she is the k-12 education writer at the SF Chronicle.

Jill Tucker

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S.F. school district, unions reach tentative deal to reopen classrooms

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