Since summer, the school board has been trying tirelessly to bring students back to in-person learning. On February 11, the board voted to approve a plan to return to school. Other districts around the Bay Area such as Palo Alto Unified School District and San Francisco Unified School District have also released their plans to return to school.
SMUHSD’s plan takes a phased approach. In the first phase, only students with learning challenges will be allowed to return to in-person instruction. Phase one can be initiated once San Mateo County has been in the red tier for 14 days. The second phase allows for Bridge, Peninsula and Middle College students to return 14 days after the successful initiation of phase one. Peninsula will only be able to return when their new campus opens. The third phase allows for anyone who opted to return to in-person learning to return to campus. For the district to move into the third phase, the county must remain in the orange tier for five days. Students and staffulty will be tested every 2-3 weeks. A questionnaire was released asking families whether or not their student would like to return to in-person learning. In the event that the district is able to move into the third phase, the bell schedule will remain the same as the schedule we are currently using. In an email from Superintendent Kevin Skelly, Dr. Skelly informed that students would be attending in-person learning at the same time as remote students, and would effectively be doing the exact same thing as the remote learning students, only in the classroom.
SFUHSD has chosen to take the phase approach, similar to that of SMUHSD. They intend on forming cohorts of students and teachers. Teachers have been trained on how this new socially distanced learning may take place, and a three month stock pile of protective equipment has been collected for students and staff. Similarly to SMUHSD, SFUHSD will be allowing students with learning difficulties to return first, followed by students who chose to return to campus.
Palo Alto’s school district’s plan consists of having a “Launch Day” on Mondays, followed by two in-person and two online days each week. Their elementary schools are following a stable cohort approach, where one group goes to school in the morning and a second group comes in the afternoon, similar to elementary schools in other counties.
All of the local school districts have given students the opportunity to continue with online learning or return to school when it is safe to do so. SMUHSD has predicted that its students will be about 50% in-person and 50% at home; other districts have not predicted or released the number of students learning in-person or online.