BY SARA TABIN
Daily Post Staff Writer
Three quarters of Palo Alto parents want in-person schooling with social distancing this fall instead of online learning, according to a school district survey that received 3,476 responses.
Superintendent Don Austin said in a letter today (June 8) that school will begin in August (Aug. 12 for students in grades six through 12; Aug. 13 for K-5). The district has not made a final decision about how classes will be structured given the coronavirus pandemic.
The California Public Health Department released guidelines today for in-person learning. They include requiring teachers and other school employees to wear masks, encouraging students to wear masks, putting desks six feet apart and taking students’ temperatures when they arrive on campus.
Austin said the district will keep seeking input from parents about whether they want online learning, in-person learning or a hybrid option.
Most parents who responded to the district’s survey said they want their children to receive more than two hours of work a day if the school continues with remote learning. Only 10% said they want less than an hour of work while 31% said they want kids to get more than four hours of work.
The survey asked parents how things went with online learning this spring.
According to the survey, 28% of parents said their kids are currently getting less than an hour of work. About half the parents said their kids’ current workloads is good while 33% said kids are getting too little work.
Parents of high school students reported that students had more hours of work than middle and elementary school students, but 33% of high school parents said students haven’t been getting enough work.
[Comment deleted because the poster is using two different identities on this thread. Please, no sock puppets.]
Youth rarely get COVID-19, so the only ones they’ve got to worry about protecting are teachers and other employees. Therefore, I don’t see the point of social distancing between students.
Pausd did such a bad job w distance learning of course parents weren’t happy w it. HS teachers gave little to no instruction, forcing kids to teach themselves. PAUSD need to provide live streaming and recorded instruction, along w in person, b c covid 19 is still around and the kids have to get educated regardless.
Even if schools open and there’s social distancing, with the amount of people at school they can’t control the virus with the students. If one person has Covid 19 it could easily spread to students and their families and affect people horribly I think opening schools It’s not a good idea. The hospitals we be full and dangerous.
Oh the hospitals will be filled! Where have I heard that before? Let’s roll back the tape to March when people like Aida were telling us we had to shutdown the economy because the hospitals will be full. Never happened. Aida, don’t cry wolf! It won’t work this time.
Austin and his crew did such a bang-up job with distance learning this spring we ought to give them a second chance. I’m sure they’re moving up on the learning curve and everything will be perfect this fall. I don’t know why parents would insist on getting their money’s worth with in-person learning. Yeah, I pay $20,000 a year in school taxes (about half my property tax bill), so my kid can take classes over his computer that he could get in 100 other places besides PAUSD. I really appreciate how the board keeps the bar low for the administration. Hope there are some good candidates this fall that will replace the current crew.
Oddly missing from this survey is the obvious third option — resuming regular schooling in the fall. I bet most parents who favor re-opening schools would prefer that option. If this virus is as contagious and deadly as we’ve been told, the security theater of socially distancing masked 6-year-olds several times a week cannot possibly be effective.
Given that the ever-diminishing doom-and-gloom prognoses of millions of dead and thousands of overwhelmed hospitals never came to fruition, perhaps it’s time to stop comforting the lowest common denominator at everyone’s expense and turn instead to common sense? Those who don’t want to send their kids to school can continue to shelter in place and home-school indefinitely.
Social distancing is over. Was just watching the funeral for George Floyd and nobody there was bothering to keep 6 feet of distance from other people. The police didn’t try to break up that funeral, so I assume this rule has been discarded.