Aimee Triplett’s son has been attending school in person at San Marcos Unified since November.
Even so, Triplett hasn’t been able to return to her job teaching preschool, because her son’s school, Carrillo Elementary, has been providing hybrid learning. Her son goes to school for two days a week, for a total of 10 hours of in-person learning. The rest of the time the 8-year-old does school work on various computer apps at home.
“It’s better than nothing, but it’s still not good enough,” said Triplett, a single mom who says she can’t afford childcare.
Triplett is not alone. The vast majority of San Diego County school districts are now open or will reopen this month. But much to some parents’ frustration “open” has often meant only a partial reopening, what districts call hybrid learning.
Overwhelmingly San Diego County districts have been limiting how many students are on campus by staggering when they can learn in-person and when they must learn at home online.
San Diego Unified, for instance, plans to reopen on April 12. It expects to offer students two or four days a week of on-campus attendance, depending on the school. District leaders have committed to offer full-time in-person learning in the fall.
Out of 488,000 public and private students in the county, 27 percent are involved in hybrid learning while 8 percent are learning full-time in-person, according to data from the San Diego County Office of Education.
Meanwhile about 65 percent of students are in full-time distance learning, either because their school has not yet reopened or because parents are choosing to keep them at home.
Private schools have been much more likely to reopen for full-time in-person learning than public schools. About 63 percent of private school students attend in person full-time, compared to 5 percent of students attending district public schools.
For some students, hybrid learning has meant they go to school two days a week. For others, it means they go four or five days a week, but only for half the day.
“Different districts have different space considerations and ways their buildings are laid out,” said Shannon Baker, senior director of curriculum and instruction for the county education office. “It’s not cookie-cutter, it’s not a one-size-fits-all.”
For months many parents have organized and protested to get their schools open. More recently, parents shifted their focus to getting districts to open for full-time in-person learning.
“We feel there’s no reason why, at this point, the schools should not be reopening five days a week for all grades,” said Kim Imhoff, a San Marcos parent and member of the Parent Association, a North County-based group.
The biggest reason schools are using hybrid learning is the need for distancing. Hybrid schedules let schools essentially halve the number of students on campus at a time, giving schools more space to socially distance students in classrooms.
And rather than opening immediately for full-time learning and bringing all students back at the same time, many districts want to reopen gradually to avoid having outbreaks of coronavirus close them down again.
Some school districts also have used half-day schedules to avoid dealing with lunchtime, which is a high-risk activity because students have to take off their masks to eat.
“Hybrid was a necessary decision at the time as part of employing every possible mitigation strategy,” said Kristine Beverly, spokeswoman for Encinitas Union School District, which has been using a two-days-a-week hybrid schedule since it opened in September.
Some parents say that, with some forms of hybrid learning, their children are continuing to struggle academically and emotionally, similar to how they were during full-time distance learning. On days or times when their children aren’t at school, some parents say, the schoolwork their kids receive is insubstantial, and it’s up to parents to do the teaching.
“I think the teachers are doing the best they can to provide a full day of learning on their at-home days,” Imhoff said. “The reality is kids are sitting at home, they’re unassisted, they’re required to just manage their schedule on their own.”
When Kate Callagy’s son’s school, La Costa Heights Elementary in the Encinitas district, opened in September Callagy felt “so grateful,” she said. At the time she didn’t realize her son would be going two days a week instead of five.
On the days her 8-year-old son works from home, he spends about an hour and a half doing school work on computer apps and another hour and a half doing worksheets on “just the basics,” like math and spelling, Callagy said.
“It got to a point where it seemed like there’s not much growth. They’re doing the same thing over and over,” Callagy said.
Callagy says her son actually has less access to a teacher than he did during distance learning, because on the days when he is home, he can’t ask his teacher for help because the teacher is swamped teaching the on-campus students. With distance learning, he had access to a teacher five days a week.
In January her son “hit a wall” and cried frequently, Callagy said, because he “lost hope in going back to normal.”
“I got upset at that point because now there is enough evidence that kids can go back safely,” Callagy said.
Some school districts are moving toward full-time in-person learning after recent rule changes about social distancing in classrooms.
Last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reduced its classroom social distancing recommendations from six feet between students to three feet. California soon followed suit and relaxed its rules from requiring four feet to three feet.
Shortly after, Carlsbad Unified announced it would move its middle and high schools from a two-days-per-week schedule to five-days-per-week in the last week of March. And San Dieguito Union High announced it will increase in-person learning from two to four days a week.
Some elementary and middle school-only districts that have been open since fall were already making moves before the rule changes to offer full-time in-person learning this spring, including Cajon Valley Union, Lakeside Union and Alpine Union.
Other districts that are just reopening this month and have communities with historically higher COVID rates say they won’t do full-time learning this school year but plan to do so in the fall.
“I am hopeful that we can start next year in-person, but a lot depends on the metrics, right, and our case rate and level of vaccinations,” said Superintendent Francisco Escobedo of Chula Vista Elementary, which will open on April 12 with a half-day hybrid schedule.
In the meantime, Chula Vista is using some of its federal stimulus funding to offer free on-campus child care for children of essential workers, homeless students and foster youth for the half of the school day they’re not in class, Escobedo said.
Encinitas is moving from two days a week to five days a week starting April 12 but is sticking with a shortened-day schedule, to avoid having lunch on-campus and to give teachers more time to plan and work with students who are sick or in quarantine at home.
“We did hear from our families the importance of (having a) consistent 5-day-per week daily schedule,” Beverly said.
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Beyond just reopening schools, many parents want full-time in-person learning - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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