I want to do a story about this next week, but this school planning meeting is reinforcing how many significant challenges schools trying to reopen in the fall face.

Basically - schools have to do way more stuff with (best case scenario) no extra $ (more likely deep cuts).

Specifically:

A good % of staff won't be able to return to school in the fall - both because they're in high risk groups and bc they don't have childcare themselves. Some teachers can teach online school, but not all jobs can be remote & demand for them will exceed supply

Half of district employees who filled out a survey toward the end of this school year reported they were caring for a child at home while trying to do their jobs remotely.

Oregon's protocols require lots of extra work. Students have to be kept in "stable cohorts" as much as possible so a Covid case means excluding the cohort, not shutting down a whole school. Someone has to track that data & have it available for health dept.

Buses can maybe, maybe be filled to half capacity. Classrooms must have 35 square ft of usable space (not furniture) per kid, which means 16-20 kids in most classrooms.

So school needs more people to run, even with kids coming in fewer days/week.

And there's no money for it - Oregon, like most states, is facing a huge budget hole. Gov. Brown has indicated she wants to keep school funding as a priority, but some cuts are still likely. Districts also won't know until a leg session in August & have to submit plans by Aug. 15

Kids can opt to go to school online & the district will have to adjust. It seems...not likely that the % of kids opting for online will be evenly spread across every school in the district. That means physical space in buildings + educators might need to be redistributed somehow.

There may be staffing mismatches too. It's likely more middle & high school kids will opt for online school than say, kindergarteners. But you can't move a high school math teacher into a kindergarten classroom - totally different licenses, different skillsets.

There's a Catch-22 with staffing planning as well. District needs to know how many staff are able and willing to work in-person to plan. Lots of employees don't want to commit until they know what the plan looks like, what's expected of them & what will be done to keep them safe.

All of this is just about getting kids in a building with an educator - 2 days per week (except K-2, which will be 4 days).

https://www.salemreporter.com/posts/2655/in-person-classes-will-be-two-days-per-week-for-most-salem-keizer-students-under-early-outline-for-fall

How and what will kids learn once they get there?

Yesterday, asst superintendent Kraig Sproles told me they know they can't fit in a typical year's worth of instruction. They don't know what the % yet, but curriculum teams will be reviewing the standards they normally teach & prioritizing the most important ones.

Academic rigor was a big complaint of online school in the spring & a particular concern for Latino parents, who said they were very worried about kids falling behind with schools closed. Only 24% of kids in district survey reported online school was academically challenging.

And there are spillover effects too. Middle and high school kids can probably stay home alone the 3 days/wk they don't have school if parents work. But 3rd-5th graders? Most working parents can't keep indefinitely supervising kids' schooling even if they do work from home.

I am not an education administrator or health professional, but I'm a fairly informed observer and I cannot envision a way this doesn't just massively suck for nearly everyone involved, despite a lot of people working very hard.

I would love nothing more than to be wrong.