DOWNEY — What will the 2020-21 school year look like at Downey Unified School District?

It’s too early to tell.

According to Superintendent Dr. John Garcia, things were looking positive in the 2019-20 school year and plans were already being made for 2020-21 before the unexpected onset of COVID-19.

“We started out really strong, having a great year in a lot of areas,” said Garcia. “Even January, when we hit the governor’s proposed budget for next year… we were looking at making some reductions this coming year.”

“But again, none of us at that particular point saw what was coming ahead of us in March.”

Schools closed on March 16 and remained empty for the remainder of the school year, with students transitioning to distance learning.

Now, as the school year has concluded, many questions remain for what awaits students come August.

And it will likely stay that way until at least July.

Garcia says that while he could speculate on where things may be in 2020-21, state and county mandates and protocols have been changing too frequently to make an accurate estimation at this time.

“We’ve put together a representative group of staff – management, certificated staff, classified staff, we’ve got a [School Board] board sub-committee on there – to talk about what potentially next year might look like,” said Garcia.

“We don’t know specifically because we operate under the guidelines of not only the recommendations of the state of California, the recommendations from the LA County Office of Education, but even more directly the LA County Department of Health.”

“They don’t typically give health guidelines; they give health orders.”

A draft of new health orders that may help give a peek into next year’s school year is anticipated to publish next week. In the meantime, Garcia says that parents were surveyed to see where they stood in regards to sending their children back to school.

Parents were asked to choose between three options: returning their students back to campuses full-time, part-time, or to maintain distanced learning.

According to Garcia, around 50% of responding parents across TK through 12th grade said they would be willing to have students return full-time, with the remaining group evenly split at 25% between the other two options.

What “full-time” means, however, is one of the details currently in flux.

In fact, many day-to-day classroom details – such as class size, and what recess, lunch, and snack periods might look like, and if students will be required to wear masks – are also still up in the air.

“We didn’t define ‘full-time’” said Garcia. “We didn’t define those definitions; we left it up to parents and how they were feeling at that time. Our next survey go-around, then we’ll define what ‘full-time’ might look like.”

“’Full-time’ - based on how many students we can have at a school at any time – it may not mean five days a week. It may mean two days a week, it may mean three days a week. Until we get the guidelines… we won’t be able to create those definitions.”

Garcia said that the District’s Return to School Committee is working to address five areas – curriculum and instruction, operations, parent and community engagement, social and emotional learning, and safety and health – and what these areas may look like when school resumes.

“We’re planning on, as of now, these are the areas we have to address,” said Garcia. “But we won’t be able to drill down into specifics until we understand what the guidelines and the orders are from the LA County Department of Health.”

“If they are published next week, then we’ll be able to work on those specifically.”

The District is currently aiming for a firm plan by July 15, or a month before school restarts.

“I would describe it as ‘about right,’” said Garcia. “Would we like to know now exactly now what is going on, and would we like to share with our community, ‘this is what’s going on;’ Yes.”

“The challenge with that is things are continuing to evolve and change, and we don’t even have specific orders and guidelines in regards to schools from the LA County Department of Public Health.

“We can’t start saying now ‘this is what we’re going to do’ when it could be completely undermined by new directives…once we get those things published, we will work to make that happen.”

In the meantime, COVID-19 has also taken its toll on jobs and programming within the district.

“Even as a result of just some of the other budget challenges…we were already making some reductions for next year,” said Garcia. “At minimum, because of the state economic situation…we’ve already doubled the amount of reductions we were making for next year.”

These cuts include the reassignment of specialized programming teachers back into the classroom, the loss of temporary teachers, the cut of 13 library media tech positions, and loss specialized STEAM programming within the elementary level.

If there is any glimmer of certainty at the moment, it lies with fall sports and performing visual arts programs, which commonly meet over the summer to prepare for their respective seasons.

“We’re currently working on protocols for some of our sports to return under social distancing guidelines, and what those look like,” said Garcia. “We hope for that to be done within the next week or so.”

“The goal is to have some of our summer sports camps start back with those protocols in place...we’re hoping to have those in place as soon as next Monday.”

Next school year has more questions than answers