What will the next school year look like? There are more questions than answers
Superintendent Dr. John Garcia, left, and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Roger Brossmer. Photo by Lorine Parks
“What is going to happen to us? Where do we go from here?”
In an informal talk at a Zoom meeting of the Rotary Club of Downey, Dr. John Garcia, superintendent of the Downey Unified School District, asked these questions and answered them, for the most part with more questions.
Recently named 2020’s California Superintendent of the Year for Region 14, which ranges from Beverly Hills to Long Beach, Dr. John was singled out even before the present emergency, “for his exceptional leadership in managing school programs.” The current crisis calls on all his abilities in “creativity and innovation in the classroom.”
“We have no idea what the fall semester will look like,” said Dr. John. “Los Angeles County is leading the nation as a hotspot for the coronavirus infection. Our county will lag behind the nation in reopening, on purpose. We don’t have the answers yet, and we have to be open and flexible.”
“Our goal,” said Dr. John, “is to bring back students and staff safely. I’ll let Roger fill in the gaps.”
“We operate within the CDC guidelines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” said Assistant Superintendent Dr. Roger Brossmer. “School openings and non-contact sports come with Phase Three, when we can reopen. Some families want their children to go back to schools; other families are not ready to send them back yet. We need to know how many kids will be coming.”
“How many teachers will we need?” said Roger. “Twenty-five percent? How many days a week? What about special needs education? We provide 40,000 meals each week and most kids have two meals at school. This is a major source of nutrition. How much food do we order, and how many staff to prepare and serve it?”
A lot depends on the state legislature and the governor, in allocating additional state money to education. And whether the federal government passes a relief bill. Our school district budget is about 95% dependent on the state of California.
A special task force of school superintendents from across the county has been meeting regularly since April 29. They will establish guidelines to assist the county’s 80 school districts as they discuss the possibilities for reopening with their communities. The Downey Adult School, whose principal Blanca Rochin was selected as Region 14’s Adult Education Administrator of the year, will be included in the decisions.
“Planning for social distancing is major,” said Roger. “One-way traffic in the halls? Five areas where the kids can congregate? And what is a contact sport? Football and basketball, yes. What about volleyball? The kids all pick up the same ball and touch it.”
What about using summer school schedules, one shift for four hours in the morning, and another shift for four hours in the afternoon? “We plan on customizing programs and allowing for alternate schedules,” said Dr. John.
Will we start the school year online? Dr. John said that for him, education depends on the teacher- student relationship.
Education was once defined as Mark Hopkins on one end of a log, and the student in the other. “Does that work with the teacher on the other end of the computer?” Dr. John asked.
That epigram is attributed to President James A. Garfield, who had been a student of Hopkins at Williams College, where from 1836 until 1872 Hopkins was one of the ablest and most successful of the old type of college presidents. He is a role model for educators.
“Over the past year,” said Dr. John, “we had three quarters of a school year to establish that teacher-student bond. But what about the next year? The essence of learning is the teacher-student experience together. The challenge is to offer that in some safe way.”
John Lacey asked, “Will everyone wear a mask? And if the curriculum is distributed on-line, some students will go online and study. Others have no access to computers. Some will not for various reasons be able to study. There may be abuse in the home, or they may be homeless. The teacher has the extremely hard decision whether or not to pass them to the next grade level. Should they get a grade? Should it be simply a credit-no credit?”
Said Dr. John: “Those decisions are above Roger’s and my level. The county will decide.”
Alex Lopez remarked “My 5 year-old twins are about to start school. Jenette and I have to decide if we will hold them back for a year. I don’t want to send them into a situation I can’t control.”
John Lacey inquired, “What about the way it was handled after the Spanish flu 100 years ago?” John went to college in Philadelphia, the epicenter of that pandemic, when at least 50 million people died worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States.
Closing American schools earlier and for a longer period of time blunted the impact of the Spanish Flu in 1918. But closing schools “is not like turning a light switch on or off,” as a professor at Arizona State University has said.
“Our people are amazingly committed,” said Dr. John. “Everyone continues to work on this. Phase Three will allow gatherings of up to 300. We would relish working with that.”
“We need to know our options,” said Dr. John. “We are studying many plans.
“Social distancing. This is where the rubber meets the road.”