A message from Fremont’s educators to the Fremont community

Thursday, March 18, 2021 @ 2:30 PM

Dear Fremont Community,

As California moves closer to reopening campuses, FUDTA has proposed the following plans for FUSD to consider. We share it with the community in hopes that we can find partnership in what we believe is a plan that will help Fremont reopen campuses safer and sooner in order to meet the needs of as many students as possible, particularly our most vulnerable populations.

The District has published our proposal, but below are some highlights. Additionally, we are including commentary (indicated by yellow highlighting) regarding FUSD’s response for many of these items.

Securing additional state funds by meeting requirements of Assembly Bill (AB) 86

One reason we felt the need to bring our own proposal to the District is that FUSD’s prior proposal (linked here) did not articulate how they would meet the requirements of AB 86, and would have lost funds. Without sacrificing safety, our proposal meets the requirements through the following:

• Guaranteeing all students in at least one secondary grade who choose to return may do so. We chose 7th grade as they are our youngest students across all secondary schools. They may have been especially struggling with the transition from Elementary School to dealing daily with multiple teachers, and this gives the opportunity for support in person from a teacher to help intervene on these challenges. Additionally in consideration of COVID-19, younger students are closer in age to our elementary aged children as compared to older high school students closer to adult age.
• Guaranteeing an opportunity to return for our most vulnerable students at all grade levels, which is also a requirement to secure additional funding from AB 86.
• Providing the opportunity for students in all other secondary grades to return, as space allows. We believe it is important for these students to have this opportunity, despite the requirements we must meet to secure the additional funding from AB 86 by April 12.

• FUSD has insisted that all grades make a full return on April 19. Our position is that this is reckless in the number of classrooms being opened and in the lack of plans to staff educator vacancies needed for such a shortsighted proposal. Additionally, the District’s proposed timelines would forfeit over half a million dollars of funding from AB 86.
• FUSD only just opened learning pods last week (March 8). Despite having months to prepare learning pods, several safety and social-emotional concerns have been noted by us, including: (a) administrators’ doubts about enforcing basic safety protocols such as 6-feet distancing; (b) lack of space for students to engage in PE activity in a safe and dignified manner; (c) restroom monitoring; (d) break and lunch monitoring; and (e) poor weather, as many schools’ solutions to safe eating practices was to simply send students outside. These are only some of our concerns, yet they remain unresolved.

Classroom Safety

To maintain a safe learning environment, we are asking the District to meet certain expectations, including: classroom cleaning in accordance with public health guidelines and by staff specifically trained for this; appropriate HVAC maintenance to ensure maximum airflow in classrooms; cleaning and safety supplies for teachers for use in their classrooms.

Additionally, we have asked the District to implement specific safety protocols for individuals, such as requiring all staff (except those with valid medical exemptions) to wear masks. The District is resisting this, relying only on their position that they will follow local health guidelines. When we pointed out the political factors that influence health guidelines, specifically citing the governor of Texas lifting their mask mandate, FUSD’s response was simply that California isn’t Texas. We are concerned that the District continually disregards the obvious political environment in which we are working to reopen schools as safely as possible.

Safety protocols for crowds

In order to mitigate the heightened risk that large crowds bring, we are asking FUSD to commit to clear safety language regarding such scenarios. We are proposing clear protocols for student drop-off, pick-up, and breaks throughout the day. In particular, we are advocating for ingress and egress points at campus openings. Additionally, we are proposing one-way pathways throughout campuses, along with signage reinforcing this. It is important to us that our efforts to maximize safety within our classrooms are not undermined by foreseeable challenges we can address in advance.

Stable cohorts as defined by the CDC

A “cohort” is defined by the CDC as a “distinct group that stays together throughout the entire school day.” Per the CDC, this “[decreases] opportunities for exposure or transmission of COVID-19,” “[reduces] the number of people touching shared surfaces,” “[facilitates] more efficient contact tracing if a person has COVID-19,” and “[allows] for targeted testing, quarantine, and/or isolation of a single cohort instead of school-wide measures in the event of a positive case or cluster of cases.”

FUSD’s proposal does not achieve anything close to this, despite their liberal use of the word “cohort.” Our concern with this is that FUSD’s proposal creates a situation which, due to their model of students freely mixing among groups, could lead to the quarantine of an entire school. In an effort to maximize the safety and learning conditions of all students, we are asking for FUSD to commit to establishing student cohorts per the CDC’s definition.

Student supports

As teachers, we understand the challenges students have faced this year. As such, we are advocating for the following opportunities for students:

• Students can opt in to In-Person Learning without forfeiting the right to return to Distance Learning. We are asking FUSD to agree to this because there is no practical reason why students should not be able to return to Distance Learning. Teachers want students to be in the learning environment that makes them most successful.
• An afterschool charging space for students, such as athletes. These charging stations would be staffed by educators who ensure strict safety protocol is followed.
• Restorative practices training for staff, as well as a commitment from FUSD that the District will not contract with law enforcement or security services. We are asking FUSD to commit to this in recognition that the high needs student groups AB 86 seeks to serve have been documented in Fremont to be disproportionately and adversely impacted through a permanent police presence in the District (Appendix J, pages 61-2). We have asked FUSD to provide restorative practices training in the past, and we continue to do so.

• The District has rejected this. FUSD has taken the position that this is outside the scope of the MOU. We disagree, for the reasons listed above. We are also left wondering if FUSD rejects our request to provide training on restorative practices once again, when will they provide it? We have been asking for years, yet FUSD continually denies us this training.

• Our proposal calls for the District to provide a social worker for each attendance area and Robertson through the 2021-22 school year. These social workers (6 minimum, with FUSD determining the maximum) shall work in coordination with the District’s counselors to meet the needs of students who are most at risk. FUSD laid off social workers in 2015, citing “lack of work or lack of funds.” With the additional funding provided to us by AB 86, we are asking FUSD to reinstate social workers as a resource for our students. We need to be prepared to meet the complex needs of all our students as they return to us on campus.

• The District has rejected this. FUSD claims the funds available through AB 86 are not relevant for the 2021-22 school year. However, this is a misreading of AB 86 on the District’s part, as it allows the funds to be moved to the District’s budgetary General Fund, which can be carried over into the following school year. We continue to assert that social workers are needed for our students, particularly coming out of a pandemic. Even if we begin the 2021-22 school year with a completely full return, many of our students will carry the trauma of the pandemic with them into the new school year, which must be addressed through additional supports that were previously taken away from them. The District cannot claim in good faith that we will reopen with vulnerable students in mind while at the same time making no concerted effort to meet these students’ needs.

• The District shall establish a community-driven committee, inclusive of all stakeholders, responsible for enhancing student learning, safety, and overall well‐being within Fremont schools. We believe it is important to continue the community-centered work of the District by providing additional avenues for all stakeholder voices to be heard.

• The District has rejected this proposal, arguing it is outside the scope of the MOU. We disagree, as FUSD’s educators are stakeholders with a vested interest in such a committee. Additionally, this committee’s purpose would support the community’s desire to play a more active role in FUSD by providing the District with formal recommendations.

• FUSD shall provide one-to-one technology for all students who return in person. Additionally, schools shall have extra devices in stock for daily use as needed. We advocate for this to ensure students who return in person will not be limited in their participation and learning throughout the day due to technological problems.

• The District has taken issue with this language, claiming it is unnecessary and that they will certainly guarantee that students have access to required technology. Our response is twofold: First, teachers know from experience that students often do not receive the materials they require. It often falls to teachers and PTAs to provide required materials (e.g., science materials, art supplies, etc.). Second, if the District is so certain that they will reliably provide these materials to students, why do they resist contractual language that would hold them legally responsible for providing it?

Bread & Roses,

Victoria Birbeck-Herrera

Educators Union President, FUDTA