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EDUCATION TODAY Local students will be back on campus full time but with a statewide mask mandate in the face of the COVID-19 Delta variant [8] BY PETER JOHNSON
New rules
EDUCATION TODAY
FILE PHOTO BY JAYSON MELLOM
Masks on, pencils ready
Local K-12 students will start the school year with a mask mandate, amid increase in COVID-19 Delta variant BY PETER JOHNSON
P
atsy Mitchell, a third grade teacher at Calvin Oakley Elementary School in Santa Maria, got a pretty good test run at teaching during the pandemic when her school partially reopened for in-person instruction in the spring and summer. Even with a less-than-full classroom, the experience wasn’t easy. Indoor masking was mandatory, and that adjustment proved challenging. “Some students had a hard time breathing,” Mitchell remembered of those spring and summer classes. “A lot of it was anxiety ridden. Those little people— they don’t even know it’s anxiety.” Whenever her students were having a hard time breathing in their masks, Mitchell would gently invite them to step outside, take it off, and catch their breath. Mitchell herself needed that respite at times. “When they were ready, they were able to come back in,” she said. “Nobody made fun of anybody.” Despite the rough start, Mitchell said her students showed resilience and adaptability. Before too long, they had mostly adjusted to the new circumstances, she said. “At the end of the three weeks, children were giggling through their masks and making the best of it,” she said. Looking ahead to the full reopening of schools this month, K-12 teachers like Mitchell—as well as students, parents, and staff—are gearing up for an even more daunting challenge amid the ongoing pandemic. As communities try to achieve some normalcy by bringing back full-time, in-person school for the first time since March 2020, cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant are surging. And children under age 12 are not yet eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, Central Coast vaccination rates lag among adults and teenagers. In a July 29 update on COVID-19, San Luis Obispo County Public Health Officer Penny Borenstein said that 42 percent
of residents over age 12 are not yet fully vaccinated (about 10 percentage points higher than the statewide rate). In Santa Barbara County, about 46 percent of the county’s population, of any age, is not fully vaccinated. Despite those circumstances, health and education officials say that K-12 schools can still safely open this fall— but with precautions. One of those precautions is that teachers, students, and staff must continue to wear masks while indoors, regardless of their vaccination status. That is a health mandate being passed down to all school districts from the state of California. “It’s going to be a different kind of difficult,” said Eric Prater, superintendent of San Luis Coastal Unified School District, of the reopening process. “But anything’s going to be better than what I saw last year. We need to reopen our schools.” The mask mandate is generating mixed reactions from schools and parents. At San Luis Coastal, which serves SLO, Avila Beach, and Morro Bay, Prater said district leaders fully agree with the state’s rules and plan to take them extremely seriously. “This is not something we’re choosing to mess around with,” Prater said. At San Luis Coastal, any student who shows up to school without a mask will be provided one by the school. If the student refuses to wear it, he or she will be asked to go home, and the district will follow up privately with that family. All families have the option of enrolling their children in independent study instead of in-person school. Prater added that a district nurse is going to review all mask exemption requests based on medical conditions and will follow a “strict protocol” in determining what constitutes a legitimate excuse to grant an exemption. “There are some parents that are upset about this. And I just don’t agree with them,” Prater said. “As superintendent, my job is to keep students safe and staff safe, and my priority is to keep our schools open.”
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MASK UP All students, teachers, and school staff will be required to wear masks indoors to start the 2021 school year, amid a surge in COVID-19 cases.
The mask mandate is getting a more lukewarm reception at some other local districts, like Atascadero Unified School District. At a July 22 school board meeting, Atascadero Unified Superintendent Tom Butler fielded several questions and complaints from board members and parents about the requirement. Parents voiced concerns ranging from the safety and sanitation of their kids wearing masks, to the lower fatality rate of COVID-19 in children, to their constitutional right to not wear a mask. Parent Christa Abma pointed out that children and adults have been allowed to go places indoors without masks for most of the summer. “They’re living their lives and they’re healthy,” Abma said. “Let our bodies work how God designed them to work. We’re strong. We’ll overcome this.” In response, Butler said that if the district decided to buck the state mask mandate, it risked losing state funding “to the tune of millions of dollars.” The district would also face legal liability, he said. “The level where districts have local control is in enforcing it,” Butler said. “We have some local control in how we engage with families and students who obviously don’t want masks.” Butler said those situations would be dealt with politely and respectfully, with medical exemptions considered and independent study programs offered. “This isn’t going to be something where we’re going to be a district that’s suspending students or taking some type
of punitive discipline action,” he said. Local public health officials stand behind the state mask order, calling it “key to safely reopening schools.” Tara Kennon, a public information officer with SLO County Public Health, said masking is a proven strategy to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, especially when social distancing is not possible, such as in a full classroom, and when many unvaccinated individuals are gathered. “A robust body of scientific evidence supports masking as a safe and effective strategy to reduce the spread of COVID-19, including among children over the age of 2,” Kennon said via email. “Virtually all grade school children are unable to be vaccinated against COVID-19, and universal masking provides a level playing field that protects all students, teachers, and school staff.” While COVID-19 is most deadly among older people, local pediatrician Rene Bravo said children and teenagers don’t go unaffected by the virus. As the Delta variant spreads throughout the unvaccinated population, the average age of hospitalized patients has dropped from 63 to 51. “Please get your teens vaccinated,” Bravo said during SLO County’s July 29 press briefing. “They do spread it. There are complications that occur in teenagers. I’ve seen that. You don’t know which child, who’s going to be that person. I don’t want to take that chance.” Δ Assistant Editor Peter Johnson can be reached at pjohnson@newtimesslo.com.
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EDUCATION TODAY
PHOTO COURTESY OF LUCIA MAR UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
Education alternative
Lucia Mar Unified School District opens K-12 independent study school during pandemic BY CAMILLIA LANHAM
W
atching her oldest daughter toil to spell her name correctly in kindergarten, Melissa WalkerScott knew something wasn’t right. “You have no idea, she was a kindergartner, and she was spelling her whole name backwards. And she was still doing it in first grade,” Walker-Scott said, adding that teachers attributed it to being left-handed, which Walker-Scott knew couldn’t be right. “And they think you’re crazy.” Eventually, her daughter got tested for dyslexia. Even with the diagnosis, Walker-Scott said, the Santa Monica school system they were a part of didn’t help much. The family had to hire tutors to work with their daughter outside of school. When Walker-Scott’s daughter was a freshman in high school, they moved to SLO County where she started attending Arroyo Grande High School. Her daughter excelled in sign language, culinary science, and theater, because all are very tactile, but she was still struggling with math and English. After a couple of sit-down meetings, they found out that independent study was a possible pathway. “At first, she was a little embarrassed,” Walker-Scott said. “But it ended up being a life-saver for her.” Walker-Scott’s daughter became part of the Pacific Valley Academy’s first graduating class of students this past spring. Lucia Mar Unified School District has had independent study programs for kindergarten through 12th grade for years, but in fall of 2020 the district opened Pacific Valley Academy (PVA), a K-12 independent study school in Arroyo Grande. Walker-Scott’s daughter was part of PVA before it became PVA, she said, and the changes were noticeable within the first six months. “I can’t even tell you how her confidence was going up, she was achieving, she was getting A’s, she had a 4.0 by the end of her junior year,” Walker-Scott said. “She got into the college of her choice, and she gets to do things she never thought she would be able to do.” The reason she excelled in independent
study was because she could spend the time necessary with the subjects she needed to. School days weren’t made up of 50-minute class increments, where she would barely begin to wrap her mind around a class topic when the bell would ring. She could spend hours or days on a concept if she was struggling. Independent study allowed her to learn in the way that worked for her. But independent study isn’t for everyone. Students need to be selfmotivated, able to manage their time, and they have to work within a less structured environment. Walker-Scott’s youngest daughter attended PVA when schools were teaching virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it wasn’t a good fit, she said. Jennifer Bowen, principal of alternative schools and programs at Lucia Mar, said while it had been a plan for quite some time to start an accredited K-12 school for independent study, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the school’s progress into overdrive. “When March [2020] hit and we knew it was going to push into the following school year, we knew that asynchronousstyle learning was going to be more desirable,” said Bowen, who oversees Lopez High School, PVA, and the district’s adult education. “At one point we were up to about 600 students, which was the third largest school in the district.” Synchronous and asynchronous learning are styles of education that the pandemic brought into everyday language. Synchronous learning happens in the classroom—and virtually, when students are logged on, learning, and interacting with classmates and their teacher. Independent study is largely asynchronous, with weekly and daily check-ins with teachers and fellow students, where synchronous learning can happen. During the 2020-21 school year, some families tried independent study as an alternative to virtual learning, not realizing how rigorous it was, Bowen said. The number of students tapered off to about 525 as parents and students discovered that it was a style of learning that didn’t work for them.
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ONE-ON-ONE Students (photo taken pre-pandemic) enrolled at Pacific View Academy, an independent study school, get at least an hour of time with their teacher every week to make sure they’re staying on track.
“Students have to be pretty selfmotivated and disciplined,” Bowen said. “Some students need more support to be that independent.” Usually, Bowen said, the independent study program starts with about 50 or 60 students and grows throughout the school year to 100 or 120. Students have a tendency to come and go from the program, she said. If a student experiences a bad injury or family emergency, for instance, and can’t physically attend school on campus, they may do independent study for three months and then go back to campus. But July 2020 was a little “crazymaking,” said Joeli Martin, assistant principal of alternative education. PVA had 700 applications in three weeks. Although PVA expected an influx of high school students, there was a rush of applications for K-6 students as well. “So basically, we were just trying to— What does my friend always say?—build the plane while you’re flying it. It became a really attractive option for a lot of people in the district,” Martin said. “Fortunately, we were able to hire people and train them quickly. … But growing pains for sure.” Everything was taught virtually in 2020-21—which isn’t usually the case, even for independent study students, who have in-person check-ins with their teachers as well as in-person classroom labs. For those who had completed independent learning before, the transition to all virtual was fairly easy. But for new students, there was a little bit of a learning curve, Martin said.
“There’s this misconception that teachers won’t be paying attention and that they can slack off a little bit, and that’s not really the case,” Martin said. “Sometimes it involves having a really tough discussion about whether independent study is the right kind of learning environment for that student.” A recent bill, passed in July 2021, changes some of the requirements for independent study programs in the state of California and mandates all school districts to offer students a virtual independent study option for the 2021-22 school year. Most local school districts already offer independent study programs. Martin said the hours of synchronous learning now required differ by grade level: Kindergarten through third grade students have to attend one hour of synchronous learning every day with a one-hour one-on-one meeting with the teacher every week. Grades four through eight require daily interactions with the whole class, one hour of synchronous learning every week, and one hour of oneon-one time with the teacher. And ninth through 12th grades require synchronous opportunities for learning as well as weekly check-ins. “If this pandemic taught us anything, it’s that we can be flexible and we can be adaptable,” Martin said. “In education overall, it’s been wonderful, and it’s just opened our eyes to different ways of doing things.” Δ Reach Editor Camillia Lanham at clanham@newtimesslo.com.
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EDUCATION TODAY
PHOTO COURTESY OF SLCUSD
Preschool for all
Local school districts are ahead of the curve in offering pre- and transitional kindergarten, and state legislation will soon expand these efforts
BY MALEA MARTIN
U
niversal public preschool is a concept long-discussed, and recently politicians started making serious policy proposals in pursuit of preschool for all. President Joe Biden’s American Family Plan released in late April proposes universal, high quality preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds. In early July, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation to make transitional kindergarten available to every 4-year-old in the state, and he hopes to expand preschool for even younger kids. On the Central Coast, public preschool for some students has already been an option for a while. And while it’s not universal yet, local school officials say Newsom’s push for expanded transitional and pre-kindergarten could change the early learning landscape in the very near future. In the meantime, local public school districts are doing what they can to provide early learning opportunities to as many kids as possible—and they’re approaching it through an equity lens. This means offering preschool to kids whose families couldn’t afford it otherwise.
Santa Maria-Bonita School District (SMBSD) has had preschools in the district since 1997. The first one was implemented at Fairlawn Elementary, and today, the district has a preschool at all but five of its 17 elementary school sites. “It’s our goal to have a pre-kindergarten program at each of our elementary school sites,” district Director of Teaching and Learning Jennifer Loftus said. “For the last school year we added Liberty and Libbon Elementary, and then going into this next school year we’re adding Arellanes Elementary School.” Raquel Valdez, director of preschools at SMBSD, said funding for the district’s preschools historically has been through the California State Preschool Program (CSPP) and the district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) funds. And in late June, the district was awarded a First 5 grant that will allow it to add the new preschool at Arellanes Elementary School. The grant gives the district $150,000 annually for the next four years. “The CSPP funding that we receive from the state does have requirements with it,” Loftus said. “Students are eligible for pre-kindergarten if they
EARLY LEARNING Local school district leaders say preschool is an equity issue, and new legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom will expand pre-Kindergarten opportunities.
Mayfield said. “But it’s very challenging for families these days to be able to afford preschool programs, and if you have multiple children, it’s really difficult.” While California districts are not required to offer the preschool programs, they are required to offer transitional kindergarten (TK) to some students. Preschool is an umbrella term under which pre-K and TK fall, and the difference between the two isn’t that substantial in terms of curriculum. But, Mayfield said, it more comes down to age differences, when a child is born, and what schools are required to provide.
meet certain eligibility criteria, and the primary factor is income.” San Luis Coastal Unified School District (SLCUSD) has run a preschool program called Success for All since 2013, paid for out of the school’s general fund. Like SMBSD’s program, it aims to reach “a specific targeted audience of students who otherwise wouldn’t have an opportunity to attend preschool,” SLCUSD Director of Learning and Achievement Rick Mayfield said. Success for All is hosted at Baywood, Hawthorne, and Pacheco elementary schools. “There are a lot of preschool programs out there and available in the community,”
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Neurofeedback is the technology that allows the brain to see itself as if it were looking in a mirror. It reflects back to the body and to the brain what it’s doing by using a device called an electroencephalograph. The technology has been around for more than four decades but we are seeing huge developments in recent years due to increased usage of neurological medical devices.
“Neurofeedback has been so helpful to so many students because it addresses the physical symptoms of ADHD, depression, overwhelming anxiety, sleep issues, and PTSD,” Nicole explains. What does that mean for teachers and students, and parents? It’s one more resource in our community to help our students and our families overcome challenges that Covid has left us with. Nicole adds, “This could be the game changer for so many and they can try it without a big commitment. I have students who wish that more of their peers knew about this, because they’ve struggled with school all their life, and now they feel better than ever. We’re also seeing support from insurance reimbursements too.” Nicole can’t make guarantees but she tells a compelling story, “During the COVID crisis, there was one child I worked with who had suffered trauma from a broken family and began exhibiting behavior and academic problems in class.” Nicole continues, “After going to several types of therapies, all which were helpful to an extent, Neurogenesis Neurofeedback helped him to settle down his nervous system in a way that other therapies couldn’t. All of his therapists, teachers, and friends reported seeing a tremendous change in his behavior and academic performance. I will never say that neurofeedback is
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Does it hurt? No, the electrodes are read-only electrodes (very much like an EKG that reads the heart’s activity, it doesn’t stimulate the heart) the EEG electrodes placed on the scalp only read the brain wave activity. There is no stimulation to the brain. Who uses Neurofeedback? Schools, mental health clinics, elite sports performance trainers, psychologists, and doctors. It can be used alone or with medication. Those suffering with headaches may also see a reduction in the severity or frequency of their symptoms. •
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Current law requires school districts across California to offer TK to kids who turn 5 between Sept. 2 and Dec. 2, because Sept. 2 is the cutoff for kindergarten enrollment, Mayfield said. Newsom expanded that criteria when he signed Assembly Bill 130 into law on July 9, which will provide “free, high-quality, inclusive pre-kindergarten for all 4-yearolds, beginning incrementally in 2022-23 and with full implementation anticipated by 2025-26,” according to Newsom’s office. “Right now, it’s only limited to those students who [turn 5] in the fall,” Mayfield said of existing law. “Let’s say you turn 5 in January. You would be in preschool, as opposed to kindergarten. But what the state is saying is any 4-year old needs to be in a TK program. It’ll mean there’s TK programs at every school, and probably equal to the number of kindergarten classes that are there.” Loftus at Santa Maria-Bonita said she and her fellow school district leaders are “kind of in a holding pattern” as they await details on what the roll-out of expanded TK will look like. “If we are offering transitional kindergarten to all of our students, [we’re] thinking of blending pre-kindergarten with transitional kindergarten, because our pre-kindergarten [currently] serves primarily all 4-year-olds, and our transitional kindergarten serves those students who are not 5 in time to start kindergarten,” Loftus said. This leads to questions around what early learning would look like if TK expands to cover all 4-year olds. “Are we then serving 3-year olds? Is that happening in the school system or is that happening more in a center-based child care, day care center type setting?” Loftus asked. What district officials do know is that preschool—whether required by the state or not—is about increasing accessibility and equity. That’s why both SLCUSD and SMBSD have made efforts to offer preschool to some children, even before being required to by the state. “Traditionally, students who are underserved are coming from households that have lower income, their parents might be both working full time, it might be a single parent household, and just all of the different challenges that go along with being in that low-income threshold,” Loftus said. “Before there’s an achievement gap, there’s a readiness gap. Many students of poverty are not ready to learn when they enter kindergarten.” Not only does preschool get kids ready for school, but it also builds a relationship between the district and families. “In the program, we focus a lot on the social-emotional, and having those partnerships with families to support them and to get them ready for kindergarten,” SMBSD Preschool Director Valdez said. Mayfield said that kindergarten standards are quite rigorous, so having kids in pre-K or TK helps set them up for success. “By the end of kindergarten, students need to be reading at a fairly high level; they need to have math skills,” he said. “So getting them at 4 years old gives us the opportunity to help form their learning and prepare them for successful kindergarten experiences, and also to identify needs that students have and be able to plug them into programs, interventions that will serve their needs.” ∆ Reach Staff Writer Malea Martin at mmartin@newtimesslo.com.