Engagement, equity a concern for San Mateo Union High School District

With deep concerns regarding inequity amplified by disparate remote learning experiences, board President Marc Friedman urged officials to bring students back to campuses with hopes of revitalizing their interest.

“Our at-risk students are being harmed the most by distance learning. The equity gap is our district is growing by leaps and bounds as long as we remain only in distance learning,” he said.

Acknowledging a return to the classroom would be preferable under the right health conditions, Superintendent Kevin Skelly was skeptical that bringing students back to campus would be a simple solution.

“This is damn hard,” said Skelly.

Challenges with pods

To illustrate the difficulty, Skelly said schools throughout the district have attempted to establish small learning pods at campuses with hopes of connecting to struggling students. But with barriers such as health concerns, limited interest from students and family or professional obligations, Skelly said the district had marginal success in forming them.

To that end, he said Burlingame High School officials contacted 50 students who educators felt would benefit from participating in a small learning group. The effort only yielded five participants. At Capuchino High School, 150 students were contacted, eight showed interest and three attended.

Participating in the pods is an inherently unattractive proposal to many students, said Skelly, who described the sessions as a far cry from the traditional classroom setting.

Students are expected to be wearing masks while staying 6 feet from each other and focused on computer screens. Talking and moving around is discouraged and social distancing must be preserved during lunches and breaks between classes.

Also, because classes must be held outside, unhealthy air conditions from wildfire smoke have further complicated the programs, said Skelly, who anticipated the challenges will be compounded as the weather turns colder.

“I’ve never seen an organization work as hard to make something happen and have as little success for reasons that have nothing to do with their efforts as we have with these learning pods,” said Skelly.

At Hillsdale High School meanwhile, the program was postponed after three students tested positive for coronavirus before the pods could form. The school postponed the program and plans to try again soon.

Teacher union president Craig Childress also encouraged officials to move thoughtfully in planning a potential return to school, noting that most educators still feel the classroom is a dangerous place to be.

“I don’t believe the answer at this time is forcing normalcy, or what we might think of normalcy, into the system before it is safe. It is simply not safe,” he said.

Acknowledging the variety of hurdles the district must overcome, Skelly said the equity issue posed by the pandemic is the hardest problem he has ever had to solve as an administrator.

“This is just about the cruelest, most difficult challenge you could possibly put on a school district,” he said.

Outreach at Peninsula

Outreach efforts have been intensified at Peninsula High School, the district’s alternative program for students who have struggled in traditional school settings.

School officials are attempting to directly contact students who have been absent from online classes, while also distributing letters to family members with hopes of turning their focus to school.

They are also trying to address other issues by offering food and technical support to families who are struggling, said Principal Ron Campana.

But to get students to the remote campus in San Bruno is a serious challenge, said Skelly, who added the normal difficulties for students accessing the campus have only worsened during the pandemic.

For his part, Friedman expressed optimism that finishing construction of a new Peninsula High School in Burlingame this fall could be used as a mechanism for attracting students to campus.

More broadly, he encouraged officials to continue thinking of creative ways to stay engaged with students and directed Skelly and his team to report back in the coming weeks with more proposals.

“We can’t be satisfied with the status quo,” he said.

Other board members agreed that the district should stay focused on trying new approaches to connect with students.

Trustee Greg Land said he believed incremental advancement could ultimately yield success.

“We need to go slow to go fast,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean stop.”

Trustee Linda Lees Dwyer agreed officials must stay dedicated to the work, and consider the variety of options available.

“We have to try everything that could work,” she said.

austin@smdailyjournal.com

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