It’s usually between 55 and 70 degrees. It rarely rains. We boast of having tons of green space within walking distance. So why can’t San Francisco hold school outside?
That’s a question on the minds of a growing number of parents increasingly frustrated — even desperate — at the prospect of many more months of distance learning for their kids.
Even as teachers and school officials negotiate a return to school, all while keeping a close eye on local COVID case rates, it’s likely many kids won’t be learning in person this semester. Parents are tired of waiting, as they made clear last weekend at a march to school district headquarters.
A small group of parents is going several steps further. They’ve drafted a detailed plan to bring back the youngest grades, all outdoors, at Jefferson Elementary in the Sunset district. And they want it to spread across the city.
The plan, called Take School Outside, lays out the details for bringing back kindergarten, first, and second graders (265 students including special-day classes), from daily schedules to shade structures to the local microclimate.
Based on a schoolwide parent survey taken in the fall, the group estimates that 74 percent of students across all grades would participate in outdoor instruction.
There are caveats: The survey was conducted before the group decided to tailor its blueprint for the younger grades. It also did not elicit a response from all parents, so their estimate is an extrapolation based on 266 respondents, who represent about 60 percent of the student body.
The parents also say they have buy-in from Jefferson’s principal, who sent a note of support in a school email recently. (It’s unclear if the principal’s recently announced medical leave will affect the plans.)
They have not yet done a formal survey of Jefferson teachers, a key step. “We look forward to collaborating with teachers. This plan cannot advance beyond concept without teacher support,” said Jessa Barzelay, one of the Jefferson parents behind Take School Outside.
Barzelay and others are volunteering in their spare time to do work that school officials haven’t done. The pandemic crisis has taken a disproportionate toll on families of color and low-income communities. In the name of equity for these families, the school board has focused much of its recent attention on stripping dozens of names from schools and ending merit-based admissions at Lowell High School, among other things, but none of that is going to get kids back to school faster. (Jefferson is on the renaming list.)
“That infamous meeting where they talked for hours about renaming schools was a tipping point for many San Francisco parents,” said Sandra Ospina, who, inspired by the Jefferson work, wants to recruit other parents and create an outdoor plan at West Portal Elementary, which her child attends.
The city last week announced it was suing the school district and board for lack of a reopening plan. (The district superintendent and board president shot back that they have a “comprehensive plan” and said the suit won’t help speed a return.) The city doubled down this week on the lawsuit, despite the district and teachers announcing on February 5 a general agreement to bring teachers back. The city also said this week that teachers can join the COVID-19 vaccination queue starting February 24.
‘Chomping at the bit’
At a January 25 committee meeting with three of the seven school board members, one of the Jefferson parents, Supryia Ray, announced the Take School Outside plan during public comments. The school district’s facilities chief Dawn Kamalanathan said her group would do all it could to support outdoor setups: “If Jefferson adopts that model, it’s a great thing to add to our shared knowledge for other sites.”
Two of the board members, Alison Collins and Mark Sanchez, agreed it was a good idea. “So many teachers want to use outdoor space,” said Sanchez. “They’re chomping at the bit because it’ll be safer.”
“Every school should have an outdoor plan,” said Collins. “That would be a smart move— even in the fall, we’ll have to deal with COVID for a while. Maybe now’s the time to really invest in that.”
Sanchez said he would like the district to inform schools about outdoor options in a more centralized fashion, instead of relying on “word of mouth.”
They talked about making outdoor instruction an agenda item for a full board meeting. That has not happened yet, although a deputy superintendent did say at the board meeting Tuesday night that the district is looking at outside instruction beyond PE and outdoor education. (The update came after 10 pm, seven hours after the meeting started.)
Collins and Sanchez and school district press representatives did not return requests for comment.
Ideas galore
School officials cannot lean on a lack of information as an excuse. Beyond the Jefferson plan, they can find resources and ideas right across the county line in San Mateo, where county education officials have developed and gathered materials and support for going outdoors.
There are many examples in the city, as well, where private schools and groups like the YMCA and San Francisco Botanical Garden (where Barzelay works) have been bringing kids together outdoors for months. The school district itself has created COVID-safe outdoor activities in its schoolyards. And another city department has been running camp-like pods called community hubs for kids “with high levels of need” to do distance learning, eat meals, and get outdoor exercise.
“Last night my daughter heard us talking about school outside and wondered why we were just talking about it and not doing it,” said Sarah Minick, another Jefferson parent working on the plan. “‘We’re doing it every day in garden camp,’ she said, and I was struggling to explain it to her.”
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The health and safety arguments are easy to make. There’s little evidence of outbreak or transmission at schools that have returned. Outdoors are safer than indoors. What’s more, distance learning is an educational and mental health disaster for many kids, especially kids of color and from lower-income families, as the school district’s own data show.
When the SF Chronicle asked school board president Gabriela López about that data, she did not address this directly. Instead, she said those kids are “learning more about their families and their cultures, spending more time with each other. They’re just having different learning experiences than the ones we currently measure, and the loss is a comparison to a time when we were in a different space.” (López tried to clarify her comments here; she defended the board and district’s work in an op-ed here.)
‘I want my son’s screen off’
López might want to talk about the effects of distance learning with parents like Dheyanira Calahorrano, whose son goes to Everett Middle School.
“It’s not a romantic idea. I want to tell her we are suffering,” said Calahorrano. “After 10 months, it’s not like it was at the beginning. I see problems of behavior. The kids are tired.”
She has gotten attention for banding together with four other Mission district mothers, all native Spanish speakers, to hold extra class in Dolores Park for their 12 kids. They began last year with a weekly music after-school class. Now they want to expand to other subjects like Spanish, math, PE, and science, and do it three days a week during school time. They want to raise money to pay for tutors. They’d love help from the school district and teachers, “but we’re not willing to wait,” Calahorrano said. “I want my son’s screen off. I don’t want Zoom PE, I want real PE. I’m doing this for my son’s mental health, and for my own.”
She added that she has asked the Everett principal for help making the parent-led schooling count as a school activity. The principal seemed supportive, but the district does not move quickly.
Calahorrano loves the Take School Outside idea, but middle and high school reopenings seem a distant blip on the horizon. “It will only happen if you build pressure,” she said. “Without pressure it won’t happen.”
[Feb. 18 update: This story has been corrected. The estimated participation in outdoor school is 74 percent, not 71 percent as previously stated. Also, a previous set of charts supplied by the parents has been updated with the new data, and we have updated language to clarify the scope and results of the survey.]
Alex Lash is editor in chief of The Frisc.
