To parents demanding virtual class -- No

In-person learning is safe, sensible and badly needed

When our kids were growing up it didn’t take long to recognize the Alpha parents. They seemed to dominate every meeting, sports team and school event.

They had lots of opinions. And if you didn’t see it their way you were simply wrong.

One day someone said something that stuck with me. She said those parents develop a mind set:

“I have kids and you can’t tell me anything.”

On Monday San Francisco schools will open for the first time in 18 months. Although COVID is still a fact of life, it will be in-person, full-day and in-classroom. Masks will be worn at all times (lawsuit alert) and stringent protocols will be followed for cleaning, ventilation and monitoring health.

It is what the city — and the country — have been hoping for. Re-opening schools, full-time, is a game changer. San Francisco has gone out of its way to consult with infectious disease specialists. It has studied, and made public, data that shows this is the right way to get kids back in school.

And yet we are hearing — and are likely to hear more tonight at the school board meeting — that some parents aren’t going along with the science. They are demanding San Francisco Unified School District continue to provide virtual learning so their children can stay home.

As always in SF school issues, the rhetoric has quickly become over-heated. In a mind-bending quote to the Chronicle’s Jill Tucker parent Shurrin Ho said:

“I’d rather have my kids be stupid, without an education, than die.”

And if that were the choice she might have a point. But statistics show overwhelmingly that the risk is very low for students. SF.Gov tracked 47,615 students in school between Sept. 23, 2020 and June 11, 2021.

I’m sure Ho would point out that there were 175 confirmed cases in that time. To which the SFUSB would reply: yes but only seven were suspected in-school transmission. Seven out of 47,615.

Yet these parents intend to argue that, even while schools are scrambling frantically to try to pull together safe classrooms and balancing staff, teacher and student safety, they would like a virtual learning experience just for them.

I have a suggested response to that.

No.

The district said, and Jenny Lam repeated it at a public Zoom meeting Monday night, the on-line program will be “very limited.”

Basically they are saying: this is how we are doing this, based on the best science and data, and if that doesn’t work for you, you’ll have to find another option.

Now, they need to stick with that and not cave in. Don’t offer a hybrid virtual/in-person program. The decision may cost you some students, but it is the right thing to do.

We at ‘Letter from San Francisco’ are pleased to announce that Jimmy Garopollo has endorsed the newsletter. Well, sort of. He would, we think if he knew what it was. Anyhow, listen to Jimmy and subscribe.

In an odd way this might be a good time to bring up the anti-vax, anti-mask talking point you are hearing from extreme right opportunists.

“Shouldn’t we,” they ask, “let the parents decide?”

Yes, but not in the way you think.

Ron DeSantis, the combative and bull-headed governor of Florida, keeps saying that about wearing masks. Let the parents decide.

The flaw there, of course, is we’re not asking the kids to wear masks to keep themselves safe — which would be a parent choice — we’re asking them to do it to keep from infecting others. So no, it’s not your choice to put your neighbors at risk.

And that would apply to going back to San Francisco schools. If you are going to say you refuse to go to school, that’s your choice. What you don’t get to do is make the schools accomodate your personal theories.

At this point it seems — like the anti-vax crowd — there is nothing that will convince them. Here’s an ABC-7 interview with Dr. David Cornfield, Head of Pediatric Pulmonary at Stanford.

He’s not sugar-coating anything. He says there will definitely be COVID cases. But he says medical researchers continue to say “since the onset of this pandemic children have been less severely affected.”

He adds that experts say, “the benefits . . . significantly outweigh the potential risk of going back to school.”

You really can’t find any reputable medical group or study, including the Centers for Disease Control, that doesn’t say that with strict precautions, going back to the classroom is the sensible path.

And yet, sitting in front of their computer screen, these parents have doubts. The earth is flat. We never landed on the moon. The vaccines aren’t safe. (Despite hundreds of millions of doses safely administered.)

Chasing those people, and promising you’ll set up a virtual classroom for them is a waste of time. You can come to school or not — there’s your parents’ choice.

Sharing this is both easy and enlightening. Well, easy at least. Click here.

And, just to strike an optimistic note, we give you France.

There was no mandate there. People were simply told they couldn’t eat at a cafe, ride a train or go to a gym unless they could prove they were vaccinated. Protesters immediately hit the streets. Some marches even turned violent.

But as The Washington Post says once the restrictions went into place on Monday, there was very little fuss. Not only does most of the population approve, there has been a marked increase in vaccinations.

Now, let’s don’t pretend the go-to-class-or-leave-the-district option is not without risks. The district is already financially challenged. We know enrollment is already down as HearSay Media says, compared to previous years.

And the money the schools receive is tied to enrollment. So losing even more students would hurt.

But let’s be honest, people are leaving SFUSD because they think it is disorganized, unfocused and ineffective.

This would show the district has a plan and can stick to it. And that it won’t get sidetracked off on entitlement arguments.

It’s not easy. But it’s the only way forward.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@gmail.com. Compliments and suggestions gladly accepted. Criticism not so much. Twitter: @cwnevius