AnonymousBy Hilda Maldonado, Superintendent of Santa Barbara Unified School District
Dear Families and Staff,
I would like to express my appreciation to our families for entrusting us with your students. To our staff, I would like to acknowledge the work that you are carrying out to deliver distance learning to our students.
The profound and ever-changing conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic have created many challenges, including a heightened need to maintain clear and consistent communication with our staff and families. I wanted to take this opportunity to communicate with you directly about a few important items. Please look for regular communications from me on Mondays.
Elementary Waiver
Santa Barbara Unified will not be applying for the elementary school waiver at this time. We surveyed our community partners as well as our elementary staff and families and learned that there was not overwhelming support for reopening elementary schools under the waiver. Furthermore, the majority of our elementary staff members did not support the waiver.
Small Cohorts
Recently, SB County Public Health issued guidance on allowing small cohorts of students to be served in-person on school campuses (Small Cohort Guidance). This allowance stems from the recognition that there are groups of students who are struggling to learn within the distance learning model. We have our health & safety protocols in place and will begin serving small groups of students on campus within the next couple of weeks, beginning with those identified as having the greatest need. Teachers and other certificated positions may need to report to the school site to serve these small cohorts. You will hear more information about this in the near future.
COVID-19 Testing
As we move to serve small student cohorts on campus, we will also be putting into place regular testing of staff members. Known as surveillance testing, this will be a requirement for all staff who will be working in-person with students, or who will be around other staff members who work with students.
Return to In-Person School
At last Tuesday’s board meeting we presented the information below to the board trustees. We will be refining our return-to-school plans based on this, and more information will be shared in upcoming communications. Currently there is no return date being discussed as we remain in “purple-Phase 1” of the governor’s 5-phase model. [see below]
Transportation
Staff will be sorting out details on how to implement a transportation plan that ensures health and safety guidelines are followed. This is an area where we will reach out to families for transportation needs.
High School Athletics
If all health & safety requirements have been met, high school athletics for the following Fall sports will begin the week of September 21, 2020: Football, Cross Country, Volleyball, Water Polo & Sideline Cheer. Athletic activity will be modified in accordance with the guidance provided by SB County Public Health and CIF, with a focus on skills training and conditioning. Coaches will need to be tested prior to starting. Athletic Directors and principals at each site will communicate sports-specific details.
Food Services Reminders/Updates
- Meals are FREE for all Santa Barbara Unified students, ages 18 and under
- No student ID is required
- Students do not have to be present. A parent/guardian may pick up the meal on the student’s behalf
- Meals can be picked up from any distribution site, no matter your home campus
- NEW! We are now offering an a.m. pick up option: 7 a.m.-10:30 am Tuesday-Friday in the parking lot behind La Cuesta Continuation High School [corner of East Ortega and Garden streets]! Please head to sbunified.org for regular updates and details.
- See FLIER for all details on meal distribution.
She is saying she wants to bring back only the “special needs” kids, that’s it. And the free meals too, of course!
Everyone else stay at home with your parents doing Zoom. Am I right?
Bravo!! SBUSD is making ALL the right decisions. I feel bad for everyone involved, kids, parents, and teachers, but this is for the best.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/schools-have-no-good-options-for-reopening-during-covid-19/
“ the majority of our elementary staff members did not support the waiver.” A Succinct and honest answer. Insane and completely selfish, but at least honest. These people have lost touch with reality. They are being paid to teach, and are in fact sending their own kids to school… by are refusing to open themselves. Resign Hilda… you’ve abdicated your duty and failed our kids.
Everyone agrees our kids need a safe place to learn. Our schools are not doing it so we are scrambling to find places. The church next to franklin school… the boys club… a few churches. Applauding the school diarist is applauding people who have punted on their responsibilities… shame on the school district… they aren’t following science… they are abandoning our kids (while still cashing checks and sending their kids to school)
How are they being selfish? My teacher wife has never worked harder in her life to put together online lessons. 14 hour days are common. No one wants this situation, but its better than any alternatives.
Teachers have the option of having their kids at school because they have to “work”… on site school is available and free to them so they can work… What about everyone else? That sounds/seems selfish to me… and 14 hours… seriously? Exaggerate much or just on Edhat???
I think so many of us have lost faith in our public school system now. They’ve shown us we really don’t need them as we can homeschool ourselves or choose private school if you can afford it and still get a better education than zoom school. They did themselves a disservice for deeming themselves nonessential bc now some of us say hey maybe you’re right. If the state can tell businesses to work outside no matter how inconvenient and illogical it is they could have done a school outside. We have great weather and cancel school on the rainy days.
Wow, this is so out of control. We sure got a lemon for our new superintendent. Clearly in the pocket of teacher’s Union. Should be no surprise, look who picked her, the failed leadership of the district. Shame on the Board of Trustees, thank goodness we have an election soon to vote the incumbents out! So teachers are now considered ” essential workers” and they bring their children to school . Unbelievable they have set the return date as Sept 21 for football, cross country, volleyball, water polo, and sideline cheer school sports and yet no school in person instruction? What is this circus! Students who are economically disadvantaged, Emergent English Learners as well special needs are also all allowed back on campus , but no not any other students!? What a bunch of crap. there is no science here there is only discrimination. i can see why the district is loosing families.
make your vote count! Save our schools. here’s an invite for
Santa Barbara Unified School District Candidate’s forum
Thursday September 17th from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Zoom hosted by CNS
Coalition for Neighborhood Schools
Moderator: Dr. Lanny Ebenstein, former Trustee SBUSD
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84037335074
If you have questions or would like to join email list, please email them to cns4schools@aol.com
Nice try. I saw the SBUSD email before school started in August saying that teachers will have priority access to indoor class settings for their own children with tutors AND I’ve seen it in person. The hypocrisy and lying around here is unnerving.
No duke you are 100% correct. Sbusd teachers DO have the option to send their kids to an in-person setting.
Calling someone out for wanting a conservative school board yet here you are Pit hypocritically supporting Hilda Maldonado who is using her platform and liberal ideology as means of protest. I suspect much will change and quickly after the election.
Zoom is nothing more than the old discredited sage on the stage, which can be a very safe in-classroom model. Teacher up front – 3.5 meters away, students in rows of desks 3.5 meters away and/or with plexiglass shields. Done. Back to school.
Oh, I get it. You support Elrawd for School Board to get your conservative agenda back into the schools. So you have to attack the current Board and administration no matter what they are doing, otherwise what is the point of changing the current board? Too bad the school board became the entry point for local politics. It hasn’t been the same since.
So you expect 800 middle school students at SBJH to attend school outside, 60 in the morning, 85 at lunch. Shade provided. Bathrooms. Water. Food. Desks. A local restaurant moves some tables onto the sidewalk next to their business, where they may have already had this arrangement, and brings food. Yeah, that’s the same thing. Sheesh.
Let’s start the process of chasing another eminently qualified superintendent out of town. What’s next, pitchforks and torches?
Duke, your neocon is showing.
My SO is an elementary teacher and in a normal year puts in 60 hour weeks. This year it’s more like 70+ hours, week in and week out. She is an award-winning teacher with 10+ years’ experience and seriously considering leaving the profession, as it’s killing her. She terribly wants to go back to the classroom as she loves her kids but realizes that if they go back, it would be only a matter of weeks before a school-based superspreader event happens.
“ Recently, SB County Public Health issued guidance on allowing small cohorts of students to be served in-person on school campuses (Small Cohort Guidance).”
The number of kids per SBPHD is 14. Every elementary class can be broken down to this size cohort.
So why is the district choosing to make the middle class hard working children & parents suffer?
What is the justification for the unequal education?
Ask directly which students are back, learning disabled, district employees children, lower socioeconomic children.
It’s not just learning disabled which everyone would understand. It’s many more.
While the rest of us have to quit our jobs, work part time because per the district middle income families don’t work as hard as lower socioeconomic families.
The district keeps saying “they are hard working” ignoring when I ask if they think others are not hard working
DISCRIMINATION!!! With the “color” of bias, racism.
The kids are out and about…private organizations are stepping up to do the job of teachers in inferior spaces and less resources. I’m appreciative of your wifes dedication, not sure I can 100% believe the hours and will snidely add in that those hours are spread over a total of 180 school days in a calendar year, but OK…the thing is, that line of thinking that schools will be “superspreader events” is the problem. It’s indicative of fear instead of science…fear instead of reality. Private schools are open because they are beholden to the parents/teachers…public schools aren’t open because the administrators and teachers are beholden to no one beyond themselves…and those direct deposit payments come biweekly no matter what.
I got an idea. Let’s hire a consultant at $100k. They will be from out of town and referred by a political party. Using them to advise will detach any responsibility from those who are getting paid to do their job. Then, when the consult comes back, they can make 100s of recommendations already being done, and 100s of others that only they can solve. Then, we can set up a perpetual contract with them as we shake money from the magic money tree to pay for it all. Oh that and force people to pay via property taxes. Hooray! Bring on the consultants!
The school board won’t listen to logic, science or reason so…I don’t know… not pitchforks and torches (high fire zone) but maybe Something more like continued sustained accountability to do their job.
SBUSD teacher here. We were explicitly told that we are not allowed to bring our children with us to campus during the school day when we are teaching online (the district allows us to teach from our classrooms if we want to). Also, most SBUSD teachers who are parents of school-age children send their kids to SBUSD schools, so I’m not sure where you are getting the idea that teachers are sending their own kids to school.
At the last Goleta School District meeting they laid out a full presentation on the classrooms and teachers that are teaching the kids of school administrators and teachers. I assumed this extended to SBUSD…my mistake, I guess it’s just GUSD that’s being completely hypocritical on this front.
470722, get a grip. SB will elect the fine people we always have. And you will be gnashing your teeth about it here on Social Media, for all of the good that it does. Looking forward to your comments on Nov 4.
Like the other poster said, your name is ironic, right? The flaws in your arguments are these: Would have to hire double the teachers. Would have to build double the classrooms. Would have to pay double the taxes. Let me know when you get all of these into place and then we can follow your suggestions. Do your suggestions really seem logical to you?
Ahh Pitmix, the prolific poster who never actually “posts” anything…it’s blind fluff. “Great job school board” (for doing nothing). “You are a neocon” (for disagreeing with anything he/she/it says). You are a great example of the problem with this country. We have a two party system in which the fringe of both sides spout insane rhetoric…and unfortunately while being ( a very vocal) minority…they push the narrative. They say “the Virus is a hoax and mask are dumb”. They say “to hide out and close everything for seemingly ever”. They cant and wont see nuance or middle ground in anything. You are either with them fighting the “neo cons” or “antifa left” or you are against them and ARE a neo-con or antifi supporter. It’s sad that our country to this divisiveness…but I honestly don’t think it’s indicative of the country at large…it’s just indicative of a crazy fringe on either side with very loud microphones.
Duke, siding with “science” our kids are not going back to school. no one is abandoning kids, they are doing everything they can to continue learning. I.e distance learning.
Im sorry you dont like it, but its for the best. until you become a doctor, and make a vaccine, you yourself are the “crazy” fringe spouting off that things that are not true and fit your own narrative. pot calling the kettle black much?
Cynical view of the world.
9:32, commercial properties should pay the same taxes as I do, not the ones my great grandmother pays. Teacher pensions are not crazy expensive like public safety pensions so I don’t mind that they get to stay in the middle class when they retire. What about that seems terrible to you?