Hayward Unified to go remote despite warnings not to; risks losing $2.5M a day

HAYWARD, Calif. - The Hayward Unified School District will switch to all-remote learning for its 20,000 students on Tuesday, making it the first in the Bay Area to revert to online learning for the next week despite being warned by the county and the state that they should not do that. 

The Alameda County Office of Education and state education officials urged Hayward Unified not to switch to remote learning. Those authorities as well as the California Teachers Association, strongly support keeping kids in the classroom.

In fact, Michelle Smith McDonald, a spokeswoman for the county education office, told Hayward Unified officials that the county would be willing to get them extra help to keep schools open in the form of accredited staff from the county education office to work as substitutes, extra rapid test kits and staff to help with contact-tracing.

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Even so, in an emergency meeting Friday night, Hayward Unified School District's school board voted to switch the entire district to online-only learning until Jan. 18. 

"What we told them was, we want to do whatever we can," Smith McDonald said. "The same thing the state told them. But their board made a different decision and it's not a decision not without risks."

She said that Hayward Unified is at risk of losing funding if they're not providing the appropriate educational support to their students.

How much funding? 

Approximately $2.5 million a day for every day the district remains in distance learning.

Hayward Unified, however, has a different take on the situation. 

District spokeswoman Dionicia Ramos Ledesma said that going remote was a difficult choice, and the board is aware of the potential risks of losing funding. Still, they voted 4-1 to go virtual. 

"But we're balancing that with the risk of to not being able to safely open their schools," she said. 

Hayward Unified said on Friday, 365 staff members called out: 117 staff members tested positive for COVID, another 33 were out because of possible exposure to COVID. The district also said they had 81 classrooms on Friday with no substitute teacher available. 

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Hayward Unified said they believe the switch to distance learning is allowed under the framework of state law because for kids who can't log on at home, they can do their online classes at one of six learning hubs they've set up at school sites across the district.

Under California state law, school districts cannot switch to distance learning unless the get a waiver from the county and the state. 

Even then, it is an option that is only supposed to be for emergencies and school districts can only shut down if they do not have enough staffing due to COVID illnesses and/or testing positive. "Sick-outs" official or not, are not the same thing. 

When a district gets the waiver to close, that closure is supposed to be for five days and no online classes can happen during that time.

Parents still have the option of opting-in to virtual learning academies and curriculums set up by school districts. 

Under state law, students in virtual learning must be allowed to switch back to in-person instruction within five days of notifying the school district.  A school or class can choose to switch to remote learning, but only if every family member in the class signs a waiver, agreeing to switch.

Meanwhile, in Santa Clara County, the Milpitas school board voted on Friday during an emergency meeting to switch to distance learning, districtwide. 

Within 24 hours of that decision, the board reversed course, informing parents that they’d been told by the Santa Clara County Office of Education that they do not have the authority to make that decision.

But after all the back-and-forth, schools appeared to be sparsely attended in Milpitas Monday morning.