Oakland School for the Arts temporarily shuts down for COVID
OAKLAND, Calif. - Oakland School for the Arts has shutdown for the remainder of the week, blaming staff shortages because of quarantines.
The school says it has exhausted all options for obtaining staff coverage, including using all certified staff and substitute teachers.
The school says it is not allowed to offer distance learning as it did last year due to changes in state law.
But teachers will post self-guided work on Google classroom for students to complete during the emergency school closure.
Other schools are facing similar situations.
Schools in West Contra Costa County shut down for two days because of staffing shortages and a desire to deep clean the classrooms. They reopened on Tuesday.
Milpitas schools had originally wanted to shut down, but later reversed that decision.
The Hayward Unified School District will switch to all-remote learning for its 20,000 students on Tuesday – the first in the Bay Area to revert to online learning for the next week – at least – despite being warned by the county and the state that they should not do that.
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.
KTVU's Allie Rasmus contributed to this report.