SF teachers say they will return to classrooms when in red tier with access to vaccines
SF teachers, district reach tentative agreement for in-person instruction
KTVU's Christien Kafton reports.
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - San Francisco educators and the school district have reached a tentative agreement to return to in-person instruction.
While the plan is in place, there is still no timeline as to when students will be allowed back into classrooms.
San Franciscans said the news is encouraging.
"There's a sense of relief knowing we're on the path to a safe reopening of our schools," said Susan Solomon, president of the United Educators of San Francisco.
Under the tentative agreement, teachers would return to classrooms when the city reaches the state's red tier with and there's access to vaccines or when San Francisco rises to the orange tier.
The superintendent of schools said five schools are ready to reopen and as many as 20 elementary schools could be in that first wave to reopen with no more than 14 students in each classroom.
"A big part of it could be hybrid learning where some students are learning at home, some students are learning in the classroom," said San Francisco Unified School District. Superintendent Dr. Vincent Matthews. "We talked about there could be certain days where they are present and where they are learning at home."
More schools would reopen as they complete inspections and meet safety precautions. But the superintendent said there are still a lot of details that need to be worked out.
"Right now what we're ramping up to do is to nail down the details of exactly what that's going to look like and that's how we're moving forward," said Matthews.
Union leaders said work is still underway to ensure there will be enough protective equipment and that classrooms will be well ventilated and clean.
"There have been inspections of buildings, and even though I haven't done the walkthrough, I've heard that it looks good," said Solomon.
The district and unions reiterated that there is still no timeline as to when classes will resume for in-person learning.
"We wish we could give dates of course, but as we've seen with Covid so far sometimes the dates are set by COVID," said Solomon.
The City Attorney's Office said the tentative agreement is not enough to drop the lawsuit aimed at getting kids back in class. The office released a statement that said in part, "so far this raises more questions than answers. There does not appear to be any agreement on classroom instruction and schedules, for example. The school district would need to share the whole plan and show us that it is concrete and meets the requirements of state law."