SFUSD offering free meals during school closure, city to offer childcare

Coronavirus forces all San Francisco public schools to close for 3 weeks

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, all San Francisco public schools are shutting down for three weeks, school district officials announced on Thursday.

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - The San Francisco Unified School District will offer free breakfast and lunch to children throughout the city during the temporary closure of schools to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The district will provide up to 11,600 healthy breakfasts and lunches per day to students at pick-up sites around the city to ensure they do not go hungry during the closures. The district also announced Thursday that it would close schools through April 3, when students would have returned from spring break under normal circumstances.

Breakfast and lunch will be made available at eight locations around the city beginning March 17 and an additional six locations beginning March 18. Meals will be available on a first-come, first-served basis and will include vegetables, fresh fruit and milk. The district is also exploring offering dinner to students in need.

"We are committed to continuing to provide healthy meals for our students over the next several weeks while students are not in school," district Superintendent Vincent Matthews said. "We are grateful for the support we already receive to make this happen and would appreciate additional support from the community to help us keep our students fed."

When schools are in session, the district provides meals to nearly 10,000 students every day. The district will coordinate meal services with the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management and the Red Cross.

The district also plans to collaborate with the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank to co-locate food pantries at meal pick-up sites during the closures, which would offer adults access to groceries as well.

"Now, more than ever, it is important that we are able to get healthy food out to the community," San Francisco-Marin Food Bank Executive Director Paul Ash said. "We are collaborating closely with SFUSD and will be working to provide food pantry distributions at all of the sites that remain open."

District officials announced the three-week closure Friday as a pre-emptive measure to prevent the coronavirus' spread rather than close schools reactively as confirmed cases pop up. The district had already closed Glen Park Elementary School, Lakeshore Elementary School and Lowell High School due to potential exposures.

All schools across the district will undergo a deep cleaning during the closure window in an effort to eradicate any potential remnants of the virus. During that time, the district will also cancel its supplemental services such as childcare, health services and extracurricular activities.

The San Francisco Public Library and the city's Recreation and Park Department said Friday that they will help pick up the slack for childcare, beginning Monday. Recreation and Park facilities will support students in kindergarten through fifth grade from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. while public library branches will support students in grades six through 12 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Parents of children up to 5 years old can contact the city's Office of Early Care and Education for information on private childcare providers.

K-12 childcare will be available Monday through Friday until at least March 31. All childcare locations will be subject to disinfection and sanitation standards for coronavirus as recommended by public health officials.

"During this time, health care workers and other essential staff need to be able to keep working and responding to this public health emergency," San Francisco Mayor London Breed said. "With this change to our libraries and recreation facilities, young people whose parents need to respond to (coronavirus) will have a safe place to go."

As a result, all 28 of the city's libraries will close to the public through March 31. Online library services like e-books, audiobooks, online magazines, streaming movies and more will still be available to library patrons, according to the city.

The district will offer free meals through March 27 with the potential to expand to the end of spring break April 3. Students can pick up breakfast and lunch at applicable sites between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.

A list of pick-up sites can be found at sfusd.edu/schoolfood. Local residents and organizations can also contact the district's Student Nutrition Services program at cauchonr@sfusd.edu to provide funding for student meal services.