Parents, kids want back on campus

It has been over 221 days since students sat in a regular Steele Canyon High School classroom filled with their peers, participat­ed in after-school sports, or joined up at lunchtime for conversation and social interaction.

A week ago, some teachers ral­lied alongside students and their families to protest the school re­maining on 100 percent distance learning while other area schools have begun a phased approach to reopening.

Parent organizer Troy Mack said other schools in the Gross­mont Union High School District have taken steps toward “one or two days of on-site learning,” how­ever district Director of Public Affairs and Legislative Relations Catherine Martin said in an email Steele Canyon is an independent charter school.

Therefore “it has its own dis­tinct governance structure and governing board that oversees all of its operations. As their charter authorizer, GUHSD provides over­sight in three areas: legal require­ments, financial management, and academic performance.”

That places the onus for reopen­ing guidelines on the governing board of the school.

According to Steele Canyon Principal and Chief Executive Officer Scott Parr, the governing board “sought input from vari­ous stakeholder groups including students, parents, and staff. Ap­proximately 60 percent of par­ents and students who responded to our survey expressed a desire to return, although there were significant concerns about re-opening shared from each stake­holder group”.

Mack said he believes the high school has failed East County residents.

“They have ignored expert opinion. They have ignored re­gional data. They have ignored the results of their own safe return focus group findings, and instead catered to oppos­ing teachers who represented a mere 5.11% of the respondents,” Mack said.

At the protest, students said they are struggling with the solely-online format, parents who are concerned about the toll of screen time said they’ve no­ticed social withdrawal happen­ing in formerly active children, and government teacher Charles Tyler said he has had to lower his learning expectations.

Bonnie Holmes heard about the rally in a Facebook group for parents and decided to at­tend with her husband Bruce Holmes and their 16-year-old daughter Carys, a junior at the high school who she said is “generally a good student who is active but suffering without teacher support in a classroom”.

“The distance learning is hard to begin with but the sys­tem itself, Canvas is awful. As­signments are hidden, teachers just direct you back to the site. I constantly think I have ev­erything done and then there’s something just hidden on the website,” Carys said.

“It is a very ineffective way of communicating with kids in order to effectively make sure they’re learning,” Bruce Holmes said.

Amy DeGuzman stood with a protest sign a few feet away from her 15-year-old daughter Kailyin.

“My fifth-grader is back on campus part-time so why can’t my tenth-grader go to school?,” asked DeGuzman.

Tyler offered his perspective as a teacher and posed potential first-steps toward reopening.

“Part of the issue is lack of en­gagement but legally if you’re recording on Zoom, students are not required to be visible. That means you’re sometimes look­ing at the top of heads or noth­ing at all, you can’t track who is really locking in to lessons,” Tyler said.

He said a shift to opening at 25% is not going to change much about the situation and that a more effective approach to gain­ing social-emotional balance would mean having students on campus at least 50% of the time.

“We need to identify the teachers and students who will not come in, then look at com­ing back at 50% using substitute teachers if necessary.

“Having those groups on cam­pus would allow us to take a look at protocols, start creating cohorts and learning groups,” Tyler said.

He’d like to see widespread antibody testing to determine which teachers and students have already had the virus, knowingly or not, and have them return to campus.

“We have to start finding our way back to reopening and the only way to figure it out is to have it happen,” Tyler said.

Parr said in an email he will continue to engage stakehold­ers and will announce at or be­fore a scheduled Dec. 8 board meeting whether the school will return to campus in any ca­pacity on Jan. 6.