Palo Alto Unified Faces Pushback On Reopening Plan

PALO ALTO, CA — At least 365 parents have signed onto an open letter raising concerns about the Palo Alto Unified School District’s plan to reopen schools next month.

The school board is expected to approve a staggered reopening plan that would return students to classrooms for in-person learning Oct. 12 in a special meeting Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., Palo Alto Weekly reports.

“We (356 parents and counting) are writing with serious concerns about the proposed hybrid model reopening plan, and we feel that parents are being pushed with very limited time and information to make a yearlong decision about our children’s health and education. We ask that the board delay the decision on reopening until teacher feedback and parent feedback have been genuinely sought and incorporated into the plan,” the letter said.

Of concern to parents who signed onto the letter are the safety of students and their families, teachers’ safety, and the quality of education.

The parents say a survey that figured in the board’s decision in formulating the plan in which approximately 65 percent of parents said they want their children to return to physical classrooms was “misleading.”

The letter said parents were asked “in an abstract fashion whether they would like their student to return, without any information about the plan, disclosure that it would involve asynchronous learning, or opportunity for more nuanced comment.

“In contrast, the survey that was sent along with this letter, and reached hundreds of parents in PAUSD, showed that over 90% of parents want to delay reopening until the plan is improved, over 40% would stay remote, over 30% don’t know whether they’ll return under the current plan(when we’re just days away from the decision deadline),and over 85% believe it’s more important that we keep classrooms together than it is to return to in-person instruction.”