First SDUSD blamed the State Legislature for cutting their budget. Those cuts were rolled back and the district is fully funded based on last year’s student count, despite this year’s students leaving in droves due to distance learning.
Then it was the Federal Government for not providing enough money to schools, despite having already received more than $80M in CaresAct Funding.
Next it was The UCSD Panel and recommending metrics stricter than any other government agency, including a stipulation to provide shelter for more than 15% of San Diego’s homeless population.
Now it’s Governor Newsom – he’s just not providing enough testing.
Instead of a developing a plan to bring students back onsite, the SDUSD leadership spent it’s time crafting yet another metric– a testing metric that is 10x higher than County, State and CDC guidelines. Their latest demand calls on Governor Newsom to provide 10,000 tests per day, dedicated to SDUSD. That’s enough to test all of SDUSD’s 16,000 employees every 1.5 days, well over the California Department of Public Health recommendation that “all school employees should be tested once every 2 months.” Even if the district’s 100,000 students were added to the mix, they would need less than 2000 tests per day to meet CDPH guidelines. What’s most disturbing is that, in partnership, San Diego County and the County Office of Education began surveillance testing for all local schools October 1st. Apparently this wasn’t good enough for SDUSD?
Let’s call a spade a spade. This isn’t a reopening plan- Let’s call a spade a spade. This isn’t a reopening plan- it is a stay closed plan. It’s an angle-for-more-money plan. It’s a pass-the-buck-plan. Real testing plans are what districts across the nation, including LA Unified and New York City Schools have developed. They may not be perfect, but at least these districts wrote plans instead of sitting around writing letters.
There is one truth in Friday’s press release: : “There is little more important than the education and mental wellbeing of our kids, so we have an obligation to reopen classrooms to in-person learning and close the growing educational and economic inequities in our communities.”
Parents must make our voices heard!
Parents must hold SDUSD leadership accountable!
Here are 5 ways you can take action Here are 5 ways you can take action TODAY:
1. Vote the current school board out of office. The way to do this is mark your ballots for Dr, Lawana Richmond, Camille Harris and Dr. Crystal Trull.
2. Vote Yes on City of San Diego Measures C & D. These measures make School Board members more accountable to their Sub-district and offer a path to remove Board members mid-term.
3. Plan to attend our rally from 4-5 PM on October 27
4. Submit public testimony to the board meeting.
5. Email the SDUSD Board and Superintendent Marten this week and tell them they MUST make a plan with specified dates to Reopen SDUSD school.
· Superintendent Cindy Marten – cmarten@sandi.net
· District A – John Lee Evans – Board President: johnleeevans@sandi.net
· District B – Kevin Beiser: kevinbeiser@sandi.net
· District C – Michael McQuary: mmcquary@sandi.net
· District D – Richard Barrera – Board Vice President: rbarrera1@sandi.net
· District E – Sharon Whitehurst-Payne: swhitehurst-payne@sandi.net
We call on SDUSD to stop the lip service and take action!
openSDUSD 