Angry California parents become activists with recalls over languishing school closures
by Tori Richards |
CALIFORNIA — Thousands of angry parents have now become activists in open rebellion against school boards and teachers unions over a lack of urgency to reopen classrooms that have been shuttered for a year due to COVID-19.
Fueled by the recall efforts of Gov. Gavin Newsom, parents have turned their sights on education officials who are content to offer crumbs such as a few hours a week of traditional classroom instruction combined with a never-ending schedule of at-home Zoom classes.
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On Thursday, a group of San Diego County parents will announce the filing of a recall petition against a controversial school board member who stated that reopening schools is white supremacy and slavery.
“Charda Bell-Fontenot not only voted to continue to inflict harm on our children by keeping La Mesa-Spring Valley Schools closed, but her use of false, reckless, and racially divisive smears to attack those that support school reopening has created a hostile work environment,” said recall organizer Carl DeMaio, chairman of the taxpayer advocacy PAC Reform California. “We’re eager to make Board Member Bell-Fontenot one of the first California school board members to be recalled over the issue of closed schools. If California politicians don’t reopen our schools soon, I predict she won’t be the last.”
The first California school board recall began last month against three San Francisco trustees who have refused to reopen their school but instead turned their attention toward renaming schools with politically incorrect titles. San Francisco parents are in a fundraising stage, while Reform California will actually commit to the funds and file its notice of intent with the County of San Diego on Monday, DeMaio said.
Parents are now organized behind the activist group Open Schools California, which posts regular updates and urges dialog on its Facebook page, covering the state’s 1,037 school districts. Thousands of comments reflect the frustration of parents who encourage the recall of Newsom, dissatisfaction with teacher unions, and rallying at schools.
“If he can lock us up for a year, he certainly has the power to get teachers back in school. Or do like Reagan did when the air traffic controllers refused to go back to work. Fire them!!” posted one parent, who did not want to be named. He subsequently told the Washington Examiner that many teachers likely don’t fear COVID-19 but rather just want to stay home.
“I think a lot of them are quite comfortable sending out mass copy and paste emails to their students and staying at home in their sweat pants,” the parent said. “They don’t have to dress up to go to work or commute. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are working from Hawaii.”
The first school closed in California on March 7, 2020. Six days later, Newsom announced that schools would still retain funding if they closed, and 6,000 students went home. Only one school remained open, a rural structure dating back to the Civil War.
Newsom enacted a tier system to reopen the economy last year, and several areas with low COVID-19 rates reopened schools. As COVID-19 numbers fell, the majority of schools have not embraced reopening but rather started using a Band-Aid approach allowing a few hours a week of in-person learning.
Throughout the state, parents report that their schools have engaged in “hybrid learning” — four or five hours a week of classroom time with the remainder still online. School boards and unions have resisted anything more than this without full vaccination for teachers and, in some cases, students as well. Given California’s slow roll out of the vaccine, this could mean students are stuck at home until 2022.
Newsom started pushing vaccines with a teacher priority last month when it was clear that voters would return enough petitions to place his recall on the ballot. This week, Newsom and the legislature announced a compromise detailed in a state bill that would divide $2 billion in funding to schools that reopened before April. The schools do not need to obtain union approval or teacher vaccinations to open, which is consistent with CDC guidelines. President Biden has pushed for all teachers to receive a vaccine by the end of March.
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However, the new plan does not specify what “reopen” exactly means. For students stuck in hybrid hell, many parents will continue to juggle precarious employment situations to provide daycare. One of these is Spring Vick, who posted a YouTube video of trustee Bell-Fontenot on her racism rant. Her children receive in-class instruction 2.5 hours a day, two days a week.
“I’m a single mom taking time off work to accommodate my kids, and this isn’t helpful,” Vick said. “They will still be home. I’m a flight attendant taking unemployment. All my expenses have tripled — like my grocery bills and $110-a-month internet. I’ve had to take money out of my 401k to survive.”
