San Diego Unified Begins ‘Soft Launch’ Of Distance Learning

Speaker 1: 00:01 School is once again in session at San Diego's largest school district. But the classrooms look a lot like your living room. The district has begun what they call a soft launch of its distance learning program. The plan is to keep up classes during the covet 19 shutdown through the internet journey. Me as KPBS education reporter Joe hung and Joe, welcome to the program. Speaker 2: 00:23 Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 00:25 This is a soft launch. What does that mean? Speaker 2: 00:28 So the key point right now is that no assignments are graded and this'll be the case for the next three weeks until April 27th when the formal distance learning program will be rolled out by the district. And teachers will start grading assignments and, um, really keeping students accountable at that point. Speaker 1: 00:48 And what is the district doing about students who don't have laptop computers or wifi? Speaker 2: 00:54 So that's the, that's a big part of the, the soft launch. Uh, they're distributing laptop computers to the students who need them. Uh, there's a bunch of locations where students can pick them up for the next three weeks. And for wifi, uh, the school district recommends going through Cox internet, um, which is offering two months of free internet connection to low income families. So the next three weeks we'll sort of give students a chance to sort of get all the technology they need for the formal rollout. Speaker 1: 01:27 What are some of the problems the district knows that students will encounter trying to attend classes from home? Speaker 2: 01:35 So one big thing is, uh, is childcare and a lot of parents are working and a lot of older kids maybe in high school are watching their younger siblings while also trying to learn. Some students are uh, are themselves working. So they sort of need that flexibility. And um, I talked to a Kesha Borden, the president of the teacher's union and it seems like the district has given teachers sort of the flexibility to adapt to this new learning environment. And I have a clip from an interview with her yesterday Speaker 3: 02:09 because we know that some of our older students are now caring for their younger siblings and people are sharing computers or trying to share the wifi in their homes. And so everyone can't be on their computers at the same time. Speaker 2: 02:26 So yeah, the teachers there, they're not required to teach their classes live like on a zoom meeting or anything like that. They could record lectures, send them out to their students and the students can just watch, watch them on their own time, complete their assignments on their own time. Deadlines are a little more flexible. So both students and teachers are given that, that flexibility. Speaker 1: 02:48 So we know that some students will have some encounter, some problems with the distance learning. What did you find out about how teachers feel about distance learning? Speaker 2: 02:59 Well, I think it's sort of a, a mixed bag right now. Some teachers are using technology in the classroom already, uh, before the Corona virus was shutting down schools. But for some, uh, for some teachers, especially some, some veteran teachers, uh, it's going to be a learning curve for them too. And, uh, that's, that's a big part of the soft launch as well. Getting teachers on the same page, getting them used to using, uh, things like Google classroom and sort of these online platforms. Speaker 4: 03:30 Okay. Speaker 1: 03:30 Now, despite distance learning and the disruptions to the school calendar, will the district keep to that calendar when it comes to the end of the school year? Speaker 2: 03:40 So far it seems like they will, uh, Kesha Borden, the, the teacher's union president you just heard from, she was very clear that the district and uh, the bargaining unit have not discussed extending the school year at this point. Speaker 1: 03:55 So, okay. So, and, and once again, that grading starts in about three weeks. Speaker 2: 04:00 Three weeks from yesterday. April 27th. Yeah. Speaker 1: 04:03 Okay. I've been speaking with KPBS education reporter Joe Hong and Joe, thank you so much. Thanks for joining me now is San Diego school board vice president Richard Barrera and Richard, welcome to the program. Speaker 4: 04:17 Thanks Maureen. Speaker 1: 04:19 So with these distance learning classes, is the idea that teachers will be interactive with students in real time or are they just sort of canned material? Speaker 4: 04:31 No, no. The goal is when we get to our full implementation in three weeks on April 27th, that all teachers will be trained and be able to connect, you know, to their students virtually. And that means virtual classes. And it also means connecting to students for individual support and small group support. Obviously we're beginning with teachers at different levels of an ability to connect with students online. Some teachers have been doing this for years and have already been doing this with their students over the last several weeks. Some teachers, including of course veteran teachers, this is brand new a four. But by the time we get to the full launch on April 27th, all teachers should be able to connect with their students in real time. Speaker 1: 05:23 Okay. Now there are still a tremendous number of San Diego unified students who need laptops. I about 40,000 how is the district accommodating those kids? Speaker 4: 05:34 Yeah, so we began yesterday with uh, distributing laptops and the way that we're doing it is first of all, principals are aware of which students at their schools need laptops. And so we've set up times for, for instance, in elementary school we'll have a specific time that students can come to neighborhood high school. So we're distributing all of the computers at the neighborhood high schools and uh, students according to which school they're at. We'll have a time, a and a and a high school locations that come and pick up their laptops, get instructions, uh, uh, for how to log on. And then we're also determining which students need internet access in addition to their laptops. And we'll be getting those students, uh, internet access as well. Yesterday I, we issued over 1600 computers and we believe that we're well on track to get to that 40,000 number Marine, uh, by, uh, April 24th. Speaker 1: 06:39 How about students who have difficulty with transportation actually getting to the school to pick up the computer? Speaker 4: 06:46 Yeah, so we've got, um, action teams, uh, that consists of, uh, principals, counselors, uh, basically everybody in our district who's not directly delivering online instruction to students or part of our food distribution. Every other, uh, person in our district is part of our team to figure out how to problem solve and get those computers and internet access to those students. So, you know, we anticipate that we're going to have everything from principals, uh, picking computers up and delivering them, uh, to students' homes, uh, to, you know, uh, different efforts where we may have neighborhood locations, um, where, you know, we'll, we'll ask students to come in and pick up computers. But we do, it's a good question. We do anticipate that not every student is going to be able to get to one of the neighborhood high schools, uh, but we'll make sure that they get their computers. Speaker 1: 07:47 And you mentioned something too that I wanted to make sure to ask you. Will the meal pickup still continue while distance learning is an effect? Speaker 4: 07:54 Oh, absolutely. And we'll expand, you know, so we're currently at 16 locations. We served a 20,000 students yesterday and we will continue to not only keep that distribution going in those locations, but we will expand those over the course of the next three weeks as well. Speaker 1: 08:15 Now, even with this concerted effort by the district, there's no arguing. The fact that the school shut down is a massive disruption to students. Do you expect it? Do you expect some kids will simply not participate in distance learning and you may lose them? Speaker 4: 08:32 Yes, and we're very concerned about it. Uh, you know, again, it's, it's the job of several, you know, adults in our system to go out and find those students and get them connected. But students are in so many different situations with their families. Um, even, you know, if a student picks up their computer or gets internet access, just their to have a space at home, you know, to do the work, uh, you know, is going to be a challenge for a lot of our students. We've got about 6,000 homeless students in our district. So we are, uh, very clear and we've already begun our advocacy at the state and the federal level that we believe that we should have a dramatically expanded summer school program because we do believe that there will be many students who are left behind even if we execute our distance learning, you know, as well as we hope to hope to do so. Speaker 4: 09:30 Now in terms of dollars, one is this effort to keep school going, costing the district. So there's three different costs. Number one, in order to move to full distance learning, uh, through the end of this school year and to continue with our food distribution, we are projecting that we're going to spend at San Diego unified, somewhere between 10 and $15 million above. You know, what, uh, what has been budgeted for the year. So that's about a hundred to $150 per student in our district. Second, in order to have an expanded summer school program or simply extension of the school year, we anticipate in our district that's going to cost 50 to $60 million. And then third, the issue that we're very concerned about is what happens. Uh, if local, if we're fortunate enough to be through, you know, the worst of the public health crisis where we can open our schools up in the fall, but when we anticipate a dramatic decline in state revenue and state revenue accounts for about 80% of high school districts budgets, what's going to happen at that point are we gonna see huge cuts to schools in the fall, right? Speaker 4: 10:46 As we're needing to reopen. And especially at a time that students will need support to catch up. And we're not just talking about in San Diego unified, we're talking about all over the state and all over the nation. And so it's very important. And we've already begun our advocacy with our members of Congress that as the federal government talks about, uh, upcoming stimulus packages that significant, uh, our, uh, funding for schools, uh, rises right to the top of that priority list. We know that this is a situation that will affect us in a few months. It's not a situation that is happening now. And sometimes I think it's difficult for Congress, uh, to anticipate things and, and in the future. But we know from the last recession, schools lost about 20% of our budgets. And if something like that were to occur or, or even something worse, uh, in the fall, we would see devastation to schools. So we need the federal government to include schools as a top priority and upcoming stimulus packages. I've been speaking with San Diego school board, vice-president Richard Barrera, and thank you so much. Thank you Maureen.