As students return to class this week, West Marin’s public schools are facing the second back-to-school season of the pandemic. The Delta variant’s surge dashed hopes of normalcy, but bringing kids back in person was a nearly universal priority for public health agencies, schools, parents and teachers. Despite elevated case levels and new restrictions, school officials remain enthusiastic about in-person learning.
“Our optimism flagged a little bit because of Delta,” said John Carroll, superintendent of the Bolinas-Stinson Union and Lagunitas School Districts. But, he added, “I feel like we’ve had enough time to get over that, and people are much more enthusiastic to get back than I thought they might be.”
Case rates are almost double what they were at the start of last school year. And although 88 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 in Marin County have had at least one dose of the vaccine, those younger than 12 are still ineligible, making them a vulnerable cohort. As a result, county public health officer Matt Willis said schools need to “double down” on safety measures this fall.
Under new county guidelines, students and staff are required to wear masks both indoors and outdoors. Last week, California became the first state to mandate what was already a Marin County guideline: Teachers must be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing.
“We want to start strong, and if we don’t see evidence of significant transmission, we can ratchet back,” Dr. Willis told county supervisors last week.
Students had their first day of school on Wednesday in the Shoreline Unified, Lagunitas, Bolinas-Stinson Union and Nicasio School Districts. Kids also returned to class in the Lincoln Union School District, which encompasses two one-room schools near Petaluma.
The county dispensed with social distancing requirements, and the districts have abandoned cohort systems and hybrid learning.
On Tuesday, a crowd stormed a county Board of Education meeting to protest masking and required vaccinations, leading the board to call a recess. But in West Marin, schools have had minimal issues with these restrictions. At Bolinas-Stinson and Lagunitas, nearly all teachers are vaccinated already, and Mr. Carroll said there has been little to no pushback to the masking requirements.
Last spring, Lagunitas was the last elementary school in the county to reopen for in-person learning, frustrating some parents. At the time, the administration and the union disagreed over the timing of the return. While Mr. Carroll acknowledged the individual anxiety that many teachers are feeling, neither of his teachers’ unions object to the in-person return this fall.
Lagunitas middle school teacher Katherine Sanford said she’s thrilled to be back in the classroom, and her colleagues have expressed the same feeling at staff meetings. “The general feeling on campus is, ‘Let’s do this,’” she said.
Still, Ms. Sanford said the prospect of meeting a new class of sixth graders for the first time with masks on—though better than meeting through Zoom—is disappointing. “It feels like a significant barrier, but if the tradeoff is that we all get to be together, it’s worth it,” she said.
She is planning to have honest conversations with her students about the difficulty of learning amid the continuing pandemic.
“This isn’t a normal year,” she said. “It’s a more normal year. But let’s keep at the center that our students have been through something really challenging.”
Shoreline doesn’t keep any figures on vaccination rates among staff and students, so the district must play it safe, superintendent Adam Jennings said. “Because we have students and staff that are unvaccinated, our strategies for preventing spread are, to a certain extent, strategies you would use if everybody was unvaccinated,” he said.
The teachers’ union at Shoreline is ready for the return. Esther Underwood, the president of the Shoreline Education Association, wrote in an email to the Light that the union is “looking forward to welcoming back our students to in-person learning this year.”
She said the union is satisfied with the vaccine mandates and testing program the school is using to meet county and state rules.
Julie Cassel, the eighth-grade teacher at West Marin School, said she and her co-workers are “cautiously optimistic” about the full return to in-person classes. When the pandemic first sent students home last March, Ms. Cassel was teaching sixth grade. Students returned in person last year, but were split into cohorts. She’s now teaching that same entire class again as eighth graders, a year and a half into the pandemic.
“They’re going to be back together for the first time in a year and a half,” she said. “They’re really excited about that.”
Delta is hitting the county hard. Marin is averaging around 45 new cases a day—levels it last saw in February, when the county was in the most restrictive purple tier. When students went back to school last fall, the average number of new cases a day was closer to 20.
County health officials have cautioned that the current surge is less dangerous than previous spikes in Marin because of the county’s high vaccination rate. But breakthrough infections are not as rare as once thought, and last week, the county announced that a vaccinated resident had died from the virus for the first time. The individual was over 75.
Public health agencies and school officials have had to weigh the risks of the Delta surge against the negative impacts of distance learning, which was difficult for families across West Marin. Many students at Bolinas-Stinson and Shoreline have poor internet connectivity at home, and in Lagunitas, parents reported their kids’ mental health was suffering as the district delayed reopening. Across the country, academic achievement slipped during the pandemic, research showed. An array of studies found that most students fell behind when schools shifted to distance learning, and socioeconomically disadvantaged kids suffered the most because of disparities in computer and internet access.
Yet some families chose to continue distance learning last year, concerned about the risk of exposure on campus. Now, options are limited for any families still reluctant to return to school. None of West Marin’s school districts will offer their own distance learning programs.
Still, there is a way. In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130, requiring all schools to provide an independent study program for the 2021-2022 school year. Shoreline, Bolinas-Stinson Union, Lagunitas, Nicasio and Lincoln Union School Districts will all partner with Novato Unified to provide independent study for any students who want to enroll. Students will need to transfer to Novato Unified to begin studying independently from home, which will mean new teachers and curricula.
Mr. Carroll said no more than one family between his districts has expressed interest in the independent study program. “It’s basically the legislature’s way of addressing people who aren’t comfortable going back live in-person while the pandemic still goes on,” he said. “So far interest has been very low.”
Mr. Jennings told the Light last week that he does not know how many families at Shoreline might be interested.
At the Lincoln Union School District, which merged with the Laguna School over the summer, back-to-school is just a return to “business as usual,” said superintendent Luke McCann. The two historic one-room schoolhouses in West Marin’s inland valleys remained open for in-person learning all through the pandemic after receiving a waiver from the state. Enrollment at both schools grew last year as parents from Novato and Petaluma looked to transfer their kids to in-person programs.
All the tiny district’s staff members are vaccinated, and none of the families will be doing independent study.
“We’re in an ideal situation in that the schools are so small,” Mr. McCann said.
As for masking requirements, teachers across the board said their enforcement wouldn’t be a big deal among their students. An online poll by Kaiser Health News asked parents which classroom rules their kids disliked the most. “Wearing masks” came in last, with many more kids objecting to “No talking in line,” and “Waiting for a bathroom pass.”
“We’re lucky that we were open almost the entirety of last year,” said Barbara Snekkevik, the principal of Nicasio School. “Kids are super used to the mask.”