Manteca Unified students have been back in the classroom since October while many of their public school peers in California — as well as across the nation — haven’t had the benefits of in-person learning for more than 11 months.
The district that serves 24,000 students with a staff of nearly 3,000 as of Thursday had only 12 students and 6 staff currently that have tested positive for COVID-19. That number comes after seven consecutive weeks of in-person instruction after the winter break.
It isn’t on the scale of pre-pandemic times but every kindergarten through sixth grade student that didn’t opt for the Manteca Unified 100 percent Online Academy or independent learning are in classrooms for a half a day, four days a week, by being split into AM/PM sessions to reduce classroom occupancy and maximize the ability to social distance.
Seventh through 12th graders where split into two sessions as well. Due to different instructional dynamics and the need to control potential exposure, one set of students are on campus at a time for a full two days and they distance learning the other two days.
All students in the district distance learn on Wednesdays.
Manteca Unified largest
Northern SJ Valley district
with students in classrooms
Manteca Unified is the largest school district in the Northern San Joaquin Valley with students back on campus. It is also one of only a few of California’s 55 largest public school districts — there are around 1,000 in the state — to have in-person learning besides targeted cohorts involving special needs students.
Kindergarteners through sixth grade students have been back in the classrooms since late October. Seventh through 12th graders returned to in-person learning in early November.
While districts such as San Francisco Unified don’t even have a plan in place to return kids to the classroom this school year, Manteca Unified is starting to explore what the next phase of increasing in-person learning even more will look like.
But perhaps more telling in terms of how they have been able to pull off a return to campus that has perplexed and/or stymied other school districts is the fact they are already preparing for a post lockdown world where classrooms as well as learning will be significantly different.
MUSD believes pandemic
will permanently alter
public education dynamics
District Superintendent Clark Burke sees the pandemic as the catalyst for what could be a once-in-a-lifetime shift in how students are educated. Up until COVID-19 became part of our daily lexicon last March, public schools for more than a century have conducted most of their teaching five days a week in rooms of 900 or so square feet with roughly 30 to 36 desks all lined up in a row facing an instructor.
The district is keeping close tabs on what is working and what isn’t to potentially alter the model of education and how it is delivered in a bid to more effectively address the learning needs of all students. At same time, health measures that have been taken in the classroom and elsewhere on campus are here to stay.
Part of that has to do with the assumption the pandemic will dissipate but COVID-19 will continue to be a concern going forward in one form or another on a non-seasonal basis and on a level potentially more serious than the flu.
“We are probably going to be wearing masks for a long time,” Burke ventured.
But it also has to do with the facts steps the district has taken — and is in the process of taking — since last spring such as buying portable medical grade air scrubbers for every classroom from a company that has been supplying hospitals with the same equipment for years. The equipment secured during the pandemic to combat the potential spread of COVID-19 will play a key role going forward in keeping student and staff healthy and safe.
Given schools have always been a place where non-lethal illnesses such as colds as well as flu can spread quickly and trigger bumps in absenteeism that impact student learning and that the San Joaquin Valley is subject on a yearly basis to heavy wildfire smoke as well as other air quality issues, the money invested in equipment will not go to waste.
Students were in classrooms
when California COVID-19
cases and deaths were peaking
Manteca Unified has had students in classrooms and was looking at ways to increase in-person learning times as conditions warrant it during a time that the worst California pandemic surge for cases and deaths and did so in a region that was almost as hard hit as Los Angeles. It underscores how decisions made years ago wedded with a school board as well as teachers and support staff focused on the critical need for in-person instruction while giving slightly more weight to health and safety as the top priority has made possible what other districts are still struggling to do.
The driving force of the education needs of students first had to be tempered by creating a learning environment where safety and health was “the” top priority. Without protecting the health of staff as well as students, the ability for students to effectively learn would be greatly diminished.
Three key decisions years ago helped put Manteca Unified in position to have in-person learning today. One was the Going Digital initiative. Another was preparatory work to roll out a 100 percent Online Academy by the start of the current school year. The other was the adherence to balanced budget goals with reasonable reserves designed to make sure there was adequate funding to avoid teacher, staff and cutbacks as much as possible when California’s notorious state funding cycles hit downward spirals.
Going Digital put devices in the hands of every kindergartener through 12th grader five years ago by using one-time state money — funds Sacramento deferred from paying due to their perennial budget crisis. The district also invested heavily in creating a closed secure system with enough capacity for expansion.
As the pandemic hit, Manteca Unified teachers were in the process of working on curriculum to roll out the online academy work.
MUSD was buying equipment to
safeguard against COVID while many
schools were scrambling to buy devices
This was crucial for several reasons. When the state health emergency declared in mid-March forced all schools to go to distance learning, teachers were able to use the foundation of the online academy curriculum that had been created to make switching all students to distance learning as effective as possible.
There were still kinks to work out but compared to many other districts they were minimal.
Perhaps the most critical aspect was that Going Digital had been implemented and up and running for years.
When other districts such as Tracy Unified were scrambling to purchase devices for students that didn’t have them as well as build up a support system needed to teach all students online, Manteca Unified was concentrating on adding computers and equipment to make teachers more effective with online teaching.
That meant Manteca Unified wasn’t diverting large sums of emergency COVID-19 funding the state distributed to help schools shift to safer learning during the pandemic to try and buy thousands of devices that were in short supply.
Instead they were looking for ways to make the return to in-person classroom learning as safe as possible when many other districts were still trying to get a laptop or a tablet in the hands of every student so they could be taught remotely in real time.
That led to Manteca Unified to start buying items such as masks needed for a safe return to in-person even before state guidance was issued.
Classrooms are protected
by same air scrubbers that
hospitals are employing
The district was able to create spaces that — as Director of Operations and Facilities Aaron Bowers pointed out — are arguably make classrooms the safest place to be outside of hospitals in terms of air scrubbing to catch COVID-19 droplets because they didn’t have to buy thousands of devices as many districts did to make distance learning work.
It freed up $2.8 million in COVID relief funds to place medical grade OptiClean air units made by Carrier in every one of the 1,400 Manteca Unified classrooms.
Experts call for optimum conditions to minimize the risk of COVID-19 being spread in a typical 900-square-foot classroom that involve air being recirculated twice in an hour. The Carrier OptiClean units are set to recirculate air six times per hour using HEPA filters that capture particles as small as .03 microns.
The district is now considering the purchase of an additional 300 to 500 of the portable Opti-Clean units for support spaces, officers, and multi-use spaces.
Currently all heating and air conditioning units in the district’s modernization projects will have MERV 13 filters installed that capture particles between 0.3 and 1.0 microns.
To date the district has spent or encumbered $24.1 million on COVID-19 expenses. Included in that is the purchase of classrooms items such as scissors to end sharing and equipment such as Hula Hoops to implement physical education programs that reduce the need to touch a common object.
All of that re-enforces the big lessons that Manteca Unified learned early on:
*Be prepared, strategic, agile, and adaptable.
*Classroom funding is the priority.
*An unwavering conviction student learning must be at the forefront of all decision making.
*Invest financially in long-term solutions and strategies such as air scrubbers, classroom improvements, finger printing, and staffing.
They also understood the school district could not control factors they have no say in such as the availability of vaccines and when they are administered.
The board’s unwavering directive from day one of the pandemic was not to work remotely. That meant to get all of the precautions in place and be ready to go when conditions allow it.
District, teachers, support staff
driven by reason they exist: To
educate kids in most effective way
The mindset was never an order to not employ safeguards. It was the exact opposite as keeping teachers, staff and the students safe was the only way in-person learning could work.
“We are here to educate kids,” Burke said. “And the most effective way to do that is with in-person learning.”
When teachers are vaccinated, none of the safety measures in place to deal with COVID-19 will be changed except for protocols when they are exposed to someone who has tested positive for the virus.
Currently such a staff member is subject to the MUSD protocol in place requiring them to quarantine. That mirrors recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and public health agencies. If they are vaccinated and they are exposed to someone who tested positive they will not be subject to quarantine.
The district also has also put two options in place for those that do not — for whatever reason — feel uncomfortable to be in a classroom due to the pandemic or simply would learn better in a non-traditional learning approach.
The options include more than 1,200 students enrolled in the online academy as well as independent studies.
The district did not give students the option to distance learn with peers that opted to go back to the classroom when it was made as safe as possible to do so.
The rationale was simple. It would be too distracting, burdensome, and ultimately less effective for all students to simultaneously to try to teach students in person and remotely.
Equally important is the decision to require all students and staff to perform mandatory daily self-assessments of their health via an app before they even step foot on campus. Anyone who displays any symptom that is connected with COVID-19 is barred from campuses until after a quarantine period.
MUSD Outreach Coordinator Victoria Brunn stressed that none of the students and staff that have been confirmed with COVID-19 were infected at a school setting. She added that the district understands it is inevitable that will happen eventually but their goal is to minimalize that possibility as much as they can.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
