Education

The San Francisco Unified School District took a major step toward reopening in-person learning for students by reaching a tentative agreement with a group of labor unions.

For 11 months San Francisco public school students have been distance learning. And the city's teachers union said bringing students back into classrooms all depends on where San Francisco ranks on the state's color-coded tier system. 

San Francisco teachers and the district are still at an impasse over when in-person classes should resume as more parents push for face-to-face instruction.

"Just to be back is a beautiful thing," said Ed Washington, Head Football Coach at Castlemont. "Sitting at the house, for these kids, is a no-go."

Two cases of the more contagious UK variant of the novel coronavirus have been detected in students at University of California Berkeley. 

As coronavirus vaccine supply problems continue to plague the state, some local officials are suggesting delaying the second dose of the vaccine to improve distribution efforts.

"Every day, as our students have told us, children in public schools in Berkeley are suffering, and every day we see a needless delay," said. parent Kate Love. "It's a huge cost to them."

The university announced that the campus-wide commencement ceremony and department graduations will be virtual again this spring.

Many school systems and teachers’ unions insist educators, staff and students need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before returning to the classroom.

San Francisco becomes the first in the state — and possibly the entire country — to sue its own school district to force classroom doors open.

Specifically, this means that there are schools now planning to reopen in the coming weeks in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo and Marin counties. 

The California state superintendent announced Tuesday that a $1 million prize is now up for grabs for whoever comes up with a way to eliminate the digital divide and expand high-speed internet access to the reported nearly one million students lacking internet connectivity.

Santa Clara University administrators are enforcing harsher consequences for violating county COVID-19 orders after an off-campus fraternity party brought dozens of students from the University to gather, many without masks, on Saturday, January 23. 

The University sent notices to all 2,800 students living on campus telling them they must "self-sequester," similar to a self-quarantine.

Some elementary students in the Los Gatos Union School District finally returned to school Monday morning; it was the first in-person instructIon in the district in nearly a year.

"Let me just say categorically, if teachers are vaccinated, and a large number of adults are vaccinated, schools should be 100% open in the fall - without any excuses," said Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California.