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Kindergarten students leave St. Vincent de Paul School, San Francisco, after their first day of classes Sept. 28. (Marguerite Pini)
Oct. 5, 2020
Nicholas Wolfram SmithAfter months of silent hallways and screen-based learning, student voices can be heard again at Catholic schools in San Francisco.
Since Sept. 21, San Francisco has approved applications from 28 private schools to reopen on-campus classes, including four Catholic schools.At St. Vincent de Paul School, where in-person classes began Sept. 28, teachers were glad “to have live, cute adorable children in the classroom,” principal Marguerite Pini said. “It’s so hard to teach to an empty classroom and screen. They were ecstatic to have kids in the building and the kids were thrilled.”
In-person attendance is currently limited to students in grades K-2. The school will continue adding grades every two weeks, and hopes to welcome students from eighth grade to in-person classes by the first week of November.
In order to lower the number of students in the building, each grade is divided into two cohorts that attend in-person classes on different days of the week. One cohort will be on campus Mondays and Tuesdays, while the other will go Thursdays and Fridays. Wednesday is a distance-learning day for all students, and the school continues to provide full-time distance learning to families who opted out of in-person attendance.
The transition from online-only school to a hybrid of in-person classes and distance learning has gone well, Pini said. Because faculty have been teaching from their classrooms since the start of the school year, the protocols in place for keeping the risk of transmission low are familiar.
“It’s not new to them and they can confidently teach children and teach them the protocols in place,” she said.
Pini hopes the hybrid program of distance and in-person learning can mitigate some of the drawbacks with online learning students encountered. Some students struggled with distance learning and extensive screen time, she said, but “I think the major concern for students is the social aspect of school. We’re finding it’s so important in their lives, more important than we had possibly anticipated before covid.”
In order to reopen in San Francisco, private schools must submit a safety plan to the city, undergo two reviews and pass a site inspection. Schools need to meet state as well as local safety standards for reopening.
As of Oct. 5, San Francisco had approved reopening plans from Convent & Stuart Hall, St. Anne, St. Finn Barr and St. Vincent de Paul. Twenty-eight applications for K-8 on-campus learning at private schools have been approved by the city in total, and 68 schools have completed applications. High schools cannot open at this time. San Francisco Unified School District has not released a timetable for reopening.
San Francisco Department of Public Health guidelines for reopening schools cover a comprehensive range of issues for reopening. School plans must include protocols for: screening, keeping non-essential visitors out of the building, maintaining stable student cohorts, minimizing interaction between cohorts, using physical distancing, mandatory face coverings, hygiene, classroom set-up and traffic flow in common spaces.
Pini said St. Vincent de Paul drafted its safety procedures in June, so “when the city sent the application, it was really a checklist to make sure we had all these elements.” In reopening, Pini said the school focused on student health and safety and “how we could create a learning environment that builds communities as well as keeps children safe.”
At St. Anne School, classes for kindergarten through second grade will resume Oct. 13 on a cohort basis. School principal Thomas White said about half of students in those grades have signed up for in-person classes and half will continue to learn remotely.
White said the school, which prepared over the summer for reopening with in-person or distance learning, has made technology upgrades that allow them to offer "the same quality of education" to students regardless of where they are learning.
“The interactions will obviously be more personal in the classroom but academically, it will be the same,” he said.
The challenges faced by St. Anne over the past several months have been unprecedented for most administrators and teachers, but White said St. Anne’s staff and faculty continue to have the same goal they always had: "working to make sure kids have the best Catholic education they can get."
White said he hoped the faculty and staff could be an example to students of how to be successful under difficult circumstances.
“When all this is said and done, we’ll be stronger because of it, because we have a commitment that far exceeds the academic program. The kids are successful, and Catholic educators are successful, because they’re committed not just to a strong academic program but to how you deal with life’s ups and downs,” he said.
On Sept. 22, California’s public health officials moved San Mateo County to the red tier, the state’s second tier for reopening. If the county stays in that tier for two weeks, schools may apply to incrementally reopen their campus to students. In their application, schools must present their Covid-19 staff testing plan and their plans for hygiene, physical distancing, face coverings and gatherings.
In Marin County, some schools received approval to reopen as early as Sept. 9. On Sept. 15, the county moved into the red tier, which allowed for greater freedom in reopening. At press time, the county has approved six Catholic schools’ plans for campus-based classes.