Board votes for phased-in approach to high school returnFree Access

Students will be on campus two days a week for first two weeks



Students at Conejo Valley Unified’s three traditional high schools (Thousand Oaks, Westlake and Newbury Park) will return to campus next week. What days? It’s still uncertain. The district is working out the specifics with the teachers union and individual campuses and says it will notify parents and students when a final decision is made.

The Conejo Valley school board decided Wednesday to slow, but not postpone, the scheduled return of students to the district’s three traditional high school campuses next week.

Under heavy pressure from the teachers union to remain fully remote until the  COVID-19 surge subsides, trustees voted 5-0 during an emergency meeting Jan. 13 to reduce the amount of time students in grades nine to 12 will spend on campus when they go back en masse next week for the first time in 10 months.

Instead of returning for four days a week, students will instead be on campus two days a week through the end of the month, according to the board’s plan, which still needs sign-off from the teachers union. The district has not yet announced which two days students will go back.

“The district will be working with the teacher association and school sites to determine two days each week, for the week of Jan. 19 and Jan. 25, that the blended learning students . . . will physically return to campus in their assigned cohorts,” the district said in a message to parents sent today.

No changes were made to the TK-8 instruction schedules or schedules at the alternative high schools, which have already resumed in-person learning.

The board confirmed at its Jan. 5 meeting that it was going forward with plans announced in November to bring high schoolers back the third week in January, despite opposition from the head of the union. But as the spread of COVID in the county increased in the following days to its worst levels ever, trustees and district leaders were inundated with emails and social media communications asking them to reconsider, prompting Wednesday’s special meeting.

Ahead of last night’s vote, board president Jenny Fitzgerald said she’d heard the concerns but still felt the risks of returning were outweighed by the benefits. Under guidance from the state and county health departments, districts that resumed in-person instruction before mid-November are encouraged to remain open.

“Second-guessing what our public health experts are telling us is going down a dangerous path,” Fitzgerald said.

Those districts that had not opened are required to remain closed until the county returns to the red tier of the governor’s blueprint for reopening.

“I hear you on those fears, they’re valid. I’m a risk-adverse person. I ask a million questions. I want to understand the details. I want to understand the big picture. I want to weigh everything,” Fitzgerald said. “This decision that we’re making is not being taken lightly.”

She said the suggestion that some teachers have made that all students are doing well during remote learning is “factually untrue.”

“The same way we don’t want to minimize the difficulty our teachers are having, I don’t want us to minimize the severe consequences that some of our students are facing by not being on school campuses now,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s not just about being in the classroom. It comes with so many different things with them.”

Trustee Lauren Gill said she’s heard “gut-wrenching” arguments both from teachers scared of returning to campus when COVID spread is so prevalent and parents who fear for the mental health of their teens.

“As a parent who’s witnessed my own two children break down and cry because of the loneliness, I understand and I think those high school students need and deserve a chance to go back to their schools,” she said.

The slow rollout is meant to do two things: reduce the number of students on campus while teens acclimate to the new health and safety protocols, and give the district time to judge whether they are adequately staffed with faculty and substitute teachers as COVID illnesses and mandatory quarantine periods force teachers to use sick leave.

Staffing has become a concern as the pandemic has caused the substitute teacher pool to shrink and simultaneously led to dozens of requests for leaves of absence. CVUSD has granted leave to over 40 staff members with more than a dozen requests still pending, according to a staff presentation.

Staffing is so tight the district is unable to accommodate all teacher requests for in-person versus remote positions, though administrators said they are looking at options to resolve that.

Fitzgerald said that while the proposed schedule change gives families little time to make adjustments, she hopes the slower approach will alleviate concerns about acclimating to campus and staffing issues.

While schedule details remain up in the air, it is clear that when students return to Westlake, Newbury Park or Thousand Oaks high school next week, there will be a steep learning curve as teens get used to new health protocols. Arrows will dictate which direction students can walk, and masks will be just as necessary as books.

“It’s not going to be perfect when we first get back on campus, but I feel like everybody’s going to try their best because that’s what we do,” trustee Cindy Goldberg said. “I think it’s important, no matter how we do this, that we manage our expectations of our teachers and our students in terms of a little grace, a little compassion. It’s not going to look like it normally does. It just can’t.”

To read the district’s complete message to parents, go here.