Gov. Doug Ducey and Arizona Schools Chief Kathy Hoffman announced on July 23 that schools would get full funding for remote learners, who are typically funded at a lower rate, and an additional 5% for each student physically in a school as long as schools provide in-person learning opportunities for any student who wants it.

 Matt York / The Associated Press

With just weeks before learning is slated to resume, some Tucson-area educators and school leaders feel the state has left them to fend for themselves during a global health crisis.

Hoping to gain clarity from Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on school reopening plans, an update issued Thursday, July 23, had the opposite effect.

β€œI think this executive order has actually caused a little bit more confusion,” says Pima County Schools Superintendent Dustin Williams. Other local leaders and educators agree with him.

Ducey and Arizona Schools Chief Kathy Hoffman announced Thursday that schools would get full funding for remote learners, who are typically funded at a lower rate, and an additional 5% for each student physically in classrooms as long as schools provide on-site learning opportunities for any student who wants it.

Although the executive order says that schools should prioritize vulnerable students such as those who receive free and reduced lunch, English-language learners, students with special needs and those in foster care, it also says that schools should inform all parents of available options and shall not refuse anyone.

That on-site learning, which must be offered starting Aug. 17, is described by executive order as in-person support services and supervision that may or may not be provided by a teacher or aide while students take part in distance learning.

Those sites are required to open just 10 days after the Arizona Department of Health Services must release public health benchmarks for the β€œsafe return of in-person, teacher-led classroom instruction.”

Regardless of those benchmarks, to receive a portion of $370 million in grants being made available by the state, schools are required to offer a physical space for children to be during the day.

Williams says getting the health metrics 10 days before schools open their doors and after many schools begin their online learning is β€œabsolutely unacceptable.” Local leaders have been asking for metrics like this since at least the beginning of July.

Pima County has about 25,000 people working in local K-12 education and about 150,000 students, according to Williams. Although districts don’t know for sure how many students will be using in-person learning opportunities, Tucson’s largest school district, TUSD, is estimating half of its nearly 45,000 students will be returning to schools Aug. 17.

Before the governor’s press conference, Tucson Unified Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo called on Ducey to prohibit the physical reopening of schools.

β€œI call on the governor to seek to extend the prohibition on the physical opening of schools out of an extreme concern for the safety, health and well being of our student body, and of our employees,” said Trujillo, who will kick off the school year remote learning Aug. 10.

He is concerned about the district’s ability to safely open Aug. 17 for a number of reasons, including challenges in getting enough personal protective equipment and sanitation products, and not having effective infrastructure in place for contact tracing and COVID-19 testing, he said.

The superintendent of Tucson’s second-largest school district, Sunnyside, said there are still too many unknowns to decide if it will physically open schools on Aug. 17, although he is concerned how it will affect funding.

β€œI was hoping that we would have a definitive date or at least know what metrics were actually going to be used versus keeping things so arbitrary and up in the air,” Superintendent Steve Holmes said. β€œWe don’t even know what those metrics are going to be. And for those metrics to come up on the seventh, that positions us in a tight timeline to prepare for something on the 17.”

In the meantime, Sunnyside will focus on perfecting its remote learning, which begins Aug. 5.

β€œClarity for me is still something that we have not received on many levels,” Holmes said. β€œAnd I think yesterday actually created more apprehension than it did answers.”

The metrics being developed by the state are not intended to drive when schools reopen for learning opportunities but rather when regular classes can resume with the entire student body, says the governor’s Chief of Staff Daniel Scarpinato.

He says the requirement for in-person learning opportunities is important for a number of reasons including that students of working parents need somewhere to go during the day and so do students who don’t have access to online learning at home.

β€œRegardless of whether class has started, meaning a classroom with students and a teacher at the front of the room, we want to make sure there’s some place for those kids to go,” he said.

Schools are required to accommodate all students but to do extra outreach with the more vulnerable populations, he said.

Williams says health metrics and guidelines should be in place before schools physically open to anyone.

Williams and local school districts are working with the Pima County Health Department on developing metrics schools can refer to, as well as protocols for if someone tests positive or if there’s a breakout at a school, as well as streamlined testing for educators and mechanisms for contact tracing.

β€œAt this point I am really focused on Pima County setting these guidelines and these opportunities because we can no longer wait for the governor’s extremely delayed orders,” Williams said.

Thursday’s announcement left many parents, teachers and school board members feeling β€œreally beat down,” says Save Our Schools cofounder Dawn Penich-Thacker, noting the additional funding was the one positive, but other than that, it was disappointing.

β€œIt puts districts, parents and teachers in a really tough spot,” she said. β€œTo basically punt all of the decision-making back onto them when they are neither equipped, nor the experts to be making those decisions about what the data means, what processes to put in place.

β€œIt was another lack of leadership from the level where these decisions should be happening, which is at the governor’s office and at the Department of Education.”

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Contact reporter Danyelle Khmara at dkhmara@tucson.com or 573-4223. On Twitter: @DanyelleKhmara