TUSD protest

On Oct. 5, teachers, staffers and supporters rallied when TUSD brought up the possibility of reopening Oct. 19. TUSD now plans to open for hybrid in-person learning on Nov. 12.

 Mamta Popat / Arizona Daily Star

Tucson’s largest school district plans to open schools for hybrid in-person learning on Nov. 12, following a split vote by the governing board.

A TUSD parent survey found that 45% of about 20,000 responding families wanted to start hybrid, which will have cohorts of children split into morning and afternoon sessions, while 71% of teachers said they did not want to go back into the classroom with coronavirus cases on the rise yet again.

TEACHERS WANT TO HOLD OFF

Tucson Unified will continue to offer remote instruction for families who want it for the rest of the school year.

The fear that TUSD teachers have to return to the classroom is one of the reasons Tucson Unified board member Rachael Sedgwick has been asking the district to wait until January or later to open.

“Teachers have advocated so strongly, and so many parents, so many families have reached out, and they really were fully in support of an opening in January for a hybrid learning plan,” she said during the Oct. 27 board meeting.

Sedgwick said the district and educators also needed more time to prepare for the transition.

The TUSD teachers union also thinks the district should wait until January to begin hybrid instruction, says Tucson Education Association President Margaret Chaney.

Planning in two-week increments, because of volatility around the pandemic, creates an unstable environment for teachers and students. Chaney was also concerned what kind of effect the holidays and other school breaks would have on cases.

A number of TUSD teachers have expressed concerns about returning, due to being in high-risk categories or living with people who are, and also due to the fact that the district has struggled to maintain ventilation systems, which could increase the danger of contracting COVID-19, due to about a decade of statewide funding cuts.

DEEP CUTS ON HORIZON

Along with Sedgwick, board member Adelita Grijalva also voted against the November date, saying she couldn’t approve something that she doesn’t even feel is safe for her own children.

Board members Bruce Burke, Leila Counts and Kristel Foster voted in favor of the Nov. 12 start date.

Tohono Chul Park, 7366 Paseo del Norte, is open every day. Get tickets online only at TohonoChul.org. October 2020.

A huge driver to start hybrid learning is the worsening decline in student enrollment, which could create some hard financial decisions for the district.

TUSD, which last year had 45,000 students, has already seen a 5.7% enrollment loss, or 2,500 students, which could mean a minimum of a $15 million budget reduction next year.

Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said this budget shortfall would mean “structural level cuts that are going to be very, very difficult conversations.”

And the loss could be greater than $15 million. During just three weeks in October, TUSD lost about 450 students.

Trujillo said he’s heard from principals that some families are leaving because the district isn’t open and other Tucson-area schools are.

“There have been families that have not been happy not having full-time supervision of their kids,” he said.

But the hybrid model is still not full-time supervision. In TUSD, it will be half days, and in many districts students are only on campus two days a week.

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT suffering in pandemic

Student achievement is suffering during remote learning as well, another driver to transition to a hybrid model.

There are special challenges with testing validity during remote learning, including teachers not being able to monitor students well or always answer questions, distractions in the students’ environments and technology issues, said Haley Freitas, senior director for assessment and evaluation.

TUSD just wrapped up the first quarter on Oct. 9, and less students took quarter-one benchmark tests than last year, Freitas said.

In TUSD, 15% fewer students in second through 10th grades took first-quarter benchmark tests.

And for the students who did take the tests, which measure proficiency, there was a decline in both English Language Arts and math.

The average proficiency drop in both middle and high school was about 1% in English. TUSD does not have this comparison for elementary school because of a curriculum change.

In math, proficiency was down about 7% in the elementary grades and about 5% in middle school. In high school, 10th grade saw a 5% decline in proficiency. And ninth grade saw a 14% gain in students scoring as proficient, which Freitas said was an anomaly.

Learning loss during remote learning is a national issue, Freitas said.

HEALTH DEPARTMENT supports such plans

The Pima County Health Department supports school districts holding in-person hybrid instruction, and every other major school district in Tucson has reopened, though TUSD has a much larger student body and geographical footprint than any other district locally.

Tucson Unified will continue to defer to the local Health Department on whether Nov. 12 continues to be a safe day to begin hybrid learning.

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