Unions representing San Francisco teachers and other employees of the city’s school district announced their conditions for returning to in-person instruction Friday, a proposal they plan to submit to school officials.
Susan Solomon, president of the United Educators of San Francisco, which represents 6,500 teachers and para-educators citywide, said teachers and staff would return to in-person instruction in the state’s red reopening tier with vaccines — or in the orange tier if teacher and staff vaccinations are not available.
The reopening proposal was not tied to specific dates.
The announcement comes amid mounting pressure on the district and the unions representing school employees to reopen in-person learning for the district’s more than 52,000 students. The issue came to the forefront when City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the school district and board Wednesday to compel them to create a specific plan to reopen.
The next day, Mayor London Breed held a news conference with other officials to pressure the union and district to make a deal. Breed has said students’ learning loss and mental health make the issue urgent. The district’s own research shows Black, Latino and Asian students as well as those from low-income families have lost significant academic ground compared with wealthier and white students during the pandemic.
School reopenings are guided by the state’s color-coded system. Under state guidelines, the red tier indicates “substantial” spread of the coronavirus and the orange tier indicates “moderate” spread of the virus. At present, San Francisco is in the purple, or “widespread,” tier. Schools in counties in the purple tier are allowed to open for K-6 grades if their “average adjusted case rate” is below 25 cases per 100,000 population and they file a safety plan.
Local, state and national health officials have said it’s safe for schools to reopen with proper precautions. Very few cases of transmission have been traced to schools in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
Solomon made the announcement shortly before she said she would present the union’s reopening demands to San Francisco Unified School District administrators at the bargaining table.
The teachers said their offer would also require the district to make sure that virus testing, social distancing, disinfecting, protective equipment and enhanced ventilation were in place at schools. It was unclear how many of those requirements have been met. The union had previously demanded the installation of toilet lids in lavatories and air monitors in classrooms.
“The majority of our (concerns) have been addressed,” Solomon said. “There are a few other areas where we would like to see movement, including testing and vaccine availability.”
At present, all counties are vaccinating essential health care workers and long-term care residents and employees. The state also allows counties to give shots to people over 65, education and child care workers, emergency services workers and those working in food and agriculture, if vaccine is available. Some counties had begun vaccinating teachers but pulled back in the face of vaccine shortages.
Solomon said the union and the district “were not very far apart” in their proposals for reopening and pointed out that the two sides are meeting daily.
The school district did not respond to requests for comment.
The pressure on the district and the unions increased Thursday when a tearful Breed stood with schoolchildren holding signs that said “I Miss My Friends” and urged all sides to work together to get schools open.
The organizers of the event — Decrease the Distance — announced the creation of a citywide petition, and pressed for the school board and teachers union to reach an agreement by Feb. 18 on the conditions required to reopen schools.
Breed was joined by state Sen. Scott Wiener, who said he was upset that the day after the school board voted to rename 44 schools, the district announced that middle and high schools would likely not reopen this school year.
“I have always been a big supporter and fan of this school district,” he said. “My frustration is what I see is a defeatist attitude.”
Ted Lempert, president of Children Now, a statewide children’s advocacy group, has been paying attention to what’s been happening in San Francisco as well as other places around California and believes the building pressure - from parents and politicians — may finally stop the gridlock that’s kept most California public schools closed.
“I’ve been involved in education policy and advocacy for a long time, and I’ve never seen parents this energized about a policy anytime or anywhere,” he said. “It is having an impact. Ideally the focus wouldn’t be on blaming this politician or that school official but on getting schools open. But clearly the pressure is having an impact.”
Lempert said schools are reopening safely elsewhere in the country while many California districts seem to be going nowhere.
District officials had said they were ready to reopen to the youngest and most at-risk students at the end of January, but couldn’t reach an agreement with the union.
San Francisco public schools have been closed since mid-March, but more than 15,000 private school students are back in class. Parents of public school students who have spent nearly a year with their children camped in the living room said they are frustrated.
“Private and parochial schools have opened safely,” said Jonathan Alloy, who has two children — Samuel, 9, and Rebecca, 8 — at Commodore Sloat Elementary School. “The children of families with the money for private school are getting a good education.”
Alloy said the union’s offer to return to the classroom when pandemic tier color improves has got “lots of caveats and no sense of timing.”
While he spoke, Rebecca was jumping rope with her virtual classmates in front of the living room computer, as part of her physical education class, and Samuel was pounding out a book report.
“The closures are having an enormous negative impact from a mental health and socialization standpoint,” Alloy said. “It’s time they did something.”
But parent Laurel Paul, with two sons in two San Francisco high schools, said she understood the teachers’ reluctance.
“We’re all frustrated and ready for the pandemic to be over,” she said. “I don’t blame parents for being upset. But I don’t see any good choices. The surge is scary. The variants are scary. I’m glad the union is pushing for safety.”
Pretending the pandemic will just go away, she said, is wishful thinking.
“I wonder if some of these parents who want the schools to reopen now have found a secret door to Narnia,” she said.
San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Jill Tucker and Michael Cabanatuan contributed to this report.
Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF
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