Many months ago, the Castro Valley USD School Board approved an AM/PM schedule for elementary schools (where half the students would go in the morning and half would go in the afternoon). The AM/PM schedule was conceived at the beginning of the pandemic, when we knew very little about COVID’s spread. At that time, it made sense because we believed (wrongly) that surface-sanitization was the primary way to prevent infection. We now know that COVID primarily spreads as an aerosol, lingering in the air for quite some time. Unfortunately, the “Roadmap to Reopening & Safety Plan” has not been updated to reflect our current understanding of COVID. This is the plan the Board voted to approve on Nov 12.

Based on this new scientific knowledge, it is unwise to proceed with a schedule that puts the separate student groups in the same classroom only one or two hours apart, sharing the same air-space.  This means that one student who comes in sick in the AM group could infect not just their cohort, but the PM cohort too.

Given that many classrooms lack adequate HVAC systems to properly clear the air, we need a schedule that gives sufficient time for the virus to dissipate between student groups. We shouldn’t accept the false comfort of having custodial staff sanitize surfaces for an hour in between classes. While that is certainly helpful, most experts now believe that it is of minimal value, compared with the importance of preventing airborne transmission.

With our improved understanding of COVID, a schedule like the A/B proposal (half the students on one day, half on the next) is much safer. Keeping students separated by day means adequate time for the air to clear out. This at least offers some protection against wide-spread transmission when an infected child inevitably comes to school. To ignore this possibility would be truly negligent.

Multiple parents made this point at the November 12 special Board meeting on school reopening, and asked the Board to consider a safer plan. Unfortunately, the superintendent and many other administrators were dismissive of these concerns because of the work that had already been done on the plan, and not wanting to have to redo this work. While some Board members also expressed concern, in the end the majority steamrolled over the concerns of the community and decided to move ahead, without addressing these concerns.

Wanting to avoid more work is not an acceptable reason for moving forward with an outdated plan,  that is not based on current science, and not the safest option for our students.

We ask the Board to reconsider and choose an A/B model for our elementary schools instead.