During the Spring Break, The Davis Joint Unified has made key decisions regarding the re-opening of schools in Davis, without proper consultation, outreach or solid input from unduplicated families in the district. Unduplicated families in the district include the most vulnerable populations including the English Learners, foster youth, homeless and low-income students in our district.

The DJUSD has repeatedly failed to provide equitable and inclusive material regarding proper COVID-19 protocol education, as well as adequate information and access to bilingual pages on the website, resulting in unequal information to Spanish speakers and other English Learners.  Furthermore, many EL educators, parents and others such as special needs advocates raising key concerns have not only been largely ignored, but have also been censored during the Superintendent Advisory and District Board meetings.

We demand that all students, parents and staff be adequately trained with more than just a 15 minute video right before attending school during the newly adopted re-opening schedule.  There needs to be proper COVID-19 protocol education embedded not only in the student curriculum (as it should have been all along regardless of continued participation in distance learning) but also in the professional development of all staff and administration within the Davis Joint Unified during the course of the entire school year.

Some parents in the DJUSD, including employees working in the local hospital with children in the Davis Joint Unified, seem to think this virus is not real or "not a big deal" because it has not affected them or their families.  However, as we have seen cases disproportionately affecting our BBIPOC communities (as nearly half the COVID deaths in CA are Latinx for example) it is clear that our vulnerable families will bear the greatest risk returning to school. That doesn't even include a conversation regarding new and more dangerous variants of the virus as well!

Please join us as we find justice for our most vulnerable students and demand that the Davis Joint Unified and other school districts in Yolo County provide proper training for all students, parents and staff in the district, before re-opening - regardless of their continued participation in distance learning.  Working with the County, we can successfully and SAFELY re-open the schools so that everyone can return to an equitable, inclusive and just transition towards a post-pandemic world. This means providing bilingual information, using surveys, Peachjar and other alternative forms of communication like mailing flyers and texting, in order to provide outreach, gather input and to provide information (including documents regarding returning to school models) for not only the unduplicated families, but all other families in the district facing the digital divide.

For the health and safety of all our community...please postpone the re-opening of schools in Yolo County until these key issues are adequately addressed.