If you are a student at Santa Clara University’s Graduate School of Education and Counseling Psychology, please read on…

As of right now, SCU plans on holding only in-person graduate classes beginning Fall Quarter 2021, even though for the 2020-21 school year classes were successfully held via distance learning (zoom). As prospective teachers, we are already putting ourselves at risk by being in the classroom daily with students who are not vaccinated. As SCU graduate students, we should not have to put ourselves at more risk by having to attend our graduate evening classes in person.

We’re asking that SCU continue to provide an option for students to attend classes via distance learning (zoom). Please sign this petition to make schooling safe and comfortable for all students, and please forward this link to other graduate students you know currently enrolled at SCU’s Graduate School of Education and Counseling Psychology. 

Here are the issues of the current school plan:

1. SCU has announced that all students will be required to show proof of vaccination status in order to attend classes. However, some students may not be able to be vaccinated and have established health exemptions. These students should have an option to attend classes via distance learning. 
2. As teachers, we are in close contact with hundreds of students every day, who may be positive for COVID-19. It would not be responsible for us to attend in person classes with other teachers who may then transmit the virus to other communities of students at their assigned schools.
3. SCU’s current guidance requires that students self-monitor their health status, and not come to campus if you are sick or experiencing any COVID-19 symptoms until you get a negative test result. This potentially may mean that students may miss several days of classes. It would be helpful if students could attend classes virtually and not have to miss out on content.
4. With the current COVID-19 variants out there in the community, even though people may be vaccinated there is data showing that these people may be positive for COVID-19 but be asymptomatic. These people may still transmit COVID-19 to others. Being in a classroom for up to three hours at a time for our graduate courses would not be safe for all those attending.
5. There are current graduate students who may have children of their own at home who are too young to be vaccinated, and/or have family members who are high risk. We should not have to put our families at further risk by attending our graduate classes in person.
6. The SCU east-side campus has not been used for the past year and a half, and shares facilities with an operational high school. These classrooms have not been fully equipped to safely accommodate large groups of students in-person during this pandemic.

As graduate student working-professionals, our needs are not the same as those of the undergraduate students at Santa Clara University. Attending classes via distance learning has been successfully completed this past year and a half, and may continue to for this upcoming year. We are paying tuition to SCU to complete our graduate program, and feel that SCU should accommodate us in our request to stay safe during this pandemic.

Our proposed solution:

1. Santa Clara University should continue to offer an online option for all classes in the Graduate School of Education and Counseling Psychology. For those students interested in attending classes in-person, they may do so. But for those students who feel more comfortable attending classes virtually, there should be an option to do so.

We should not have to choose between our graduate education goals and our health. 

Please sign this petition to give us options to have a safe educational experience, and share this petition as widely as possible so that we may garner the necessary support to have the SCU administration make the changes necessary in order to continue to accommodate classes via distance learning for this upcoming school year. 

It would also help to contact SCU’s Graduate School of Education and Counseling Psychology administrators, to share our concerns:

Sabrina Zirkel, Ph.D.
Dean of the School of Education and Counseling Psychology
szirkel@scu.edu

Pedro Hernández-Ramos, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Education
phernandezramos@scu.edu

Pedro Nava, Ph.D.
Director of Educational Leadership
pnava2@scu.edu

Teri Quatman, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Counseling Psychology
tquatman@scu.edu