On January 25, 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom announced the suspending of the "Stay-at-Home" order in Southern California, despite the ICU capacity remaining at zero. Citing this, HBUHSD released a statement on January 26, 2021, stating their plans to re-open on February 2nd, 2021. While the wording of this release did not detail the plans for teachers, on December 15, 2021, the verdict seemed to be that teachers could either return to in-person teaching by February 2nd, or take a leave. We are assuming this verdict remains and hereby request that vulnerable teachers be allowed accommodations to allow them to continue teaching from home.

Effects of this decision: This decision gives teachers a terrifying ultimatum: their lives or their jobs, their bills and rent or their lives, their students or their families. Essentially, the district is proving that these teachers are disposable, which we all know is not true. The ICU capacity is at zero percent in Southern California, the 7 day test rate of Orange county raised by over 2 percent just this past weekend, and essentially whilst SoCal is becoming the epicenter for this pandemic, teachers are being forced into the classroom. In addition to the health crisis this decision amounts to, it furthermore jeopardizes the education of many HBUHSD students. AP, IB, Honors, Academy of Performing Arts and Model UN programs all require a very special kind of teacher, and replacing them with an underqualified substitute will hinder their education. In fact, when registering for $100 AP tests, students make their decision factoring in their teacher's pass rate, and taking away these valuable teachers with high pass rates is wasting the time and money of these individuals.

Proposed solutions: LAUSD officials said that it would not be safe for teachers to be in-person until they are vaccinated. While we have no intentions of cancelling in-person learning for everyone in HBUHSD, we would like all teachers and students to have the option until they are safely vaccinated. Teachers cannot be forced in classrooms until they are safely vaccinated, which considering the uniqueness of the RNA vaccines that require 2 doses about a month apart to be effective, would take a significant amount of time. Thus we propose for the time being the creation of a virtual academy or the usage of distance sections. This virtual academy has been successful in all surrounding districts, HBCSD, OVSD, NMUSD, IUSD, Los Alamitos, Anaheim, and many other. The concept is to pair virtual students with virtual teachers. While we understand the inconvenience of this for scheduling, this is the most effective solution for all stakeholders involved, and the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. This option leaves everyone the choice to stay home until they feel safe. If this is unable to occur we promote the usage of distance sections, which is a solution that allows in person students to go to a designated part of school, say the cafeteria, to log into their Zoom with their distance teachers. This helps funds to be conserved, as the district is not paying for a substitute for 3 people, but an assortment of in-person students.

Requests for HBUHSD: We request a comprehensive plan for second semester learning to be released, that does not force our teachers to go on leave, the creation of a virtual academy, and a plan for staff members to get vaccinated before being required to return in-person.

(Images below are either public or have been retrieved through the legal process of a California Public Records Act Request, no involvement from any staff has occurred, this petition is fully student formulated)