How are private elementary schools preparing for AY 20-21?
I know most (especially public) elementary schools aren't able to say what the school year will look like this upcoming year, but I was wondering if some of the private schools in the oakland/berkeley area have started to finalize plans? The public schools are likely going to be hybrid this upcoming year, but didn't know if some of the private schools were going to be able to offer more on-site learning because of the inherent reduced teacher-student ratio. If anyone has any insight, please let me know? (and, if able, what school?). Thank-you!!
May 23, 2020
Parent Replies
We are planning to start at Shu Ren, a small immersion IB school in Berkeley. They are small enough to be able to do in person every day and we are hopeful it will stay that way. I know people are concerned about transmission in schools but the data hasn’t really shown that to be the case and we are worried about our child being away for too long, distance learning is way too hard on kindergarteners. It doesn’t seem to me that public schools will be opening in the fall for anything in person but i know it’s a moving target.
This is a question on everyone's mind. My kids are at Aurora School (independent/private in Oakland). They organized a task force of various experts from the school and families to work on planning with the Head of School. They have also been surveying families on needs/desires for the return to school. They have also been doing a lot of innovative remote learning in the interim (which will likely be helpful later in the Fall/Winter if more shelter-in-place orders are issued). You can learn more about that here: https://auroraschool.org/remote-learning
While they are still waiting for some more data from public health experts, and feedback from community, I predict a blended model (see Option C on the link below). Fortunately, preliminary data shows that transmission amongst kids is very rare, so it is more about adults as vectors, which is somewhat easier to try and mitigate.
https://auroraschool.org/blog/planning-for-the-2020-21-school-year
We shall see and plans will be firmed up soon. One nice thing about Aurora is it is relatively small school and can be nimble and coordinated in plans. Fingers crossed.
Curious to see what other plans schools come up with. Best of luck to all.
My daughter goes to Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley. Right now they are planning to open next year. They are applying for permits to increase the number of classrooms (mobile classrooms etc) as well as breaking up the gyms and multi-purpose rooms into multiple classrooms in order to maintain the social distancing requirements. If those fall through they are planning to prioritize the preschool thru 2nd grade to on campus 100% of the time with 3rd thru 8th doing a hybrid in-class/distance learning. From what I understand from friends in the public school system they've been told that the distance learning will likely go into the fall and as late as January 2021.