Parents have always been co-educators along with teachers, and the Coronavirus pandemic makes it more clear than ever that this relationship is critical to student success. As co-educators, parents must be deeply involved and included in decisions about distance learning in SFUSD. I am calling on you to act urgently for our children by doing the following: 1. Meaningfully and officially include parents in decision-making around distance learning. Over the next month, as part of developing the plan for next school year and the next MOU agreement with UESF (the teacher’s union), the Board must engage a significant number of parents, including Black and Latinx parents and parents of children with IEPs -- both on a district task force as well as through a broader parent engagement process that makes it easy for these parents to express their concerns and needs. 2. Establish a plan for distance learning for this fall that includes specifics about meeting the particular needs and learning loss that’s happened for students with special needs, English learners, and Black students. 3. Lead the effort to make sure that every student and every teacher has access to a computer and dependable high-speed internet access (free for students if they need that) by the beginning of next school year. Quality learning from home requires that students and teachers have a computer with a camera and access to the internet. There are still too many SFUSD children without that. It’s going to require the City and the School District to work closely together on this, but ultimately the district needs to take responsibility for making it happen. 4. Centralize a communication standard across all school sites so that contact is made with every household individually by a staff person at least once per week as a wellness check. For many different reasons, thousands of district students were nowhere to be found this spring after schools closed -- the district had no contact with them, and many of our children felt forgotten. We know it’s hard to reach some students, but the district must make a bigger effort next school year to do so. Students and families need regular communication from the school. This will require the district to update parent contact information this summer and to ensure that communication is happening in the family’s home language. 5. Advocate for a standard district practice of bi-weekly community meetings via video conference (with a phone option) led by each principal for all families in their school. To make distance learning work better next school year, there needs to be much more communication and cooperation between the home and the school. It’s our best hope -- together we can do this. 6. Require SFUSD schools to provide all students with direct instruction for at least two hours every day from teachers through live video instruction or small group instruction. Thousands of students in SFUSD had very little contact with their teachers for months. For those children, very little learning was happening. In other schools around the country, children had daily live interaction with their teachers and that kept the learning happening. Our children need direct daily contact with their beloved teachers. Websites and pre-recorded videos are important, but there’s no substitute for the work of a teacher.

As our nation takes up a long-overdue conversation on systemic racism, parents of Black and Latinx children have long known that racism in our education system leads to unequal outcomes for their kids. Now, the Coronavirus and school closures are disproportionately harming Black and Latinx students, widening the already unjustifiable opportunity gap. To add to that, parents have been largely left out of the conversation and planning about how to implement successful distance learning, and next school year there will continue to be distance learning. Parents are co-educators along with teachers. To achieve high-quality education for all students, parents must have a seat at the table. Parents with children in SFUSD schools are calling on you to act urgently for our children by doing the following: 1. Meaningfully and officially include parents in decision-making around distance learning. Over the next month, as part of developing the plan for next school year and the next MOU agreement with UESF (the teacher’s union), the Board must engage a significant number of parents, including Black and Latinx parents and parents of children with IEPs -- both on a district task force as well as through a broader parent engagement process that makes it easy for these parents to express their concerns and needs. 2. Establish a plan for distance learning for this fall that includes specifics about meeting the particular needs and learning loss that’s happened for students with special needs, English learners, and Black students. 3. Lead the effort to make sure that every student and every teacher has access to a computer and dependable high-speed internet access (free for students if they need that) by the beginning of next school year. Quality learning from home requires that students and teachers have a computer with a camera and access to the internet. There are still too many SFUSD children without that. It’s going to require the City and the School District to work closely together on this, but ultimately the district needs to take responsibility for making it happen. 4. Centralize a communication standard across all school sites so that contact is made with every household individually by a staff person at least once per week as a wellness check. For many different reasons, thousands of district students were nowhere to be found this spring after schools closed -- the district had no contact with them, and many of our children felt forgotten. We know it’s hard to reach some students, but the district must make a bigger effort next school year to do so. Students and families need regular communication from the school. This will require the district to update parent contact information this summer and to ensure that communication is happening in the family’s home language. 5. Advocate for a standard district practice of bi-weekly community meetings via video conference (with a phone option) led by each principal for all families in their school. To make distance learning work better next school year, there needs to be much more communication and cooperation between the home and the school. It’s our best hope -- together we can do this. 6. Require SFUSD schools to provide all students with direct instruction for at least two hours every day from teachers through live video instruction or small group instruction. Thousands of students in SFUSD had very little contact with their teachers for months. For those children, very little learning was happening. In other schools around the country, children had daily live interaction with their teachers and that kept the learning happening. Our children need direct daily contact with their beloved teachers. Websites and pre-recorded videos are important, but there’s no substitute for the work of a teacher.