FREMONT –Fremont Unified School District, one of the largest in the East Bay serving roughly 35,000 students, will remain in distance learning for the rest of the current school year, according to Superintendent CJ Cammack.
In a newsletter issued district-wide Wednesday afternoon, Cammack said the district and its teachers union, the Fremont Unified District Teachers Association, couldn’t come to an agreement on how best to return to classrooms after months of negotiations, and the district is walking away from talks.
“Regrettably, FUSD has not been able to reach a successful agreement for a return to school with the teachers union,” Cammack said in his newsletter.
Cammack said the district and the union have split on some key issues “including staffing, the scope of grade levels eligible for a full return, and additional compensation for employees to return under a hybrid instructional model.”
As a result, the district said it will forgo roughly $9 million from a $6.6 billion pot of state assistance funds authorized by lawmakers earlier this month to help incentivize school reopening across the state.
Cammack, in a previous newsletter, said the district was hoping to reopen by March 29 for preschoolers through 2nd graders, followed in mid-April by 3rd graders through 6th graders. More recent target dates included a phased in reopening from April 12 through the week of April 19.
Cammack said having “no definitive final outcome insight related to reaching an agreement” with roughly 43 school days left in the school year causes difficulty and unclear expectations for students and staff.
Cammack said the district will instead “focus our action and efforts toward bringing more students on campus through the rapid expansion of our existing learning hubs,” which offer limited students an opportunity to learn online while on-campus, and interact with other students.
Victoria Birbeck-Herrera, the president of the teachers union, said during a special school board meeting Wednesday she hopes the district will return to the bargaining table.
“It was very difficult today to have our highly qualified educators at the negotiations table with FUSD, when FUSD turned their back on our students,” she said.
“We believed we were making significant progress towards an agreement to allow a return to in-person instruction for students whose families who’ve chosen that,” Birbeck-Herrera said.
She claimed the district made last minute changes in negotiations, requiring teachers to return to classrooms not only for young students, but for secondary grade levels, as well, which she said was a “half-baked” plan.
The teachers have also been asking for a one-time stipend to classrooms to teach in hybrid models, saying that any teacher “who will be providing hybrid instruction will be providing additional instruction above their current workload.”
As of March 31, the union was asking for a $2,100 stipend per teacher, lowered from the $3,500 stipend they were requesting as of March 30.
Many other teachers called into the meeting Wednesday to encourage the district to return to negotiations.
“I’m asking you to not give up on our students and come back to the bargaining table,” Jennfier Lafferty, a teacher in the district said.
One parent, Rachel Wang, seemed to blame the teachers for the delays in negotiations.
“If you really really have our kids’ benefit in your hearts, why do you keep raising all these unrealistic and ridiculous asks or requests or demands?,” she said.
Another parent, Cecilie Lee, said Wednesday in an interview it’s been “terribly frustrating” watching two of her young kids, one in kindergarten and one in 2nd grade, struggle with learning virtually.
“I had a feeling it was coming to this. I’m just really sad for the children,” she said. She said she helps her children closely during school, and feels the teachers are trying their best during class, but it’s simply too difficult to learn some things through a screen.
“My kids have every advantage they could possibly have in this distance learning and it’s been so difficult,” she said.
“I feel like the school board didn’t even really start with the idea of coming back to school this year,” she said, noting that the board initially set a marker last summer of returning to school only when there were 7 days of no new coronavirus cases in Alameda County.
But as the district more recently started proposing “reasonable” plans to the teachers union, Lee feels the union kept “moving the mark.”
“I’m just so mad,” Lee said.
“I will not send my children to FUSD if they’re not five days a week (in-person learning) next year,” she said.
“I can’t be the substitute teacher again, or the secondary teacher. It’s created too much conflict in my home. Either I’m the home teacher, or I send them to private school, or we move,” she said.
In a February district survey with more than 10,000 responses, nearly 63 percent of families said they wanted their kids to do distance learning through the end of this school year.
“For some of our community, this decision will align with your stated preference to remain in distance learning,” Cammack said in his letter.
“For others, I understand this decision will be disappointing as you desired an immediate and full return,” he said.
“I remain confident that all our FUSD staff across the entire district will be fully committed to providing the best for their students over the next 43 days, just as they have done so well for the last year,” he said.
Cammack said the district will offer more information about learning hub expansions after the district returns from spring break on April 12.
He said the district “is making great strides in our plans for a full return to in-person instruction in the fall of 2021,” and more information will be provided on those plans during the April 21 board meeting.
