San Francisco Schools Slammed Over 'One Day' Reopening Plan to Get $12 Million

By Joshua Summers May 12 2021, 05:22 AM EDT

San Francisco's public school district and the teachers union have agreed to bring back high school seniors for just one day before the end of the school year so the city can qualify for $12 million in state reopening funds.

Daily Mail reported that critics had labeled the plan made between the school district and teachers union as a "blatant money grab."

Critics Slam San Francisco Schools for the Plan

The teachers union announced the plan over the weekend that the students under the class of 2021 will be able to return to classrooms starting Friday.

The announcement underscored that there would be "in-person supervision" rather than in-person instruction, and only two of the city's 15 high schools will be reopened, Associated Press reported.

The announcement of the return date for seniors was announced a day before the May 15 deadline for public schools to meet and qualify for the shared $2 billion state reopening funds.

Assemblyman Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco, authored the legislation that includes state funding.

Under the said legislation, school districts will be eligible for the full share of the incentive funding if they reopened their schools to elementary students or at least one grade in middle or high school for in-person instruction by May 15 and lose one percent of the funding each school day if they remained closed after the date.

Critics have voiced their opinion on the plan that the teachers union and the district have agreed. Some parents labeled the plan as a deliberate attempt of the district officials and the union to get a hold of the money while failing its students, Fox News reported, citing The Chronicle.

"What message does this give our kids about what they are worth," asked the school reopening advocacy group run by parents, Decreasing the Distance. The group also asked whether the money matters in the decision made by the district and the teachers union.

Meanwhile, Ting slammed the plan and labeled it disappointing, arguing that the act does not meet the "spirit" of the legislation.

Ting also pointed out that children should "come back in person," and they should come back to learn. Ting is now pushing for a "full reopening" of schools in the fall without flexibility so that a similar situation will not occur in the future.

San Francisco School Reopening Plan

It is still unclear how many students will accept the offer. The district is still in the process of polling families to find out how many of the 4,000 potential seniors will return.

Moreover, the deal between the teachers union and the school district may include activities with "end of high school conversations," or "college and career exploration."

The plan's details noted that each cohort of students would have two staff members supervising them on campus.

Elementary students of the San Francisco Unified School District, which was among the country's last large school systems to bring students back after campuses were closed during the pandemic, resumed in-person classes in April.

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