SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – A group of parents and children gathered outside of an elementary school in Point Loma to push the San Diego Unified School District to speed up its plans to reopen for in-class instruction.
At a rally in front of Sunset View Elementary School on Thursday morning, dozens of parents and children held signs -- many of them reading “kids first” or “students first,” and “reopen schools.”
Parent Sarah Spear said, “Obviously everyone needs to be safe and wear masks, but the kids need to be together. They need to be having full-time instruction with teachers.”
Teacher Corey Brucker added, “I’m just worried being on Zoom, at home and cooped up all the time, they're not getting the help they need.”
Currently, California requires counties to fall under a certain threshold before a widespread elementary school opening. Counties must stay that way for five consecutive days.
San Diego County is on track to do just that, after the county’s COVID-19 case rate dipped Tuesday to 22 cases per 100,000 people.
Ultimately, it is a school district’s choice if they decide to reopen, but some parents are pushing for children to return to schools.
Some elementary schools are able to conduct in-person learning right now due to a provision that allowed them to reopen if they were already open before November, when cases started to rise in San Diego.
Other schools can reopen under the state’s guidelines if counties can stay under 25 cases per 100,000 people for five straight days.
Middle schools and high schools are blocked from reopening even longer -- those students will have to wait until the county falls below 7 cases per 100,000.
Recently, SD Unified officials asked that California leaders move quickly on a vaccine rollout for teachers.
ABC 10News reached out to the district on Thursday morning to follow-up, but they did not respond as of the publication of this story.
