• KCSD Children, Families, Teachers, and Staff Deserve Better

Attention KCSD School Board Members: We are concerned parents, educators, and community members writing to you because KCSD’s children, families, teachers, and staff deserve better. A month into our school year, too many KCSD students and families are deeply struggling because of the District Administration’s failures. While this pandemic and unfortunate budget cuts from Albany have created incredibly challenging circumstances, our District Administration has not done the work of planning, preparing, and communicating clearly with families and teachers that is needed. The result of those failures will be long-term impacts on our students and families, particularly families of color and those whose first language is not English. This is unacceptable.

It is clear that the District Administration has created plans and policies without enough Board input. We are calling on the KCSD School Board, the officials whom we have elected to represent our community in the oversight of our schools, to ensure accountability, transparency, and equity as the district moves forward with the reopening plan that was announced on Wednesday, October 7.

1.  The School Board must do its own assessment of remote learning conditions and our schools’ readiness for reopening to hold the Administration accountable.

• Remote engagement and participation: We know some students still have not logged on or ‘attended’ school at all over the last month and many more students are struggling to consistently participate. The Board must develop its own indicators of participation that measure whether students have meaningful access and are being educated. Without accurate tracking, the Board cannot hold the Administration accountable.

• Access to Chromebooks and internet: We call on the Board to dig deeper into the reports about Chromebook distribution, internet access, and the equity issues involved. Parents and teachers report that students are still waiting for Chromebooks, particularly in Spanish-speaking families, that Chromebook repairs take far too long, leaving students without access, and that lack of consistent internet is a barrier for many families.

Survey teachers: The Board should hear directly from teachers about their experience with remote teaching, including the policies, technology, and the training they need, as well as their assessment of the reopening plan, including the health and safety conditions, the feasibility of the plans for teaching and cleaning, and the support they need.

Building readiness for reopening: The Board must do its own assessment of the school buildings to ensure the safety of our teachers, staff, and students for reopening. We call on the Board and Reopening Committee Members to tour schools and test windows and ventilation systems before reopening. Where MERV13 or higher ventilation is not feasible, stand-alone HEPA filtration should be explored to keep the children and staff safe.

2.  The Board must ensure district-wide policies that support, not punish, students and teachers during these difficult times.

Connecting with struggling students: The district needs to set requirements for principals and allocate resources to ensure every school is reaching out to and connecting with students who are not regularly accessing remote learning. This is an enormous burden to put on teachers. The District should be establishing a resourced system for connecting with students and identifying computer, internet, TEAMS, language, and other supports needed.

No grades or attendance on student records: Given the enormous challenges with participation, even for students who have computers and internet access, attendance and grading during this period should not impact students’ records. The district should only use attendance and assessments to understand student needs. Students should be provided with passes for attempting to participate this year, with no grading or attendance record.

College prep: As students return to school, the Board needs to ensure that juniors and seniors have support to apply to college. For many students, in-school support is the only route to accessing information about and support for applying to post-secondary education.  

Ensure substitutes are brought in when teachers cannot work: If a teacher is unable to report to work, the District should find a substitute teacher, including for remote learning.

Budget cuts should prioritize student needs: Given the need to ensure staff, student, and teacher safety, we call on the Board to look to make administrative cuts from our administrative-heavy district budget before cutting teachers and teaching assistance and other supports required for everyone’s health and safety (e.g. PPE, cleaning supplies, added custodial staff hours).

3.  The Board must improve communication with the KCSD community.

• Communicating reopening plan: The District’s communication has led to confusion and inequities. In the next phase of reopening, the District needs a clear plan and timeline and aggressive outreach to inform the community of that plan. The communication needs to go beyond the usual channels of TEAMS and links to the KCSD website, which are both difficult to navigate and track. The plan should include mailed letters and house visits, if needed, as well as coordination through community-based institutions and robust language justice.

• Language justice: Despite previous asks, the District Administration has not offered any Town Hall meetings in Spanish. At the 10/7 Board meeting, Dr. Padalino committed to a Spanish-language town hall - this needs to happen PRIOR to school reopening. Further, tech support town halls and technology surveys have been in English only. We also understand that there is a function to translate TEAMS and that has not been activated. Without language justice, the district is excluding and failing students in Spanish-speaking and other non-English-speaking families. The Board must ensure the District provides robust language access moving forward.

• Human-centered communication: This has been a tremendously trying time for families and educators. Parents are reporting that challenges with remote school are pressing them to take frustrations out on children. We implore the Board to ensure that the District Administration and all Principals show the KCSD community compassion and empathy and communicate honestly about the failures of the TEAMS system and the difficulties and confusion of this time.