Mountain View-Los Altos district looks to expand in-person support for students

The Mountain View-Los Altos school board directed staff last week to plan to bring more students back to campuses when Santa Clara County moves into the state’s “red tier” of public health restrictions, a change in the district’s reopening approach.

Trustees agreed at the Jan. 25 meeting that the high schools should open more learning hubs as soon as possible to offer in-person distance support to students who want it. There will be no direct instruction provided but rather adult supervision while students are attending online classes.

“Let’s hire substitutes. Let’s hire people to stay in the classroom. Let’s use our resources to bring people back on campus,” said Trustee Phil Faillace.

This represents a distinct shift in some trustees’ tone about reopening schools. The board approved in December a reopening timeline that continued with full distance learning until Santa Clara County enters the less restrictive orange tier, and trustees did not support Trustee Sanjay Dave’s proposal at the time to offer hybrid instruction once the county is in the red tier.

But last Monday, encouraged by his colleagues’ change of heart, Dave said: “This is music to my ears to hear this consensus. I wish we had this consensus back in December.”

The state’s latest reopening guidance allows schools to reopen for stable groups of 15 students once Santa Clara County has been in the red tier for five days.

Trustees suggested the district prioritize bringing back students who are struggling academically, as well as freshmen who have yet to set foot on their campuses and seniors in their last semester of high school. In district surveys, the “majority of our students and families have stated they want to return,” Superintendent Nellie Meyer told the Voice.

The biggest challenge to offering in-person support to more students will be staffing, Meyer told the board, both due to public health restrictions that require smaller class sizes and safety concerns among teachers about returning to work in person. Santa Clara County school leaders continue to wait for concrete information on when teachers and staff will have access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

The district has since sent out a flyer asking parents and other adults to apply to become substitute employees to supervise the in-person support groups.

Before the board’s discussion last week, teachers union president Dave Campbell said the association is “ready and willing to sit down at the negotiating table to continue planning for safe return to school.” He made specific requests, including a list of all health and safety precautions that the schools will implement, how many students can be accommodated in each classroom and a proposed master schedule for each school that lists every student and teacher who would be there in person.

“All teachers would prefer to be in person with our students. What I want is to return to my classroom when it’s safe,” Campbell said.

In an email to the Voice this week, Campbell said he supports the new direction because it “allows those who feel safe with the precautions to return, while those who have concerns to stay home.”

In addition to equipping classrooms with HVAC filters and hand-washing stations, the district has bolstered technology for teachers during school closures, including some who are testing out PolyStudio cameras, which would allow educators to more dynamically teach from their classrooms. The cameras have two settings — one for a fixed location, such as a whiteboard, and one that follows as the teacher moves around the classroom.

Many students continue to struggle during distance learning, according to district data. The number of students earning D’s and F’s at the end of the first semester is still significantly higher than last year, though there was some improvement from the start of the quarter to the end of the semester. At Mountain View High School, 12.6% of students earned D’s and 17% F’s at first semester, compared to 9% and 6.7%, respectively, the year before. At Los Altos High School, 10.8% of students earned D’s and 18.5% earned F’s at first semester compared to 8.6% and 9.4%, respectively, the previous school year.

“There is now plenty of evidence, including our district, of the harm that distance learning is causing, not just in learning, but in their overall mental and physical well-being,” Dave wrote in an email to the Voice. “This is not to state that our teachers are not doing an incredible job on distance learning, jumping through a myriad of issues to create an e-learning curriculum that is as good as many other longstanding e-learning programs. The issue is that most of the students that choose an online school or program, are self-selected and they have the mindset to learn in that medium, but it is not for everyone, and most probably not for most high school students.”

In an interview, Faillace said he was previously in favor of allowing more students to return to campuses for supervised distance learning, not yet hybrid instruction, but didn’t feel it was safe to pursue due to the coronavirus surge during and after the holidays. He sees the learning hubs as an initial “step” toward fuller reopenings.

“The trick here is to implement that approach as safely as possible so that we make it more and more encouraging for teachers to come back. I think we need a path to dealing with the pandemic that gives us opportunities to correct some of the defects inherent in distance learning,” Faillace said.

Although some teachers have asked that schools remain closed until all staff can be vaccinated, he said he doesn’t think that’s necessary.

The high schools’ student school board representatives on Jan. 25 presented a survey they conducted on student satisfaction and engagement during distance learning. Of the roughly 270 students who responded, over 60% rated their motivation as lower during online school, though about 18% said the opposite — that they’re more motivated with distance learning.

About 58% of students rated their current mental health at a one or a two on a scale of one to five, while about 20% of students said their mental health is better now than when they’re attending school in person. Students reported both positive aspects of distance learning — waking up late, more independent work and “school from bed” — as well as the downsides, including too much screen time, difficulty paying attention and connecting with teachers, and “feeling cooped up at home.”

Both student board representatives described a decline in motivation in their own online classes. More students are attending classes with their computer cameras turned off, and Zoom breakout rooms meant to encourage student collaboration have become “more and more quiet,” Mountain View High School senior Erin Coyne said.

“In breakout rooms, we don’t talk,” Los Altos High School senior Riley Capuano added. “I try to start conversations but the decline in students being interested in academic conversations and engaging with their peers has been noticeable for me, especially second semester.”

Meyer acknowledged that students are not immune to “pandemic fatigue.”

“I think you hit it on the nose,” she told the student board representatives. “This is a difficult thing to sustain, and we really want to get out of it.”

The board plans to schedule a special meeting soon to further discuss reopening.