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PORTLAND, Ore. (PORTLAND TRIBUNE) — A year after schools across Oregon closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Portland schools now are rushing to prepare classrooms for a return to in-person learning.
But not everyone is ready to go back to school.
Danny Cage, a sophomore at Grant High School, said as a student of color with underlying health issues, he doesn’t feel safe attending school in person yet.
“I’m high risk and I have people in my house who are high risk,” the teen said. “Even if I’m not sick, it’s not safe to bring that back to anyone in my house.”
Statistically, communities of color have an increased risk of complications or death from COVID-19. That’s largely due to what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refers to as “long-standing systemic health and social inequities.”
Grant High School is one of the most modernized schools in the district. It reopened in fall 2019 after undergoing a major remodel, but Cage points to numerous other campuses that are aging and have limited ventilation.
As reported by the Portland Tribune in 2019, schools like Chief Joseph Elementary had documented elevated carbon dioxide levels and a lack of ventilation. The latest facility condition assessment report for all PPS buildings indicates nearly $203M is needed in heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades alone.
Years of deferred maintenance at many PPS sites has led to distrust among many teachers and parents.
“Everyone wants to see kids back in classrooms, but what constitutes ‘safe’ means something different when your community is at higher risk when it comes to getting sick and dying from Covid,” Rashelle Chase, one of the organizers of a rally pushing for a safer, more equitable approach to reopening schools, said. “We know at the best of times our kids are in schools that lack soap and hot water for handwashing, where windows don’t open to support ventilation, where classrooms aren’t cleaned regularly.”
Cage said the thought of going back to a closed room for hours at a time with several other students irks him.
“Many of the people who say, ‘oh, it’s safe, we have ventilation in our schools,’ those are predominantly white schools,” Cage said. “I go to school with 2,000 students, so how are we going to be able to reach social distancing guidelines? If everyone’s back-to-back in the hallway, that doesn’t feel safe.”
The Portland Public Schools district has announced the addition of HEPA filters in every classroom, along with ventilation inspections and increased airflow. The district also has promised to have a school nurse or health assistant at every school site, extra cleaning and disinfection and notes that teachers have had access to the COVID-19 vaccine since late January.
Jonathan Garcia, chief engagement officer for Portland Public Schools, said the district has been listening to concerns and has hired more than 30 additional social workers and has filled nearly all of the district’s 312 full-time custodian positions, to allow for a more rigorous cleaning and disinfection schedule. Garcia said the district is aware of some lingering fears stemming from aging buildings and widespread maintenance issues.
“What we know is that we’re not walking into perfect classrooms, but we are going to walk into safe classrooms,” Garcia said.
But the public statements and promises haven’t been enough to assuage every teacher or student.
To make things worse, uncertainty about the actual return dates still plagues Oregon school districts.
PPS, like many Metro-area districts, spent the bulk of 2021 publicly sharing its plans to bring back K-5 students for a hybrid mix of in-person and remote learning, starting in early April. Older students were to return to campus shortly thereafter.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced an executive order on Friday, March 5, requiring all school sites to offer in-person instruction by March 29 for K-5 students and April 19 for students in grades 6-12.
For districts like Portland, that meant an expedited timeline.
“The science is very, very clear: with proper safety measures in place, there is a low risk of COVID-19 transmission in school,” Gov. Brown said. “Oregon parents can be confident about sending their children back to a classroom learning environment.”
But just hours after the governor’s announcement, school districts already were hinting at state-granted waivers for in-person learning deadlines.
“We’ve already heard questions about possible flexibility with the start dates from a number of school leaders,” Lindsay Trapp, a member of the district’s communications team, confirmed March 5.
Reynolds School District in Fairview indicated it could not meet the governor’s reopening guidelines and requested an extension.
A week later, the Oregon Department of Education notified districts that allowances would only be granted for schools that were already planning to reopen within a week of the executive order date, or for those that closed due to a local health authority decision or that were not scheduled to be in session that week.
“Not complying with the Governor’s Order may result in loss of eligibility to receive state school funds or other enforcement as prescribed by Governor Brown’s Executive Order 21-06,” a state notice to districts stated.
Some districts, like Beaverton, seemed unresponsive to the ever-changing rules and guidance from the state. As of Friday morning, Beaverton appeared to be sticking with original plans to reopen schools in phases, beginning in early April.
Most students throughout the state have been learning from home since March 13, 2020, when school districts closed their doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has led to social isolation and disengagement from school for many students. PPS administrators said bringing students back in person is a priority, to address learning loss and other social-emotional impacts the pandemic brought on.
Within PPS, overall student attendance was down, and for students of color in middle and high school, the attendance decline was even bigger.
Families polled
The school district polled families about their preferences for returning to classrooms, beginning in late February. As of March 4, PPS noted 80% of families responded, with the majority of respondents — 64% — indicating a preference for hybrid learning. Hybrid learning would see students attending class on campus a few days per week, with the other days spent learning from home. The model would allow the district to offer smaller class sizes with spacing between desks, and include a simulcast feature, where teachers stream their classes live for students attending remotely from home.
Despite the district’s emphasis on survey results indicating most want their students back on campus, even if only for a few days a week, it’s unclear if the outreach got to all families.
As of March 4, only 53% of Native American families and 54% of Pacific Islander families surveyed had responded, according to the district. Among the district’s Black families, 63% responded with their preferences for school options. More than 87% of white families had responded.
At least one PPS parent told the school board last month that the survey link for a Spanish version didn’t work. Additionally, the survey didn’t ask families whether they wanted to stick with distance learning.
The district indicated parent outreach would continue past the March 4 data collection point.
When data doesn’t tell the whole story
While state and district data makes the case for bringing students back to schools, it’s important to look beyond the numbers and statistics. District officials acknowledge that Black and brown students had previously been disproportionately disciplined while in schools. With distance learning, that hasn’t happened.
What’s more, Cage said he and other peers also feel safer in an environment without school resource officers.
Cage, who served as a youth outreach coordinator for Teressa Raiford’s write-in mayoral campaign last fall, also noted Portland’s racial justice dynamics.
“One of the challenges my white peers didn’t experience (at the start of the school year) is the influx of racial tensions and dynamics,” Cage said. “Over the summer I lead protests and I worked with Teressa’s write- in campagin. Social justice does a lot on people, especially the kids who I worked with around my age. Every once in a while, we have to take a step back because it’s a lot, organizing is a lot and I know many kids of color were affected by that.”
He acknowledges numerous barriers to learning from home, but he’s also noticed a marked difference in himself since he began remote learning.
“The stress went down,” he said, noting his skin cleared up and he doesn’t feel quite as anxious.
“I hear people, especially those who want schools to reopen, have said that it will help children, but I want to be honest, schools have never been this super safe environment.”