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Keeping education connection priority for MUSD educators
PANDMEIC & SCHOOLS
MUSD reopen
Elementary students in a COVID-19 adapted physical education class exercise with Hula Hoops while wearing face masks.

East Union High conducted a winter formal dance Friday.

Given it occurred in the middle of a COVID surge some might question the wisdom of such a move.

But it made complete sense to educators who are working to keep students engaged in school while deploying every reasonable health and safety measures they can from hospital grade air scrubbers to mask requirements.

“It helps prevent students developing apathy toward education,” noted Victoria Brunn, the Manteca Unified community outreach coordinator, of activities such as school dances.

Brunn said EU students returned to school Monday enthusiastically sharing stories about the dance.

It is part of a strategy that has seen Manteca Unified attendance slip to 89 percent during the pandemic while a number of school districts across the nation are reporting attendance dropping as low as 72 percent in places such as New York, Chicago, and the Los Angeles area.

Pre-pandemic MUSD attendance averaged between 96 and 98 percent. While that is higher the pre-pandemic attendance for Chicago that historically has been just over 90 percent, the drop-off due to COVID of students being taught on any given day is less than half in Manteca Unified schools compared to many elsewhere.

“It is a credit to teachers and support staff that have dedicated themselves (to making sure) in person learning takes place since October 2020,” Brunn said.

“We are continuing extra-curricular activities, elective classes, and after school athletic programs,” Brunn added.

Those are efforts that even before the pandemic proved to be essential to keeping a sizeable number is students vested in education at the high school level.

Brunn said that while schools are able to do what they are currently doing and will strive to do so, conditions are fluid.

She noted schools in the county have been advised by the San Joaquin Health Department that the current surge had yet to peak but will do so “in the near future.”

MUSD placing a high premium on the value of in person education early in in the pandemic by taking aggressive steps to put in place measures aimed at making classrooms and schools as safe and healthy as possible also has sparred the district the fate of a number of other school systems that have seen enrollment decline due to COVID-19.

Districts throughout the country — including California — have reported enrollment declines due to large number of people pulling students out for home schooling or private schools after becoming dissatisfied with remote learning. In some cases parents simply stopped requiring their children to attend school in person or remotely.

Studies since the start of the pandemic have shown a drop off in learning success due to the switch to remote learning. At the same time other issues developed due to the loss of in-person learning such as deterioration in skills for socially interacting as well as mental health issues and even situations exposing some students to abusive durations.

While those byproducts of remote learning and the pandemic fallout are issues Manteca Unified is dealing with as well they are not on the scale of some districts.

Manteca Unified enrollment has held steady at 24,000. While it is clear housing growth has likely made up for those that may have opted to switch to home schooling or private education options, the pandemic impact on the community’s faith in the local public educating has been at a minimum.

“Has the pandemic supposedly caused people to lose their faith in education?” Brunn asked rhetorically. "You hope it hasn’t. Have people lost their faith in public educating in Manteca Unified, (the numbers) don’t say so.”

Brunn added there will always be individuals not satisfied with what schools are doing, pandemic or not. However she doesn’t believe that number has jumped significantly on a local basis.

Despite a surge in positive tests that as of Thursday numbered 258 out of 27,000 students and staff, Manteca schools are able to make sure certified personnel are teaching students.

“We have all available certified staff including counselors and administrators filling in,” Brunn said.

So far the district has been able to call on substitutes that haven’t tested positive and other personal to plug holes created with 80 staff personnel testing positive for COVID on top of other illnesses and issues that may require a teacher or critical support staff to miss school.

“We’re doing the best we can. Staff at school sites have enabled this to happen,” Brunn emphasized. “That’s everyone from teachers, clerical staff, aides, and custodians, to administrators.”

 

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com