The Hayward Unified School Board voted Friday to move classes online for all students next week due to the rising COVID-19 surge.
“As of this morning, we had 507 student positive cases, 165 elementary classroom closures, and then 615 impacted secondary classrooms,” said superintendent Dr. Matt Wayne.
Milpitas parents and students also found out Friday – next week’s classes will be online.
In a letter, the superintendent implemented a 10-day district wide quarantine, returning to in-person Tuesday the 18.
Some parents say they’re not surprised.
“My daughter told me the first day of school there were like 200 to 300 students who were out,” said Milpitas parent Veneramli Soriano.
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The district made the change due to an “exorbitant number of positive student and staff cases,” saying they’ve had had 167 substitute teacher positions and 107 support staff positions unfilled as a result.
Adding -- families without WiFi or childcare can go to the physical campus, to log on for virtual learning while socially distancing.
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“The consistency of the learning is not there, but at the same time … the school administration is really trying to look into the wellness of each student as the COVID cases go up,” said Soriano.
It comes as 500 Oakland Unified School District teachers called in sick Friday. Many as part of a planned "sickout" to highlight their COVID concerns.
That forced the district to cancel classes for 12 schools, impacting more than 8,000 students.
But the district argues the sickout put those students in riskier situations.
“Bottom line is it’s something that we feel is not what should be happening especially when we’re thinking about students’ safety,” said Oakland Unified spokesperson John Sasaki.
“I had an opportunity to call 20 families last night to communicate with them about this action and every single parent I talked to was 100 percent in support of us,” said Chela Delgado, teacher at Coliseum College Prep Academy in East Oakland.
Meanwhile, the state says it has delivered more than seven million tests to county offices of education since December.
Remaining tests will be shipped to schools over the next two weeks.
