The San Diego County Board of Education is sending teachers to offer in-person instruction to migrant children during their spring break despite the district still being closed for in-person classes.
“The San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) is providing the educational program for the unaccompanied migrant children who will be staying at the San Diego Convention Center through July,” the district said in a statement. “All children in California, regardless of immigration status, have a constitutional right to education. We also have a moral obligation to ensure a bright future for our children.”
“The educational program will include English language development and social-emotional learning opportunities,” the statement continued. “The teachers who are participating in the program are doing so voluntarily, and the program is following a COVID-19 screening protocol based on guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
The move comes despite the fact that San Diego students have not been learning in the classroom for over a year, though the district is set to start a hybrid learning model on April 12.
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San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond blasted the apparent double standard, pointing out that the district has over 100,000 regular students who are not getting the same opportunity.
“We have 130,000 kids who haven’t been allowed in a classroom for over a year in the San Diego Unified School District. It’s great that there’s in-person learning for those unaccompanied minors from Central America, but I wish every child in San Diego County was allowed the same opportunity for in-person teaching,” Desmond said.
Some parents were also upset with the decision, with one parent saying it was unfair to the thousands of regular students currently “stuck learning in Zoom school.”
“The system is broken when San Diego teachers are teaching migrant children in person, but the 100k students of taxpaying families at San Diego Unified School District are stuck learning in Zoom school,” wrote Emily Diaz, a parent from the district.
“We agree that every child deserves an in-person education, but why are taxpaying students put last? If this is a humanitarian issue then who is rescuing San Diego Unified students, because our leaders have failed them,” Diaz continued.
The program also caught the attention of Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, who called the decision “outrageous.”
“For more than a year, parents and students in San Diego County have waited for educators to answer one question: When will our schools reopen with in-person instruction only? And for a year, they’ve been told to wait,” Issa said. “The decision to provide in-person instruction to illegal migrants is outrageous, and parents have every right to be angry.”
The San Diego Education Association, the teachers union for the district, has for months resisted a return to in-person instruction, compiling a list of demands that the district must meet in order for union members to return to work.
Union officials have even pushed back against the April 12 target date, noting that the return to in-person instruction was not “set in stone.”
“Media coverage in the past few days has fixated on the potential date of returning to in-person instruction,” union officials wrote in an email to members after news of the April 12 start date first circulated. “This is concerning as it diverts attention from the critically important work that must be done to create the conditions for a safe return and may set up false expectations around dates should these conditions not be met. … Any date for a required return is a projection and not set in stone.”
With the potential offer for in-person instruction for migrant children from the district’s teachers, Diaz said it’s time for teachers to offer the same to its regular students.
“We are begging [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom and the U.S. Department of Education, where our superintendent is going — rescue us! This is an SOS. They must mandate 5 days of in person learning for all students,” Diaz said.
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“Fourteen percent of our district are students with disabilities and 23% are English Language Learners. San Diego Unified took in millions of dollars in relief funding to bring them back at the beginning of the school year but only 6000 are in-person today and we have no idea how that money was used,” Diaz continued. “What is happening right now is immoral.”
