 You're tuned into the COVID-19 community report here on KDRT LP, 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Audemars Labé-Renaud and today is Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021, and this is Episode 53. We're sharing local news and resources focusing on what's impacting Davis and nearby cities in Yolo County during the COVID-19 pandemic. This month I've been focusing on the return to in-person instruction in the Davis Joint Unified School District. I've interviewed administration, teachers, and this week I'm speaking with parents who represent different viewpoints on reopening. Dr. Audrey Pan with Safe Classrooms, Safe Community Davis joins me in the first interview and Dr. Rachel Klein of the DJUSD Parent Coalition, which is affiliated with Open Schools, California, also joins me in a second interview. And next week I'll wrap this month-long series by speaking with several area students. Since I spoke with teachers last week, the county has opened up vaccinations to both area teachers and farm workers, and that's great news. And it's been a delight to see friends from both groups posting their vaccination selfies. The county reminds us, however, that vaccines are still in very short supply, and receipt of more vaccines is further slowed by the deep freeze that hit so much of the country last week. I want to repeat something I shared last week, and that's about signing up for the state's My Turn system to be notified when you're eligible for the vaccine. And in that shell, the county launched its own vaccine interest form before the state program was widely implemented. So even if you signed up with the county, you'll need to sign up anew with the My Turn website. It allows all Californians to register for an email or text notification to inform them when they're eligible for the vaccination. The website is currently available in English and Spanish with an additional six languages coming soon. And if that doesn't work for you or you don't have internet access, you can call 1-833-422-4255 to connect with an operator directly in English or Spanish, or a third-party operator for an additional 254 languages. All residents are encouraged to register with My Turn at myturn.ca.gov. And for more information about Yolo County's COVID-19 vaccine and distribution process and lots of other info about COVID-19, you can check in at yolocounty.org-coronavirus-vaccine. And the Yolo Community Foundation has launched a five-week series of discussions focused on major community needs that have risen in intensity as a result of the pandemic and associated economic crisis. The series launches February 25th with a discussion about Yolo County's children and families and features speakers from the Yolo County Children's Alliance, the County Superintendent of Schools Office, the Yolo Crisis Nursery, and Yolo County Health and Human Services. Subsequent Thursdays will focus on food insecurity, mental health, housing insecurity, and what comes next. All panels are hosted on Zoom Thursdays at 11 a.m. and are free and open to all interested in learning more about the status of our communities in these specific areas. Visit YoloCF as in Community Foundation, YoloCF.org for registration information and details for all five panels. And the mission of the nonprofit Yolo Community Foundation is to inspire and support giving and to inspire philanthropic giving in all our local communities. And on that note, KDRT is a project of Davis Media Access, the only nonprofit community media center in all of Yolo County. We've spent the past year helping other area nonprofits, whether the pandemic, by providing technical support and staffing for virtual events, and public affairs, news, and entertainment to help us all get through this time. In addition to hosting this show, I serve as the executive director of Davis Media Access. I have a personal mission in life to connect people and resources in ways that benefit many, and this program has been my labor of love for the community during this time. As I approach the one year mark of doing this show, I'd love to hear if it's been helpful to you. An email, a social media shout out or a donation of any size goes a long way towards helping us continue this work. You can learn more at KDRT.org. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll be right back with the first interview. This month, I'm continuing with my focus on the return to in-person instruction in the Davis Joint Unified School District. This week, I'm speaking with parents who represent different viewpoints on reopening. Joining me now is Dr. Audrey Pan, who represents Safe Classroom, Safe Community Davis, which describes itself as a coalition of parents, teachers, students, and community members that support an evidence-based, science-supported return to classrooms. With the benchmarks set forth by the Davis Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees. She's a family medicine practice specialist in Sacramento and she has two kids in DJUSD schools. Dr. Pan, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for reminding me. So right now there are many voices speaking up about the return to in-person instruction and many are advocating we return now. The board has outlined a more gradual return with certain internal and external factors in place. Please tell us how and why this coalition came together and what it is you're advocating for. It feels to me that the parents that advocating for opening for school now, they're really focused on the timeline like now, now, now. But so our coalition came together is we want to focus more on the mitigating factors. We also want schools to open. You know, everybody wants their kid to go back to school. So I think there's different priorities here. So for our priority, and also by the way, CDC clarified their criteria for opening school is mask for all. I think Davis residents in general, they're doing okay, I hope for that criteria. But the second criteria is CDC has recommended for grade K to 12. Six feet distancing is not negotiable. So I've been to my kids classrooms. They're just, you know, really small spacing and I, I, is the DG USD is going to set a limit on the number of students that can be in person or, or, you know, they need to work that out so that the desks can be six feet distancing. So we need to work that out. And then the next one would be weekly testing or, or contact tracing. Right. Because there are there are small cohorts that's going in person right now. And all the positive tests are voluntary reporting. And I, you know, from a medical standpoint, I, it just doesn't make sense. You know, in a pandemic, how can you voluntary report. Oh, I tested positive or what if some parents choose not to get tested or, you know, how do you catch asymptomatic spreaders. Right. Those are all the questions. You know how are we going to address that are we, you know, luckily we have healthy Davis together we have sounds like we have the funds and means to achieve that. So the DG USD going to make that mandatory for, you know, adults and kids on a weekly basis for, for whoever that choose to be on campus for hours at a time. Those personnel definitely need to be tested. Right. You know, and then contact tracing work that out with the county or public health department. So all those steps needs to be in place. Another concern is, I'm not a ventilation expert. I don't know how, you know, upgraded the HVAC system in our in our DG USD classrooms are. So, so I don't know, you know, do we need to. Yeah, how are we going to upgrade that if that's needed. So all those things that just need to be set in place, you know, with clear guidelines and procedures and protocols and, and who who's going to be in charge of all that are we just going to put teachers like teacher report everything. You know, it's all those steps and if all those steps are clearly set in place then yes, you know, let's go for it. Some of the things you've mentioned are what when I interviewed superintendent Bose he described those as the internal factors that were under the control things like improving ventilation and classrooms and how we distance and having testing on site. But he talked about the external factors that that they really don't have control over. And that was the availability of vaccines was was one of them. And I know one thing I've seen your coalition address is the community spread of the virus so you can you talk about your concerns on those two points. The community spread and variance and then the the desirability of having staff teachers and staff vaccinated before return. Even with the internal factors that DG USD have control over the, that the pace of that being implemented is like really really slow and frustrating. From my standpoint, if we want to put timeline as a priority. Maybe vaccinating teachers that will be, you know, quickest approach versus hiring HVAC specialist or versus, you know, man putting policies mandate for mandatory testing. I don't know. It seems to me, you know, vaccinating teachers at least we protect the adults on the campus. Yeah. Yeah, but but then again, you know, that's, that's out of our control it's we're talking about supply issues. Yes, yes, we do have real supply issues. Yeah, so we, we, you know, with an ideal world we like to have the two prong approach. First, like, let's everybody get together, you know, parents teachers and, and our leaders school leaders district leaders to work together on the on the internal factors that we can control the internal and then acts external factors, let's, you know, advocate for teachers to get vaccinated as soon as possible. So to approach maybe multi prong approach to get schools open, you know, get everybody happy. I think, although I talk about two sides of this debate here I think you're right you said earlier everyone would like to see the kids back in school and resuming all the the enrichment and you know learning that happens there. The disagreement seems to be over the speed at which this happens and yeah I think they're, you know, valid concerns on both sides. Because from your perspective what does a safe classroom safe community Davis believe needs to happen next and how will you continue to advocate for this process in the coming weeks. Um, just to have this district officials to be transparent. Especially from the medical standpoint especially for the policies regarding testing. Whether it's mandatory whether because as far as I know, there is some reporting there's a total number of positivity rate in the school district, but we don't know which side is positive, you know, I mean I'm not saying we need to put names or anybody. We don't have a general idea or each school site home who's positive. I mean how many are positive. So people kind of people can then make informed decisions right you can't just put a vague generalized data out there and how how am I supposed to make a decision for my kids to return. I don't know who's positive on what campus. So that's number one. Number two is, I still would like to. For the parents, we should get together, regardless of which coalition we belong to we should advocate for vaccinate vaccinating for teachers ASAP. And with the emergence of the variant, it's, you know, it puts the, it's so much more important for the mitigating factors to to be in place because this new variant is a lot more transmittable it's a lot more contagious. You know that that's not good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I might I have been interviewing teachers and my my takeaway from those conversations is that being vaccinated is the number one thing that's going to make them feel that they are valued and supported as teachers before the return to school otherwise they feel like they're somehow being as one teacher said to me she feels like she's being scapegoated at the beginning of the pandemic it was like oh teachers are wonderful they're going to get us through this. And, and look at our teachers and now she said if we're not vaccinated and we're pushed back into schools that sends an opposite message. So, yeah, it's really heartbreaking because of speaking from the parent standpoint as parents we really feel powerless. You know, because our public schools are chronically underfunded teachers are undervalued overworked, you know, and at this point, problem is so complex and we need so many approaches that seems like easiest way just to push the teachers into the classroom and that's really heartbreaking to me. You know, and that's why I want to be part of this coalition as at least to be the group of parents that say we, we support your teachers. Right. Yeah. All right, well thank you so much for making time to talk about this important topic with me today. I want to let listeners know that safe classrooms safe community Davis is on Facebook, and you can find there the text of an op ad they that some of the members including Dr pan wrote and published and the Davis enterprise on February 11. Thanks so much. Thank you, Adam. This month I've been focusing on the return to in person instruction and the Davis during unified school district. This week I'm speaking with parents who represent different viewpoints on reopening. Joining me now is Dr Rachel Klein, who represents the DJ USD parent coalition, which is affiliated with the open schools California movement. Tonight has two children, one of whom is in the DJ USD, and she is an adjunct professor in biological chemistry at Woodland Community College. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. I'll start this interview by noting two things as is par for the course during the pandemic things keep rapidly changing. And teachers I interviewed just last week have now begun getting vaccinated which is great news as last week that still seem to be a somewhat distant reality. The second is that we are pre recording this interview on February 18, and there is another DJ USD Board of Trustees meeting this evening. Recent meetings have included a great deal of public comment and have focused heavily on the district's plans to return to in person instruction. I first came to awareness of the DJ USD parent coalition when I saw protesters downtown downtown with open schools now signs. Let's start with telling me who your group is and what you're advocating for please. Sure. So we are a grassroots group of parents. We have a wide range of backgrounds there are many scientists, including myself. There are also physicians, public health officials, child psychologists, and other parents from all sorts of different careers and walks of life. And we are advocating for the school board to listen to the science listen to our public health officials in their decisions about reopening our schools. The top experts in the field from World Health Organization, CDC, our California State health officials and even Dr. Sisson our own Yolo County Public Health Officer have all recommended at a minimum that elementary school be offered in person at the case rates we we are seeing at the moment and so we would like the school board to consider those recommendations from the experts when they're providing their their reopening plans. Okay. From your perspective or your organization's perspective. What's at risk if we continue with long term remote instruction. And I think that the risks are just enormous you know kids are falling behind. There's all sorts of statistics about it but I can tell you, you know my son's a kindergarten and they're supposed to begin their part of their reading program winter started winter semester and they've had to push that back because the kids are just not at that level yet and looking at the assessment he's about to have. There's you know all this stuff they're supposed to know at the end of kindergarten that he just doesn't know. And you know we've been working behind the scenes to try and help him but it's just online education is just not effective for particularly for the younger kids but I think even their big limitations for older kids as well. So I think that's a good side but also the you know the health consequences are really really dire you have all of these pediatrician groups coming out saying kids need to be in school this is essential for their mental health their physical health we need to get them back so I think really compelling that the the advocacy experts in child health are saying as well that kids need to be back. Okay thank you. Your comment from your group at recent school board meetings has been quite heavy. Does what you're advocating for put you at odds with what the school board is recommending. And if so how. I don't think I would consider us at odds I think we all want our kids back in school safely. I think we all share the same goal I think we just would like more of a discussion of the science and you know what our public health officials the really the experts in the field are saying we'd like that to carry more weight with the school board. Okay. Does it. This is a harder question perhaps because I do think as I talked to more people I do think everyone has the same goal there's just differences and how and when we get there. But does it put you at odds with teachers and the reason I want to ask that question. I've interviewed some who said they feel uncertain that they can be safe and they can keep their classrooms safe if they are required to return now before being vaccinated this maybe quickly become a moot point as vaccinations have started but what are you hearing as as you talk to teachers in the district. I hope I'm not at odds with teachers I am a teacher myself and I am currently teaching in person by choice at Woodland Community College and I want to add that all of the biology department is also teaching in person. So every you know we all have PhDs there's even one professor with an MD we're all have a very high level of expertise. We feel safe to be teaching in person. So I'm not asking anyone to do anything I'm not doing myself. I think you know the data is clear that transmission is very very low in schools if at all. And I just you know we have my younger son goes to preschool in person five days a week there has been no no transmission. You know I know that childcare is open on elementary school campuses at the moment and you know they follow the guidelines there hasn't been transmission. So I think you know the data is really compelling our public health experts are saying this is safe and they do have teachers well being in mind as well when they say when they make the recommendations. So I, I'm not at odds with teachers I guess I just don't fully understand so I'm looking forward to hearing the other parts of your, your interviews because I as a teacher myself who's teaching in person who's also a scientist. I don't understand the fear I guess. Yeah, hopefully, yeah hopefully we can have more dialogue and figure out what, what would make them feel safe. Thank you for that. We have a few minutes left and I want to make sure I get to ask this question, because you brought it up earlier that the public health experts are recommending that return to school to in person instruction for K through six is has been determined to be safe, but not for the higher grades and I'm hoping you can help explain that distinction for me because I find it a little confusing. Sure, well first of all I'm not a public health person I'm not an epidemiologist so this is not my my specialty but my understanding of the data is that what what we've seen is that younger kids are less affected by COVID and they're also seem to be less likely to transmit it. So I think there is a safety argument for bringing back the younger kids first. So, as a parent of a kindergarten I can tell you it's just, you know, elementary education cannot occur over a screen it's just not effective everything we know about child development says this is not how you do it so I think there's also that urgency to, you know, get the younger kids back where they can hopefully catch up. Thank you, I appreciate that explanation. I guess my final question is, are you hopeful that the start of vaccinations locally will shift the timeline or will speed up the timeline for reopening, and I'm asking for your the parent coalition's perspective on that. We hope so we are advocating that the district follow, you know, Dr. Fauci's recommendations the CDC's recommendations all of which say you don't need vaccination to be safe in opening schools for teachers. So hopefully, the vaccines are coming hopefully teachers can feel safer but we, we stand with the experts who say that's not a prerequisite for opening the schools. Okay. I want to let people know that if you Google DJ USD parent coalition, you have quite an active website and there are a lot of articles archive there that speak to the perspectives, some of the perspectives you shared today. So, is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap up here. Just check out our website if you have any questions and I really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to have this dialogue I'm very curious to see the other interviews when, when they're published. Great. Thank you so much. I've been speaking today with Dr. Rachel Klein of the DJ USD parent coalition, a parent and activist who is one among many advocating for the return to in person instruction. Thank you so much for joining us these schools, and you've been listening to the covert 19 community report on KDR T. I'm autumn lab a Renault and I'll be back next week with the final installment in my series on reopening schools and I'll be speaking with students. Thanks for tuning in.