 You're tuned into the COVID-19 community report here on KDRT LP 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Autumn Lab A-Reno and today is Tuesday, February 9th, 2021. We're sharing local news and resources focusing on what's impacting Davis and nearby cities in Yolo County during the COVID-19 pandemic. My guest today on episode 51 is Dr. John Bose, Superintendent for the Davis Joint Unified School District, and we'll get to that interview in just a few minutes. I do want to say I'm pre-recording this episode as I'm trying to take a few days off this week and with the speed of developments in COVID, reporting just once a week is tricky, but I do my best. These reports are as of Friday, February 5th. Last Tuesday, Yolo County's public health officer, Dr. Amy Sisson, reported to the Davis City Council that Yolo County residents still face great risk, even as the number of cases of COVID-19 decrease and the number of vaccinations given increases. Sisson noted that while average new cases are decreasing and have been since mid-January, even at that, our numbers are still nearly double what the county was seeing during its summer surge. For example, 56 new cases were reported on February 4th alone. Sisson also said that the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus will require continued vigilance on the part of the public. The new variants are far more transmissible than the original, and cases around the increase, especially in Southern California. She urged residents to continue doing everything we've been doing for the past year, wearing masks, staying six feet apart from others, not gathering in groups, staying home as much as possible, and washing hands regularly. Finally, Dr. Sisson said that until the vast majority of us are vaccinated and we reach herd immunity, it'll be necessary for people in public to continue with masking and distancing. As I say, most weeks we're in this for the long haul or we're in this until it's done. You know, most of my conversations of late have centered around two topics, testing and vaccination. As my interview last week with Mayor Gloria Partita of Davis noted, the options for asymptomatic saliva-based testing have increased with the addition of a third site at the Veterans Memorial Theater. In a post-show discussion about the episode on my Facebook, one commenter noted it was a shame the Healthy Davis Together program could not be expanded to other parts of the county, where she said many essential workers and care facilities are actually located. Mayor Partita replied that Healthy Davis Together is working on increasing availability and noted that folks who don't live in Davis but work here are already eligible. The program has other aspects as well, such as help with quarantining when needed and incentives, gifts and assistance for businesses and participants. Learn more at HealthyDavisTogether.org. And Yolo County has begun an all-out effort to educate and prepare its residents for vaccination. Even as questions abound about vaccine availability and current supplies here in Yolo have been exhausted, in a meeting with area nonprofits last week, the county's public information officer and COVID communications team lead, Jenny Tan, said their planning for the moment the tears open up to more people and more doses become available. To date, the county has administered approximately 7,000 first doses and 3,000 second doses to its residents. Something you can do right now is fill out the brief vaccine interest form, and here's the link. And that will get you notified when it's time for your phase and tier. The forms available in English, Spanish and Russian and the county can provide assistance completing if necessary. I just did it today. It took me about two minutes to complete. And so I encourage everyone to do that as doing so will help the county organize and schedule future vaccine clinics. Let's take a moment for music and we'll be right back with our interview. My guest today is Dr. John Bose, who served as superintendent for the Davis Joint Unified School District since July 2016. For the past 30 years, he's led thousands of certificated, classified staff and students throughout the state. He's led DJUSD's innovative work to promote 21st century teaching and learning to create safe and welcoming campuses that are responsive to student and staff, social and emotional needs to close achievement and opportunity gaps and to further the work of diversity, equity and inclusion. I want to note we recorded this interview last week on the heels of a school board meeting that lasted until 1230am. And that's just one of many long meetings in recent weeks. And also in the midst of a several day website outage that's part of a widespread external platform problem. John, I really appreciate you taking time to speak with me during the midst of all that. Thank you, Autumn. Great to be here again and appreciate the opportunity. Sure. So the last time I interviewed you was in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. And we spoke then about the rapidly evolving logistics of shifting to virtual instruction. I don't think any of us could have predicted then just how challenging this year would be or the kinds of stress it would place on the district and all its parts admin teachers, students, parents. And so now we're at a place where urgent calls to return to in person instruction are budding up against public health orders that urge continued caution and DJ USD is faced with decisions that bring challenges at every turn. Before we get on to how you're approaching that decision making when we last spoke you were really concerned about digital divide issues and the kinds of equipment and connectivity blocks many families might face during the pandemic. How did the district resolve that. Well, we recognize that at times there is opportunity and crisis achieving one to one hybrid program has been a long standing goal of our district and it was an unrealized one. We realized with an immediate need to create from scratch. An initial distance learning program. It was critical that students had computers for home and a way to access the internet. So we're able to really focus our resources and utilize some funding that came to help districts for this effort. And we have fully achieved a hybrid one to one Chromebook program and hotspot program for students and families. If there is a family and DJ USD that needs a hotspot or Chromebook to access distance learning, and they don't have one now we want to get one in your hands. But that those early efforts have really paid off and we see a few people lined up every day at our tech office for some troubleshooting, you know, exchange of a computer hotspot. But that's worked out great and we plan on maintaining the one to one computer program into the future. Great. Thank you for that. That was the easy question. So next, I know the school board has outlined parameters for a phased return to schools. We'll talk about those in just a minute. But let's start with how you got to this point. What has guided the discussion and what internal and external frameworks have been part of that process. When you're faced with complex and immediate crisis, like the pandemic. It's important for decision making that we're clear on the principles and the beliefs that our decision making is anchored in. And we've used six guiding principles and DJ USD, beginning with those of equity, access, and innovation. Those really help guide our initial work and spoke of just a second ago, that equity and access issue, making sure every student has a Chromebook and a hotspot. As we began to develop the distance learning program our students and now we realize that the principles of continuity compatibility and efficacy were key to make sure, making sure that we designed a distance learning program that would provide quality instruction, and would be able to transition to the different phases we might find ourselves and as we've moved from shelter in place orders of varying degrees of restrictiveness and from the purple to the red tier back to the purple and then into deep purple. But these guiding principles have been a great anchor to help guide our decision making. And then internally, there's been physical work on on school sites to help ease or help guide guide you into that transition. The last time we spoke I know you also mentioned things like, you know, filters and having testing on site, can you can you speak to some of that. Sure. And we formalize exactly what those conditions are at our board meeting on January 19. And it starts by letting the community know that we have outfitted every HVAC unit and every classroom with merge 13 filters, and with air purifiers those are in every classroom. We've ensured that safety protocols are in place and sync with the new Cal OSHA COVID-19 safety plan. We have a well defined process for notifying families if there's a COVID exposure and quarantining and contact tracing. And real important is our relationship with Healthy Davis together and being able to establish a symptomatic COVID-19 saliva testing for students and staff on or near every campus in our district. Wow. Can you, I want to move on to, you know, the big topic of the day you've been hearing an awful lot from from parents who some parents who are very eager that the schools reopen to in person instruction. I realize there are different plans in place for elementary versus second secondary schools. There are hybrid approaches I'd like to know more about that and then I'd like to know what options families have in choosing what works best for their families so let's start with plans for elementary sites. We just approved that plan last night for an elementary hybrid model and for a preschool hybrid model as well. And the guiding principles and forming that plan for those of continuity compatibility and equity. We provided an initial hybrid elementary plan that would have resulted in a lot of shuffling of students and staff into new assignments. And we heard both from our educators and our families that that was very it was very important to them because of the social emotional connections that it developed through distance learning with current teachers that that was a priority. So we went back to our educator task force revise the plan had that vetted by our superintendents all advisory team which includes parents, educators, all sorts of folks from across the community and came back with a elementary hybrid model that allows students for a choice. Students can come back on campus, they can remain in distance learning, but on either circumstance, they'll keep their same teacher. That was a key piece in the development of that model. So, and then secondary schools are there a different set of criteria or different set of operating instructions if you will for secondary sites. Well it's really interesting because the same principles and form the development of the secondary model continuity compatibility and equity and this focus on making sure students and teachers were able to stay together. But with older students and secondary, some more skills, some more independence, some more maturity, they're using a simulcast or a zoom in the room model. So whether you are a student participating on campus or participating from home, you'll essentially be in class together with the teacher you've already had for the course of the school year. Okay. I think the big question everyone's been asking is, when, and we've already talked about some of the external factors that that complicate that answer, you have to be responsive to changing public health orders. You have to make sure that all the thing, all the factors. We talked about testing sites available. Contact tracing all the, you know, the physical requirements are in place. But what is the latest thinking and again, there was a school board meeting last night, February 4, and I realized some of these decisions may have been made there. And some are also made on the 19th and the 21st of January. Yeah. And in those meetings, two important external conditions were established, whereby we'll be able to return to a hybrid model of instruction. And we're ready to go on the internal variables we discussed earlier. Sure. So first, our county Yolo County will need to be in the red here for two weeks. That's the first condition. The second is that either the Pfizer Moderna or another emergency use authorized vaccine that may become available has been made available to our employees. Both shots or if it's one shot like the Johnson and Johnson, it's approved and came our way and then employees have time to recover. So when vaccines are available, and we've been in the red tier for two weeks, we would be ready to come back and a hybrid model. And also a date by which we would remain in distance learning for the rest of the year, and that was established last night. So during the week of May 3 to 7, if you can hear a little bit of flexibility, if those external conditions are not met, we would remain in distance learning for the rest of the year. The rest of the academic year, right, which ends June 10, I believe this year. Yeah, you know, I vaccine availability is one of those external factors that the district doesn't have control over, obviously, and I was on a call yesterday with the county's COVID communications lead. And she talked about the number of vaccines that have been given already and that the fact that our county is currently out of vaccine and you know everyone's waiting. She also about talked about the, the tiers under which people will receive vaccine so I imagine that the ongoing development there is actually going to have quite a bit to do with when the schools can can reasonably expect to reopen and and it's still a question mark. Correct. Yeah, vaccine supply is critical factor. Yeah. All right. I've mentioned a couple times I know you're hearing a lot from from parents you're hearing from the community. Tell us a little bit more about what you're hearing from teachers what their concerns and their hopes have been during this process and I mentioned one mechanism by which you're getting teacher input and I'd like to hear more about what that process has been like the your administration and the school board and their communication with teachers. Sure. So I'm in touch with a lot of teachers and what I think they're primarily concerned about are making sure that our students are learning that our students are safe and healthy, and that they're doing well, not just academically, but socially emotionally. And just because we're in distance learning does not mean you need to be alone. And the social emotional component is a critical aspect of our work. You know, when people say where's the answer. It's in the room and who we've had in the room is teachers and other educators and support staff in the development of both our distance learning program and our hybrid models. Our teachers are professionals and experts they know what they're doing. And they've helped to design distance learning and hybrid models that are right for Davis and we're confident in their work and the models that have been adopted. Yeah, I think our board shares the same concern the teachers and our support staff do that our campuses are safe for students and for staff. And that's why we place these internal and external variables in place because we want to do everything in our power to reduce community spread of COVID and Yolo County and Davis. Yeah, I over the last 11 months I've interviewed several teachers and I'll be talking to more in the coming weeks and, you know, I, I, I share your what you just said that they are most concerned about the students but they're also concerned about their, their own well being and the long anticipated roll out of again the vaccines. It's heavy on their minds to understand we've heard that we've heard that and I think that's why the condition was set. With regard to vaccine and the red here for two weeks. Great. John, I want to ask you about I was on Twitter this morning and I saw a tweet you wrote about the youth true student survey and I hadn't heard of that so I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about it. Sure, so we have partnered with youth truth for probably a decade now and it is a survey that we've given to students we've also started to provide an option for parents to take the survey. But in addition to the California healthy kids survey the youth truth provides us a lot of climate data, and we find out information that we can disaggregate and all kinds of ways. How am I feeling about school. Are there important adults in my life at school. So what kind of programs are you involved in on our different campuses, and it's really helped to inform our programming, both in terms of social emotional development and our local control and accountability plan and how we can best use those precious dollars to make sure that we provide a program with an equity stance to make sure that when there is a student need, we are meeting that need. You touched on something there too and that's the whole topic of extracurriculars and and kind of what's happened to those during the pandemic. So what are the discussions like around around that people are very eager for their kids to be able to return to things that, you know, feed their growth and development and the pandemic has complicated that what's been happening during the pandemic are our sports groups meeting in any way or extracurriculars meeting in any way. This is an important part of a recent meeting and resulted in a board motion. So we have had athletic conditioning going on since March we've had to pause once or twice, but our athletic teams have been able to engage in conditioning work. We are proceeding with expanding on campus engagement activities for extracurricular co curricular and curricular opportunities for students. We sent out a parent survey we had a great response over 1900 respondents with all kinds of ideas about what those activities could look like they need to be done well and safely. We have coordination with the school principal and consistent with whatever the public health guidelines at the time are typical of Davis because we have such great community support for the district 300 respondents said they'd be willing to help volunteer for our programs. So here are looking at things like gardening, reading groups movement, all sorts of activities that our students will be able to come to campus and engage in safe activity, but that peer engagement and opportunity to connect with friends you've only seen through a screen for the year is very important. It's very priceless right now. And I'm not at all surprised you got 300 volunteers from from putting out a query this being Davis. So, alright, we're down to our last couple of minutes john thinking back over the last year, and all this work all this decision making what are you most proud of. Well important one is our partnership with healthy Davis together. This is the program sponsored by UC Davis and the city, and they have been fantastic partners and setting up free saliva based testing. I would encourage everybody to do that you can get free testing at the senior center by the county offices at the vet center by Davis high school, and at the Mundavi healthy Davis together has helped fund the air purifiers that we're placing and our classrooms, we have a filter program on with them, and I'm very proud of our staff for the way they stepped up and reimagined education, essentially, and a couple of weeks and launched our initial Google classroom and then our current distance learning program real tremendous effort. Alright, and finally, what are your hopes for the months ahead, where would you like to see all of this by, let's say the end of the academic school year. Sure. So, our goal is to launch our hybrid model and offer the opportunity for students to be back on campus. At the same time we're already planning for summer school, and how that might look different and from more students than the traditional summer school program. And then we're planning for a full fall reopening. We don't have a crystal ball and can't say what late August early September will look like. You're currently planning for a full reopening. I want to, you know, thank our staff for everything they've done for our students and I want to thank our parents and everyone else friends, relatives, neighbors who have put different parts of their life on hold to help students in a very different environment than anybody is used to be. Well, again, I want to thank you for making time for this interview for using the opportunity to talk to the community about all this important decision making that's going on. Obviously our school district is a central part of our Davis community. I know many families chose to locate here in the first place, and we're all concerned about the health and well being of our kids as they navigate this really interesting time so thank you very much for joining me today. Thanks for what you're doing autumn and the opportunity to be here again. Appreciate it. This is the COVID-19 Community Report from KDRT 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Autumn LeBae Renault. This is Episode 51, and I'll be back next week. Thanks.