A rough week for Bay Area schools amid COVID sickouts, closures

Bryant Elementary School kindergarten teacher Chris Johnson sets up his classroom on April 9, 2021, in San Francisco.As students return to their first week of school in 2022 after winter break, anxieties over the omicron variant — and reports of sick students and teachers — have drivenschool closures and sickouts, as well as fighting between school administrators, teachers and parents.

Elsewhere in the Bay Area, schools are also facing their own turmoil, with concerns over rising COVID-19 rates and failed negotiations with district officials and teachers over COVID-19 protections. Jeanne Noble, the director of COVID-19 response at UCSF Health's emergency department and an ardent opponent of school shutdowns over the pandemic,“Closing our schools in 2020, pre-vaccination, was wrong, harming children without reducing viral transmission,” she said in a tweet Wednesday. “To return to this strategy now, post-vaccination, when facing an attenuated variant, is beyond the pale.

A sickout was staged Thursday, unaffiliated with the teachers union, which resulted in 616 teachers being out of classes for the day. A district spokesperson told SFGATE that the district had “29% coverage by substitutes.” A day earlier, the district had “414 requests for classroom teachers,” with 32% coverage, the spokesperson told SFGATE.

For all the parents who demanded this as an alternative to remote learning, was this what you wanted? Schools can barely function with all the covid cases among students and staff. Some local districts stopped sending 'close contact' letters to parents because it's impossible.

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