Reopening school after a year of being in a COVID-19 closure is hard. But I can tell you firsthand, after having reopened my schools on April 5, there is nothing better than seeing students and teachers in classrooms again. The key to bouncing back is being back.

     What planning goes into reopening and what does it really mean for families?

     I lead a K-12 public school system of nearly 2,300 students, nine schools, and about 300 employees across three cities and two counties in California. My students are 64% Black, 25% Latino, and 78% low-income. We have been very attentive to the needs of our students and enrollment has gone up during the pandemic, not down.  We have a 96% attendance rate and 94% of our students who were enrolled on the first day of school are still enrolled.  This is a high rate of student persistence at a time when the narrative for many large urban school systems is scores of students gone missing. While large urban schools dominate the headlines, small school systems like mine, with under 5,000 average daily attendance, make up two-thirds of the school districts in California. 

     It was good that Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature gave guidance for schools to reopen by April 1. At Fortune School, we surveyed parents and found 53% wanted to return their children to in-person learning.  That’s up from 46% who asked to return in November 2020 when we had plans to reopen but couldn’t because infection rates increased. 

     As I talk to educators from other states, I am learning that California stayed shuttered for an unusually long time. Was it politics or public health that kept schools closed for so long? I’m not sure.  

     What I do know is that while our buildings were closed to students, my schools put every safety measure in place from expensive, hospital-grade air filtration systems to plexiglass barriers. Our staff got vaccinated, has ongoing access to surveillance testing and we have systems for contact tracing.

    On reopening day, a long line of cars wrapped around the corner for morning drop-off.  Crews of educators checked kids’ temperatures at the car door and welcomed them to their pre-assigned, small pod of classmates with whom they will spend the rest of the school year.  

     Inside a typical classroom, we can fit 10 students and two teachers socially distanced 6 feet apart.  With this configuration, we are able to offer school in-person five days a week from 7:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. The Centers for Disease Control guidance about desks being 3 feet apart came too late to be implemented this school year but could be a game-changer for the fall.

     Currently, schools are required to offer families the option for distance learning. Newsom has said he expects California to be re-opened by June 15, allowing schools to be back to full in-person instruction with safety precautions.  If that is the case, the state should re-establish the expectation that comes fall, in-person school attendance is mandatory for students enrolled in classroom-based programs.  Right now, teachers are providing live instruction to students in person and online simultaneously.  It’s not sustainable.  

The governor is on the right track providing strong guidance to public schools, backed by the authority of the state and funding to implement his expectations.  He should keep it up.  I’ve spoken to plenty of students and teachers who are definitely glad to be back.

Dr. Margaret Fortune is the president/CEO of Fortune School, a network of K-12 public charter schools based in Sacramento, California she founded to close the African American Achievement gap in her hometown.

     At least four Bay Area counties paused administrations Tuesday of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine after a handful of people across the country developed blood clots less than two weeks after the shot.

     Public health officials in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Marin counties announced that they would temporarily halt the use of the vaccine, which was developed by J&J’s pharmaceutical subsidiary Janssen.
The state’s Department of Public Health also issued a statement Tuesday urging a temporary pause on the vaccine’s administration while state and federal officials determine whether the clotting incidents are significant.

    More than 6.8 million doses of the vaccine have been administered across the country.
Health officials have confirmed cases of rare and severe blood clots in just six women between the ages of 18 and 48 who received the J&J vaccine, with symptoms appearing between six and 13 days post-vaccination.

   Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have also advised states to pause administration of the Janssen vaccine to allow for an investigation of the clots and whether a causal link with the vaccine can even be established.

     In a joint statement, FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Dr. Peter Marks and CDC Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat said the two agencies will review the cases of clotting this week to determine whether they are statistically significant. “Until that process is complete, we are recommending a pause in the use of this vaccine out of an abundance of caution,” Marks and Schuchat said. “This is important, in part, to ensure that the health care provider community is aware of the potential for these adverse events and can plan for proper recognition and management due to the unique treatment required with this type of blood clot.”

     State epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan said the state will also follow the recommendation by the FDA and CDC and order a statewide pause of administrations of the Janssen vaccine.
“Additionally, the state will convene the Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup to review the information provided by the federal government on this issue,” Pan said.

     California joined the states of Nevada, Oregon, and Washington to establish the workgroup last year to conduct independent review and analysis of each vaccine as they are approved for emergency use by the FDA.
Officials in the four Bay Area counties noted that Janssen vaccines represent 4 percent or less of the doses administered in each county to date, with the majority being the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Health officials have lauded the Janssen vaccine’s utility in reaching demographics like unhoused residents and people who are homebound, who may have difficulty returning for a second vaccine dose.

     Officials in the four counties said they did not expect the Janssen vaccine pause to force the widespread cancellation of vaccination appointments or significantly affect their ability to continue vaccinating their respective populations.

    Janssen vaccine recipients who got vaccinated more than a month ago are not deemed at risk for developing blood clots, according to local, state, and federal health officials.

   People who received the vaccine more recently are encouraged to contact a health care provider if they begin noticing symptoms like severe headaches, leg pain, and shortness of breath, which may be associated with clotting.