SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) — A new effort to reopen schools is gaining steam in the South Bay.
Supporters have launched a petition drive and San Jose’s mayor is on board as well.
“We do not have to wait for Sacramento,” Liccardo said. “We can act here locally.”
Outside downtown San Jose’s Horace Mann Elementary, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said it’s time to reopen schools.
“And the science, the medical experts are telling us that we can do this safely and we know that the children who are suffering the most are coming from the families who are already struggling the most,” he said.
The mayor’s 3-point plan calls for vaccinations focused on elementary school communities, practicing equity with getting schools open first in less affluent neighborhoods and providing options for teachers, students and parents to continue distance learning if they’re not ready to comeback in person.
“COVID is scary, but we’re finding that children are not contracting or spreading COVID at the same rates that we originally had thought,” Healing Grove Health Center Dr. Angela Bymaster said.
“Together. Together, working as a team,” Crescenciano Mendoza said. “Teachers, schools, board of education and parents and community.”
The mayor is calling for cooperation between elected leaders, the county, schools districts and teachers unions.
Finding common ground wont be easy.
San Jose’s largest school district and its teachers already have agreed to a memorandum of understanding about when they will be coming back to the classroom, says Superintendent Nancy Albarran.