School reopening at last: Solutions San Jose notches first win over unions

Just weeks after SJ Mayor Sam Liccardo showed the political will to demand local school districts quit holding students hostage and reopen, the San Jose Unified School District relented and announced reopening plans for next month. But there are still 18 local school districts to go. Liccardo's reopening efforts were part of a new advocacy organization, Solutions San Jose, which is focused on pragmatic, common sense approaches to local issues. Solutions San Jose (edited) email announcing the SJ Unified volte face is below.

On Friday, San Jose Unified, the largest of San Jose’s 18 school districts, announced it will re-open its doors on April 21. Yesterday, Governor Newsom announced incentives to get grades K through 2 open statewide by April 1, but ultimately the plan still requires the willingness of local school districts to agree. And while public health experts roundly say that elementary schools can safely re-open even faster, I applaud the District’s decision to set a date to welcome our kids back to the classroom, and the Governor’s efforts.

These decisions require political courage to overcome the powerful political forces that resist re-opening our schools, and this issue requires direct public engagement to support that courage.

Will you share our petition with your friends, family and neighbors on Facebook and Twitter?

We can’t stop now. School board members and superintendents need to hear from the community that keeping public schools closed amounts to a civil rights violation of thousands of San Jose students whose more affluent peers can learn in-person at private schools or wealthier suburban districts. This social injustice has scarred our children mentally and emotionally, undermined their physical wellness, and set them backward academically.

While the announcement from San Jose Unified is real progress, there are still 18 school districts in San Jose that have not yet announced their re-opening plans. That means there are still tens of thousands of kids suffering under the “separate but unequal” remote learning system.

Will you help us spread the word by sharing our petition with your networks on Facebook and Twitter?

What is frustrating to many of us is to see bars, card clubs, and marijuana dispensaries re-opening many months ago, but not our children’s schools. This issue should be beyond politics. The health experts say we can re-open public schools safely – and we can re-open them now.

Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity.