The Grossmont Union High School District Board of Trustees during a March 8 board meeting unanimously approved a resolution to ensure student access to schoolwork in response to COVID-19’s disruption to students’ lives.
Essentially, the resolution describes the effect of two years’ worth of COVID safety measures, adjustments to schooling and high absence rate due to illness, then “encourages staff members to extend grace to all GUHSD students who continue to grapple with COVID-19’s upending of their lives” along with staff and parents.
About 17,058 students attend the 12 high schools in the district with 1,333 employees. District spokesperson Collin McGlashen said the language of the resolution speaks to the scope of the disruption: “historically unprecedented, breathtaking in reach, and humbling in its longterm consequences, both known and unknown.”
Furthermore, following state and county public health orders since students were originally sent home in March 2020 has “put enormous strain on school resources,” according to the resolution. However, the district has been regularly checking in with students and staff, McGlashen said.
“One example of our intentional effort to build relationships has been our ongoing surveys to regularly check in with students and staff on their state of mind. This was a practice that began in 2020, but it played such a pivotal role during that experience that it naturally continued into the 2021-22 school year,” McGlashen said.
Survey responses, he said, have now become a primary focus of Superintendent Theresa Kemper’s meetings with district leaders during which they discuss the needs that have been brought up by staff and students, and brainstorm on how to meet those needs.
“In recent months, we have explored workload, homework for students, independent study contracts, the substitute teacher shortage, helping with make-up work, employee COVID testing, and more,” McGlashen said.
The resolution also clarifies that valid reasons for student absences may include an absence for the benefit of a pupil’s mental or behavioral health, citing 2021 California legislation which added a section to state education code on mental and behavioral health illnesses.
During February 2021 through March 2021, emergency room visits due to a suspected suicide attempt were 51% higher among girls aged 12–17 as compared with that same period of time in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just prior to when schools were closed in an effort to slow the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic.
GUHSD policy already provides for students with excused absences and says they must be given full credit for satisfactorily completed make-up work. However, the resolution takes the guidance one step further and says students who miss schoolwork due to unexcused absences may also be given the opportunity to make up missed work.
“The teacher of the class from which a pupil is absent shall determine which tests and assignments shall be reasonably equivalent to the tests and assignments that the pupil missed during the absence,” reads the resolution, and it encourages staff members to “extend grace to all GUHSD students who continue to grapple with COVID-19’s upending of their lives” and encourages administrators and staff to help students complete schoolwork so they can remain eligible in non-academic activities.
