MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — Students at the Manhattan Beach School District have been learning from home for more than a month now and parents are writing to the School Board urging them to move forward on a hybrid learning model.
Many bedrooms in Manhattan Beach homes now double as classrooms. Wednesday was just an average weekday morning at Wysh Weinstein’s house and in fact, the mother of two says it was a good day.
"Some days are a complete and total disaster, other days are amazing. Some hours are terrible, some hours are great," Weinstein said.
Having two kids under 10 learning from home requires continuous supervision.
"My 6-year-old is often standing out of his chair, or standing on his bed or not where he’s supposed to be. But he doesn’t have his teacher in his room to be like ‘OK, it’s time to sit down," she explained.
Upstairs, 6-year-old Jace starts his day in PE with Coach Tower.
At the kitchen table, his sister, 9-year-old Kyla opens her schedule to see — “Today’s Election Day!” she exclaimed.
Though 4th graders can’t run for student council just yet, Kyla is already taking after her PTA President mom.
“I’m gonna run when I’m in 5th grade," she said.
On Wednesdays, Weinstein hosts a learning pod with up to five of Kyla’s classmates, too. Even on days when just one of them shows, she has her hands full.
"It’s just, it’s kind of a balancing act and trying to get my own stuff done and prioritizing when I have something really important or when they need me more," she said.
The stay-at-home mom volunteers at least 30 hours every week as President of the PTA Council.
In one of two letters she wrote to the Manhattan Beach Unified School District, Weinstein said her number one job is to represent the voice of everyone - parents, teachers, and the children.
"A few weeks ago, we were all kind of panicked," she said. "There was serious lack of information. I had my own moment of panic when I viewed the L.A. County website and our school district was not on there.”
She and several other parents were concerned that the Manhattan Beach School District wasn’t listed as one of the schools allowing high needs students to return to campus. The school board says that was one of the major misconceptions among parents. Now that the board has notified Public Health, the special needs students were able to return last week.
"So it was kind of like, OK, thank you for doing that work, but it’s not done. We need to keep going" Weinstein said. "But also to try to, just calm parents down a little bit to say that there is work going on [with the School Board], but there’s so much work going on that it’s hard to communicate that work sometimes."
Weinstein was one of 76 parents who wrote to School Board members. Most urged them to allow at least a portion of the elementary school students to return.
School Board President Jennifer Cochran says the District is nearing completion of several requirements needed before submitting a waiver that will allow certain cohorts, or groups, of transitional Kindergarten to second grade students to return to in-person learning.
"We want to make sure that we’re doing it as safely as possible and that we are following that safety protocol with fidelity because one case in a cohort will shut down the entire cohort for two weeks and three cases in a school can shut down the entire school," said Cochran.
In the meantime, Weinstein says she knows firsthand how frustrating this all can be, but asks parents to be patient.
"We feel stuck. We feel like we just can’t do this anymore, it’s hard and so we’re all looking to put our energy somewhere, and I’m just asking that people put their energy together instead of criticizing everyone else, let’s say what do I need to do to help," she explained.
Parents now wearing many hats, from cook, to teacher, and always mom.
The school board president says they expect to submit the waiver by the end of this week, but even when they do, Public Health says it could take up to three weeks for it to be approved.