Rebecca Garelli

Rebecca Garelli is a parent asking Mesa Public Schools to return students to distance learning due to rising COVID-19 cases in the state.

A number of school districts are returning to distance learning in response to the jump in COVID-19 cases throughout the state. School officials with the Scottsdale Unified School District and Mesa Public Schools are among those opting to keep in-person classes going during this time.

The Scottsdale Unified School District has one COVID-19 metric in the red category, according to data from the Maricopa County health department. At a special meeting Monday, the governing board opted not to take any action in response because the district hasn’t found evidence of widespread transmission in schools. 

“The conversation around whether to go virtual or not is a difficult one," said Patty Beckman, the board’s vice president. "We are getting multiple emails that say, ‘My child is smiling again. My child is learning again. My child is the happiest I’ve seen them in months. Please don’t take that away.'” 

Mesa Public Schools also has one metric in the red, according to county data. The county doesn’t recommend schools shift to distance learning until all three metrics are red, but the final decision is left to school leaders. 

“If we are not seeing cases in our school or in a particular school site or a group of schools, we would share that with the county health department as well and we would have a conversation," said Mesa Superintendent Andi Fourlis.  

The district has limited in-person classes at Mesa High School and is conducting all classes virtually for Sousa Elementary School students due to unique COVID-19 concerns at those school sites. 

Rebecca Garelli, a parent to three students in the district, is urging the district to return all students to distance learning. 

“Our communities are connected," she said. "So if one school is unsafe it is very logical to think that the rest of the community is unsafe.”

Garelli is asking others who eager to send tweets in support of distance learning to the district as it meets for its Tuesday governing board meeting. 

Amethyst Hinton Sainz, an educator and parent within the district, said she appreciates the district's case-by-case approach, but she "fails to understand how you can control the spread with the kind of surgical precision" that was presented at the district's Wednesday webinar. 

She said the district is doing a very good job with mitigation strategies on campuses, and that has helped, but Hinton Sainz does not feel safe in the hallways, especially with reports of students and families who are not following public health guidelines and continue to hold or participate in large gathering.

"I ask our board to please move us to virtual learning through winter break, following suit with other nearby districts," Hinton Sainz said. "Perhaps this will slow the spread so that we can feel safer opening in January. That would be my hope."

At the very least, Hilton Sainz said she would like to see the district adopt stricter benchmarks than the county's new recommendations.

"We would not have opened schools under the current conditions, and the county has changed the goalposts," she said. "Only by slowing the spread can we safely keep schools open, and that's not where we are right now at all."

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