About 70 parents, teachers, and students rallied outside the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District (PYLUSD) office March 9 to show their support for schools reopening.
Supervisor Don Wagner, a keynote speaker at the event, was among those lobbying for a full-time return to classrooms.
“It is perfectly safe, we believe, based on the science, to let the kids get back into the classroom,” Wagner told The Epoch Times.
A Parent’s Perspective
Placentia parent Stephanie Dunnam, whose children attend high school in the district, said school closure has been tough on her children.“Teens are now locked in houses with their parents,” she said. “That’s not how this is supposed to go. Teens are supposed to be figuring out how to be independent. Not wondering where mom’s going all day long.”
Her younger child transitioned from junior high school to high school during the pandemic, Dunnam said, and wasn’t prepared for the increased demands. She said no one informed him about the heightened importance of grades, or the rigorous academic standard high school students are expected to achieve.
“He didn’t really get that he even left junior high,” Dunnam said. “He’s suffered big time. He, at one point, gave up on school; decided he didn’t want to do some of his hard classes anymore.”
She said she didn’t know her son was doing poorly in school for nearly the entirety of the first semester.
“Because we were so disconnected from the teacher, we didn’t even know,” Dunnam said. “He almost failed some of his courses the first semester simply because he felt overwhelmed and didn’t really get why it mattered anymore.”
Dunnam said kids should be back in the classroom in the “traditional structure that has worked so well for us for so long.”
