Coronavirus restrictions on school this fall are going to lead to an even worse inequity in education than already exists.
A new kind of school privatization is exploding, reports VOSD’s Will Huntsberry, and suddenly, families with money will be able to send their children to day programs that look a lot like school, while public school campuses will be technically closed to others.
Coronado Unified, for example, wants to contract with a third party called Champions — which typically runs before- and after-school programs — to provide on-campus childcare for a fee.
Students who can pay, writes Huntsberry, will be able to socialize with peers and have an adult to supervise their work, similar to the way school was pre-coronavirus.
“It’s deeply disturbing,” one expert told Huntsberry. “We may get back to school and find the gulf between the students who had these opportunities and those that didn’t is greater than ever before.”
Another City Official Is Out
A high-level San Diego official coordinating the city’s response to the coronavirus pandemic resigned last month for reasons that are still unclear.
Deputy Chief Operating Officer Bob Vacchi was a well-respected manager overseeing libraries, parks and other departments and insiders, Lisa Halverstadt writes, saw him as an even-keeled bureaucrat who played by the rules.
Last fall, however, the city auditor criticized him and others for failing to notify their office of a parks employee accused of embezzlement. Officials had investigated internally, and in his defense Vacchi said officials had instituted changes to prevent future thefts.
His is the second notable city departure in recent weeks, although they don’t appear to be related.
What to Watch in North County in November
The deadline is approaching to get on the November ballot in certain races, and already the Oceanside mayor’s race is jam-packed.
Some of the faces, like former Assemblyman Rocky Chavez and Councilwoman Esther Sanchez, you’ll recognize. Another gained five minutes of notoriety in May as a gym owner arrested for defying public health orders.
Kayla Jimenez compiled a list of the seats that are up for grabs and the major initiatives that have already qualified in this week’s North County Report. Encinitas and Solana Beach voters will consider new rules for cannabis companies.
What the Supes Are Up to
County supervisors agreed to several notable things this week.
They voted to allow places of worship and fitness centers to use parks and established a compliance call center so the public can submit complaints of violations of county public health orders, NBC 7 reports.
They also developed a new plan for inmate medical care through private contractors and spending federal pandemic funds on child care providers, testing in schools and meals for senior citizens, City News Service reports.
A proposal to lift the county’s ban against cannabis businesses in unincorporated areas of San Diego County, however, failed, the U-T reports.
In Other News
- Yahoo Finance spoke with Assemblywoman Shirley Weber about her bill to study reparations. We detailed the effort in the latest Sacramento Report.
- The self-response rate for the U.S. Census in San Diego is higher than the national average and higher than Los Angeles and San Francisco. (KUSI)
- A San Diego-based Homeland Security Investigations officer was sentenced to 130 months in prison for money laundering and tax evasion during his time as a federal agent investigating bulk cash smuggling. (Union-Tribune)
- The San Diego City Council could vote Thursday on the next steps for what could be a decades-long, multibillion-dollar energy franchise agreement, but community advocates say the process has been rushed and they have been left out of the process. MacKenzie Elmer laid out what opportunities the deal presents for the city earlier this week. (KPBS)
- The Environmental Protection Agency told a San Diego-based company to stop selling a clip-on badge that spritzes a purported COVID-killing gas into the air. The product is unregistered and “making false disinfectant claims in violation of federal law,” according to the EPA.
The Morning Report was written by Maya Srikrishnan and Jesse Marx, and edited by Sara Libby.