San Francisco Unified School District Board pauses its plan to rename 44 of its faculties to give attention to reopening -

“There have been many distracting public debates as we’ve been working to reopen our schools,” San Francisco Unified School District Board President Gabriela López wrote in a letter, revealed within the San Francisco Chronicle and shared to her Twitter account on Sunday. “School renaming has been one of them.”

López mentioned the renaming course of “begun in 2018 with a timeline that didn’t anticipate a pandemic.”

“I acknowledge and take responsibility that mistakes were made in the renaming process,” she wrote.

Sunday’s assertion, López mentioned, will probably be her final time commenting publicly on renaming faculties, “until schools are reopened.”

“We will not be taking valuable time from our board agendas to further discuss this, as we need to prioritize reopening,” López wrote.

“I want us to focus our time and actions where they matter most. On the safety of our children, and on safely getting them back into schools.”

The information comes about one month after the varsity board voted 6-1 to rename 44 campuses linked to controversial public figures together with former Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and present US Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

It was the newest college district to make such a call — lately, metropolis councils and faculty districts nationwide have renamed buildings and eliminated monuments devoted to Confederate leaders who fought to protect slavery and White supremacy in America.

In January, following the varsity board’s vote, San Francisco Mayor London Breed mentioned she supported the board’s determination to rename the colleges. However, she additionally expressed frustration that the board had not but created a plan for reopening faculties.

“What I cannot understand is why the School Board is advancing a plan to have all these schools renamed by April, when there isn’t a plan to have our kids back in the classroom by then,” Breed mentioned final month.

“Our students are suffering, and we should be talking about getting them in classrooms, getting them mental health support, and getting them the resources they need in this challenging time. Our families are frustrated about a lack of a plan, and they are especially frustrated with the fact that the discussion of these plans weren’t even on the agenda for last night’s School Board meeting.”

The district, which includes of 140 pre-kindergarten by 12th grade public faculties, is among the many many nationwide that has carried out distance studying because of the pandemic.

Earlier this month, the San Francisco City Attorney filed an emergency court docket order to open faculties quickly after metropolis leaders introduced a lawsuit in opposition to its personal college system for “failing to come up with a reopening plan” for the scholars the district serves.

On Saturday, the SFUSD posted its proposal for hybrid studying this spring. The district mentioned it’s dedicated to prioritizing college students for full-day in-person studying, which is set by bodily area, enrollment, staffing and household curiosity.

The SFUSD didn’t present additional particulars relating to the plan, and directed CNN to the letter within the Chronicle.

Allen Kim contributed to this report.