This week, San Francisco announced it would reopen schools in January, but there's a lot of work to do before that can happen, city officials said.
Twenty disaster service workers are helping the San Francisco Unified School District assess school buildings to make sure they’re ready to open safely. That includes checking every classroom for proper ventilation and making sure every sink for hand-washing is available.
Although the school district has a target date of Jan. 25 of next year to open classrooms to the city’s youngest and most vulnerable students, they still need to inspect 65 buildings.
Dawn Kamalanathan, chief facilities officer for the SFUSD, said "that data is critical for helping us understand the magnitude of the problem-solving that might have to occur at certain sites and across the district.”
She said the assessments for the remaining schools should be complete by December.
Other challenges remain, however, like finalizing labor agreements with teachers unions and setting up COVID-19 testing sites at each campus.
During a school board meeting last week, San Francisco Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer said The mayor’s office should have done more, sooner, to coordinate different departments in the city.
"It is the power of the office of the mayor to convene these parties together, lets get everyone in the room together and see how we can open schools and what is needed from whom,” Fewer said.
The district estimates the costs to reopen could reach $65 million.
— Marco Siler-Gonzales (@mijo_marco)